Anniversaries

“If you want to know what aspect of the moon landing was discussed most in the bullpen, it was the sex lives of the astronauts.  We thought it a terrible arrangement that they should go three weeks or more without any sex life.” Jim Bouton, “Ball Four” (1970)

 hatless Jim Bouton in 1964 World Series; with his baseball diary

Former New York Yankee relief pitcher Jim Bouton, author of a sensational insider look at major league baseball players, died at age 80.  Sportswriter Peter King called “Ball Four,” which sold over 5 million copies and discussed players cheating on their wives and carousing in fleshpots, the greatest sports book of all time.  Bouton had won 39 games in 1963-64 as a Yankee starter, but a sore arm turned him into a knuckleballer. Written candidly in the form of a season-long diary, “Ball Four,” according to Washington Postwriter Matt Schudel, “captured the humor, profanity and pathos of amajor league clubhouse.”  Bouton revealed that superstar centerfielder Mickey Mantle sometimes nursed a hangover on the field and that he once closed a bus window on kids hoping for an autograph. Ostracized by many former friends, Bouton was allegedly blackballed by major league owners after refusing to agree to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn’s demand that he repudiate his own book. During the 1970s Bouton pitched for several minor league teams before briefly catching on with the Atlanta Braves in 1978, compiling a record of one win and three losses. Schudel wrote:

   He continued to throw his knuckleball for another 20 years, competing against players less than half his age in semipro leagues until he was in his late 50s.

  “You see,”he wrote in “Ball Four,” “you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

 

















Neil Armstrong; Perry Bothers

In Sports Illustrated S.L. Price wrote about brothers Gaylord and Jim Perry winning three games on the day of the moon landing fifty years ago. San Francisco Giant Gaylord Perry not only hurled a complete game victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers, he hit the first home run of his long career in his 485th time at the plate. In Seattle, meanwhile, older brother Jim of the Minnesota Twins pitched 11 shutout innings, the final two of a suspended game against the expansion Pilots (who would move to Milwaukee after a single year in the Emerald City) and a nine-inning complete game gem in the regularly scheduled contest. He told reporters, “I’d have liked to have seen the guy set down on the moon, but I’ll see it tonight on the news.”  Six years later, when Jim Perry’s son got married, he ran into astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon and a childhood friend of the bride’s father. 

Walt and Loei Reiner; Walt later in life

The Neighbors Project in Valparaiso is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary.  Originally named the Valparaiso Builders Association, the citizens group formed in response to pleas from African-American families living in Chicago to obtain affordable housing in a community that provided families a safe, healthy environment.  Working with VU faculty and Lutheran church members, co-founders Walt and Loie Reiner encountered opposition from residents anxious about a handful of black families moving into their community and fearful that this was just the vanguard of a larger influx, resulting in the lowering of property values.  “We were not very popular in the early days,” Loie Reiner recently told Post-Tribcolumnist Jerry Davich, who added: “Building homes in lily-white Valpo for black families from Chicago was viewed as an intrusion, at its best, and an invasion, at its worst, by fearful townspeople.”Nonetheless, Valparaiso Builders Association ultimately prevailed.  One young family member, Robert Cotton, is presently a city councilman. 

 NWI Times photo by Rob Earnshaw

Walt Reiner passed away in 2006, but Loie at age 90 is still active in the organization, renamed Neighbors Project in 1984.   I met Loie at VU historian Heath Carter’s house; both Heath and his wife, who have an African-American son, became active in various Neighbors Project endeavors.  Under the direction of longtime member and current chairman Paul Schreiner the organization has built affordable houses, using for the most part volunteer labor. In addition, in the Hilltop neighborhood the organization has established a child care center, an after-school enrichment program aptly named Walt’s Place, as well as a health care facility and an adult education program.

Valparaiso U. grad Loie Reiner and James Schreiner receive 2016 honorary degrees 

On This Day website mentions these past July 12 events: 1804, Alexander Hamilton succumbed to a gunshot wound at the hands of duelist Aaron Burr; 1959, Surgeon General Leroy Burney warned that cigarette smoking may lead to lung cancer; 1976, “Family Feud” debuted on ABC; 2013, Malala Yousafzai addresses the U.N. on the need for women to have access to education; 2017, a giant iceberg broke away from the Larsen ice shelf in Antarctica.  On the day, 2019, a tropical storm caused massive flooding along the Gulf coast, and Trump’s Labor secretary Alex Acosta resigned under pressure for having let billionaire child molester Jason Epstein off with a slap on the wrist 11 years ago while U.S. Attorney.  Smarmy Special Persecutor Ken Starr was one of Epstein’s high-powered mouthpieces.

I’ve been asked to make an Art in Focus presentation next season in Munster.  Three years ago, I spoke on Vee-Jay do-founder Vivian Carter.  The following year the title of my talk was “Rock and Roll in 1958: A Dance Party.”  Though they were well-received, I wasn’t invited back last year.  The reason, I found out later, was that program director Jillian Van Volkenburgh had left to pursue a career as an artist in New York City and her replacement was unfamiliar with me.  Since next year is the fiftieth anniversary of graduating from high school, I’ll talk about “The State of Rock and Roll in 1960: A Dance Party.” I’m super-excited.

I’ve been reminiscing with childhood friend Judy Jenkins and Sammy Corey’s name came up.  He, Judy’s brotherTerry, and I were really close growing up.  When we moved to Fort Washington in 1950, the Coreys were next door neighbors.  Midge joked that she’d sometimes find Sammy in my bedroom reading comic books, when I wasn’t even there.  We spent many days in a clearing we made in the woods across the street from your place. Summers during junior high we’d play penny ante poker games for hours.  His dad once took us to Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey, which first opened in the nineteenth century, and I almost lost my lunch on a ride nicknamed “The Whip.”  In high school Sammy would take his grandparents’ Chrysler to a race track (without them knowing it) and enter drag races.  He was a dare devil.  Once he drove the Chrysler onto an ice-covered field near Upper Dublin, floored it, and then turned the wheel so the car would squeal and then slide and slide.   He went to Susquehanna College just down the way from Bucknell, and one weekend I double-dated with a friend of his girlfriend up to visit.  We ended up making out in twin beds of the girls’ hotel room.  After college we had dinner, and he spent most of the time trying to sell me life insurance.  I didn’t see him much after that, but about 30 years ago my brother Rich and I played cards with Sam at Terry and Gayle’s Doylestown house and shared a joint that someone had brought. Sadly, I don’t think I’ve seen him since. Judging from a decade-old photo I found, I wouldn’t recognize him.

Sam Corey, Jr.