Like many kids, I was besotted by baseball at a young age. I was an eager ball player and joined Little League, played in the sandlot in Richmond Park across the street, practiced my throwing against an elastic ‘Pitch-back’, played wiffle ball in the driveway, stoop ball on the front walk, and followed baseball on TV and radio, and clipped every day’s articles from the New York Times for my scrapbook.
When I wasn’t outside playing ball or trading baseball cards, I would be sitting on the bedroom floor playing a board game: Ethan Allan‘s All-Star Baseball. I would typically play the old-time hall of famers (Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Frankie Frisch, Honus Wagner, Bill Dickey, etc.) against the modern players (Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, Brook Robinson, Mickey Mantle, etc.). This was how I became familiar with the history of the game. As I recall, the old-timers, who hit for average, tended to win, but there were a lot more home runs with the young guys.
I always wanted to go to Cooperstown for the Hall of Fame game, but had to settle for these plastic busts, which had a place of honor on the shelf above my bed.
