Tag: Babe Ruth

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The Cougars are Roaring into Town, and we are Ready!

The Cougars are coming town, but they will be leaving with their hide laying in front of the fire place.

The Beavers are going to start out carefully, but I think by the end of the half, the starters will be playing checkers on the side lines. If I am right, (and I usually am), this will be an excellent game to give some of the back-up players some real game experience.

WSU has one win against a lower division school, (Portland State). That will probably be their last win. They were blown away in most of their games: Oklahoma State, 39-3; Cal. 66-3; Baylor 54-17 and the Ducks, 63-14. They put up a gallant fight with UCLA, but still lost 35-3.

However, We will have to cover Brandon Gibson . Remember that name for the game. He is # 2 in the PAC-10 for catches, with an average of 6 a game. He averages 76.7 yards a game. He has caught a pass in 29 straight games. We would love to break that record.

WSU leads the PAC-10 in one statistic they don’t want to lead in. They have an incredible 19 turn-overs in six games. OSU leads the PAC-10 with the fewest at 6 in five games.

I have already given out my prediction of 34-3 with the 3 quetionable. We have a 30 point winning spread according to the odds makers. That is a record spread for the PAC-10.

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The final chapter of my travels to Pennsylvania:

When we were in the Gettysberg area we stopped at Dwight Eisenhower’s home, which was a nice farm. It has 186 acres. He invested into it towards the end of his career. He raised cattle on it. He had special things added to the farm. He had his own skeet shooting area. He also raised pheasants on the farm and then released them to hunt. He had a special area built just for him to practice golf. He had a green with sand traps placed around it. He had a fishing pond.

His home is what you would expect for a home back then in the farm area. It had a large living room that Mamie decorated with things from the white house. They had a special mantle at the fire place that IKE liked in the White house. They brought it to his home and installed it onto his own fire place. He had live in maids. He had a forman for the workers, who was also an expert herdsman. He lived in a 1797 house on the farm. His name was Bob Hartly. IKE became very close to Bob through the years.

IKE was an avid painter. He started painting in 1948. Many of his paintings were displayed by Mamie. Ike’s golf cart, jeep, and station wagon are still in the garage.

They have a guest house. Young David Eisenhower stayed in that house, and worked one summer as farm hand.

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OK!

It’s off to Boston, to see the Boston Red Sox play Tampa Bay. We got to the Hotel Buckminster, which was built in 1897. We wondered where the park was. The guy working there said, “Look out the window.” It was right across the freeway from us. This hotel is where Babe Ruth stayed when he played for the Red Sox. Ted Williams also stayed there. It was also the hotel where “Shoeless Joe,” Jackson, supposedly took the bribe that cost the team the World Series. You could almost hear people talking out in the hallway about how much they would give him to throw the series.

It was game day, and I was really excited. We got to the game, and my world went back over a hundred years!! Fenway park stood right in front of me, and I was about to go in! We went in and the building looked old, because it was old. Many of the seats where still the ones used back 50 or 60 years ago.

Charlotte and I hunted for our seats, and we kept climbing. Up went went through the bottom section; then the next section; up and up. We finally got to the very top row, AND it was ours. There were no seats behind us. There were standing room only people right behind my shoulder drinking beer and breathing down my neck. I decided that it didn’t matter. I was at Fenway Park ready to watch the Red Sox play. BTW……The park was named Fenway Park because….They were in the Fenway district of Boston. Nothing romantic, or exciting there.

Two really large (huge) guys sat right in front of us. They were brothers, and they knew how to drink beer. As a matter of fact the stands were full of people who knew how to drink beer. They all went down and brought two beers at a time, and it was just for them.

The game got started, and the huge young man right in front allowed about four inches for clear viewing space. If he moved his head to the left, I was cut off. There were posts there . But no! I would not get upset. I was at a Boston Red Sox’s game!!!

Jacoby Ellsbury was the player that all the OSU fans around the park wanted to see. He didn’t start!! He had a pulled muscle in his leg, and he was benched. The game went fast. It was exciting to sit there and realize where you were. You dream of going to the old parks before they were tore down. Well, we made it to this one. I was sitting where I was looking right at the “Green Monster.” The plays I remember way back when I was a kid that happened off of that wall still are visions in my head.

