The Buzzy Twofer Tuesday features 2 inputs I recently received from family members.
The first was sent to me from my son Brady in recognition of tonight’s MLB All Star game.
It is an ESPN article about the 1971 All Star Game that featured 22 future Hall of Famers. Think about that as you survey the players in the game today who may eventually make the HoF and no way do you get anywhere close to 22! (For a good article on this HoF projection click here.)
Fifty years ago on this very date, the All Star game was played in Tiger Stadium and was a classic (click here for a fan’s excellent video on attending that game.) The American League won 6-4 and all 10 runs were scored via six home runs hit by fellas named Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, Roberto Clemento, Reggie Jackson, Frank Robinson, and Harmon Killebrew.
But the best quote in the article probably came from Jim Palmer who had this to say “It was breathtaking being there, all those great players, all those home runs, all in one game. It was unbelievable. It was so good. Pete Rose didn’t even start. Tell him I said that.” You go Jim! (In Rose’s defense though, he was playing outfield at the time and to be an All Star starter he would had to have beaten out either Aaron, Mays or Clemente, so yeah, maybe he did have a little competition to overcome.)
When I see baseball flashbacks like this it makes me grateful for having lived through such glory days like these when four of the Orioles’ eventual six Hall of Famers were in that All Star game: Jim Palmer, Frank and Brooks Robinsons, and manager Earl Weaver. Additionally, 3 other Orioles Don Buford, Boog Powell and Mike Cuellar were members of that All Star team. I know I won’t ever see something like that again.
Too, it makes me glad that Brady and I got to attend a game in Tiger Stadium in 1999 its last season hosting the Tigers. Tiger Stadium was eventually demolished in 2009.
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The second item sent to me came from my sister Donna Jean after she visited me in Buzzy’s Country Store Sunday and we discussed the sad death by suicide of a friend of ours. Somewhere in our talk, I mentioned the book Donna gave me about the guy who tried, but couldn’t quite get it right when he attempted suicide. Donna immediately remembered it as A Man Called Ove. (I did a blogpost on it several years ago (click here.)) Donna told me how it also reminded her of a poem by Dorothy Parker that she said she’d send me. Here it is:
For a good analysis and review of this poem (click here.) It seems that Ms. Parker knew what she was writing about here as she unsuccessfully attempted suicide several times during her somewhat tragic life. She died in 1967 from a heart attack.
Probably her biggest claim to fame was co-writing the 1937 screenplay for A Star Is Born which earned her a nomination for an Academy Award. Music-wise, she also wrote the lyrics for this Bing Crosby song that I had never heard previously. Old fart that I am, Bing the crooner was still just a little before my time. Baseball’s 1971 All Star game – si; big band music from 1936, ah, not so much.)