It was a close game down to the end. The Sox were behind one run coming into the last inning. A player got a hit, and……..you got it! Jacoby came in to pinch run. It didn’t take him long. On the second pitch he took off for second. The throw was wide and got through the shortstop. It didn’t go far, but Jacoby was already on his way to third. “SAFE!” You could hear the unpire way up where we were in the stands! The crowd let out a roar that was ear splitting. Jacoby was only in there about 30 seconds, and he was standing on third. It was for naught however, the next player flew out to right field. I called him David Ortiz. I was quickly corrected.  One of the brothers in front of me said, “People from these parts call him popie. You must be from out of town.” I said “Yup, but I am a big fan of the Red Sox.”  I got a big hand shake, and I made a new friend.

The boys liked Charlotte and I so much that earlier in the game they said they would trade seats with us for the rest of the game so we could see better! Boston people are my favorite people, have I ever told you that?

Jacoby gear was selling for more than the other palyers’ gear. He is the most popular player on the team. Of Course he is…he’s a Beaver!

The next night we had much better seats! Down close, and on the first base side. We were sitting with six or seven people from OSU that also got tickets through Tom Huggins, of Eola Hills Winery. He arranged the whole thing including getting us tickets. Eola Hills does a wonderful job of planning trips. They take care of everything from the time you get to the airport until you land again back home.

This game didn’t go any better. The Tampa Bay team is for real, and now you see that they are playing Boston again to see who goes to the World Series. Should be a great series.

As I looked at all the numbers around the field, I could see they were numbers of great players of the past, There is the always famous #42. That was Jackie Robinson’s number. He was the first black man to really make it big in the majors. There was the number for Carlton Fisk. Can you vision him trying to coax that ball going down the left field line? His hands gestures point where the ball should go, is still shown many Years later. Of course there was also Carl Yastrimsky. (sp) Yaz was one of the greatist hitters in Boston Rex Sox history, but the real number belonged to Ted Williams. He was the greatist hitter in the history of the Boston Red Sox and some say the major leagues. They have a bronze statue of him looking down at a little baseball fan, and he has his hand on the boy’s head, in a loving gesture. There were other numbers up there. Boston had a history that could have me typing all night, but I am weary, and I have rambled on enough.

I hope you enjoyed going on this journey with me. I travel a great deal, and I will be sharing what I saw and my thoughts while there, when ever we do travel.

Have I ever told you that you need to subscribe to the the newsletter if you haven’t already? Just go up to the right hand corner of this site at the top of the side bar. You can see the subscription form waiting for you to say hi to it  

I am hoping that you enjoyed this newsletter tonight. It will not be here in this spot much longer. It will be going to the Consant Contact emailing companies email program.

I have a rough draft going on the first newsletter. Do not wait another day. You do not want to miss that first one. You will like what you see as far as graphics, structure, and better spell checking. 🙂

The subscription form is working great now. We put in a new program. It has been fine ever since.

So hop to it pilgrim!!

OUT!!

 

 

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The Rest of the Story Part Two

 

 

 

Side Bar

 

After the game as we were walking past Tommy Prothro practice field, I overhead a young USC fan discussing the game with a buddy, he said, “We can beat anybody in the nation, but we when come here, we suck!” Hold that thought young man. We will see you again in two years!

 

Penn State is now ranked # 12 in the nation. Do you realize that we could be 3-2 for the first time in several years, and that is with playing one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the nation? I sure wish we could play Stanford again. I think we would have a totally different outcome.

 

Next weeks game with Utah will not be easy to say the least. They are ranked

17th in the nation, and will probably smash Weber State today. That

will move them up even higher.  We also have to play in their house this year. Our away game record certainly could be improved upon.

 

The Ducks go to Washington State today. They should win pretty easily. They can bath in their great victory this week, but do you know who they play next? Yup! USC! USC is going to be head hunting, especially when any team with the name Oregon in it makes their blood boil.

Travels

 

As we were traveling from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to Boston, we saw some beautiful landscape. The trees in the hills were starting to put on their new outfits for the fall. We were able to look down into big valleys full of corn for miles and miles. Our crack photographer, Lloye Liedtke, took pictures along the way. There was one problem. We were moving, and her trigger finger, was slow. A few of the pictures she ended up with were some fantastic pictures of trees along the highway, and some stunning sides of trucks as they went by.

 

We had fun teasing her, and she was great comic relief after a bad day watching our Beavers being taught how to eat humble pie. Actually she really did get some great pictures, and she sent me some of them. I will see if I can post some of them here on the site.

 

Along the way, I saw some of the old America. People were still drying their cloths out side on cloths lines. I can smell the freshness I remember as a child when I helped my Aunt Dollie hang the cloths on the cloths line at the farm. You can’t get any fresher than that. The dryers of today don’t even come close.

 I saw one humorous mail box along the way. It was a salmon with his mouth wide open, and that is where you put the mail.

 

The gas prices during our travels:

 

Maryland-$3.42

Pennsylvania-$3.41

New York-$3.48

Massachusetts-$3.43

 

At this time Oregon was $3.59. Oregon has gone down a lot since then. I saw gas for $3.39 at the Arco station coming off the I-5 freeway and headed east on Highway 34 towards Corvallis. They always seem to be lower than others.

 

We had one more side stop before we got to Boston. It was Cooperstown, NY. For anyone that knows anything about baseball, that is the Holy Grail spot for baseball history. It lived up to that name and more. Of course, I am talking about the Baseball Hall of Fame.

 

It is amazing to come into this town. It was only about the size of Silverton, OR, but even smaller than that. It had one main street, and one side street. The homes there were beautiful. They were the old style homes with the big wrap around porches like you would see in a movie like, Gone with the Wind. For you young whipper snappers, that was probably one of the top five movies of all time. Do a google search and learn all about it. Better yet, rent the DVD.

 

We stayed at an absolutely wonderful hotel in Cooperstown, called The Otesaga. We got there about noon, and we were told to go to the dinning room to eat. It was bigger than many ballrooms. Yes, their eating area was that big. It was a brunch type set-up that they do everyday. There was everything you could dream of to eat. I was a good boy and didn’t go to the feeding trough (brunch area) very often.

 

This hotel was built in 1909. Its architecture is the charm of the area. It is located on the southern shore of Otesaga Lake. The gentle breezes from the lake were a welcome feeling. We could sit out on the Veranda; have a drink and watch the sun got down with the lake right in front of us.

 

For dinner that night we had a choice of wearing a sport coat and eating in the dinning room, or going out to eat. Charlotte and I chose the dinning room. (After all, I had brought my sports jacket all that way.)

 

What an elaborate sitting, candles; fire place, cloth table cloths, and a dinner for a king. I had a salmon dinner that was out of this world.

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OK, I know, you thought I was never going to start talking about the Baseball Hall of Fame.

 

There were three floors of memories to look at:

 

The first floor had all the Hall of Fame broadcasters, writers and story tellers. Dave Newhouse from the Seattle Mariners was just inducted this year. On the way out on the first floor was the Hall of Fame Plaque Gallery. It had bronze plagues of every baseball player that made the Hall of Fame. It was amazing to stop at each plaque and bring back the memories that went with the player that was represented there.

 

The second floor had tons of things to look at. I will not go into too much detail on each thing, but as you walked by the displays, it has a progression of how baseball evolved. It started with 1900-1930. It then was from 1930-1970, 1970-2000 and then to current times. It was interesting to see the progress of the game.

 

There was one room dedicated to Babe Ruth. I saw many pictures of him that were not anywhere else in the world. They were donated by family members. Here they showed a movie of Babe doing his pointing to the fence to show he was going to hit and home run on the next swing which he did.

 

Also on this floor was information about women in Baseball. I will never forget Ton Hank’s line in the movie, A League of Their Own, “There is no crying in baseball!”

 

It also had all the major league teams with photos, video highlights, and artifacts that were put in 30 major league lockers.

 

The third floor had baseball cards, all the records, no hit games, (BTW. I have the autograph of the only pitcher in the history of baseball that threw a no hitter in the World Series. That would be Don Larson. I had him sign four pictures, and gave three of them to my children.)

 

One baseball card was behind a glass incasing because it was worth 3.5 million dollars. I am sorry but I am not sure exactly who, but it was either Roger Hornsby, or Ty Cobb. Please email me who it was if you know, and I will get it in the next newsletter.

 

On this floor was one very special memory. That had our beloved Beavers in a window case, acknowledging their incredible feat of winning two College World Series in a row. I made sure every one around knew I was a Beaver fan.

The Hall of Fame also had Ichiro Suzuki honored, because of his record breaking year with 267 hits in one year. He has had over 200 hits in all all his seasons in the United States.

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Well, I still didn’t get to Boston!! I will have to save that until the next newsletter. Don’t miss it. It has all the history that helped shape this country. The Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere’s home, JFK’s home, Harvard, the USS Constitution (Old Iron Sides) and some team called the Boston Red Sox.

 

Be sure to go up to the tab called, “Newsletter” if you haven’t already done so. Click on it and subscribe. Eventually that will be the only place you will get the Beaver Path Finder. You can opt out any time you want if you get tired of my ramblings.

 

OUT!!