Good morning!
A few days before the big shutdown I was listening to a Pittsburgh Pirates spring training broadcast from LECOM Park, formerly McKechnie Field, in Bradenton. In the seventh inning, a 20-year-old rookie from Santo Domingo named Lolo Sanchez hit a 1-1 offering from Toronto right-hander T.J. Zeuch over the fence. As Sanchez was rounding the bases, Pirates broadcaster Joe Block exclaimed, “He’s got a smile as wide as the Allegheny!”
The casual reverie of the grand old game is what I’ll miss when I’m outside doing yard work. Garry Brown, the dean of all sports wags, suggested watching “Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns,” during this extended hot stove season. The Emmy-winning production indeed remains as relevant as when it debuted on PBS in 1994.
Burns lives in Walpole, N.H., home of L.A. Burdick Chocolates and the birthplace of the late Bill Jackowski. Don’t recognize the name? Jackowski was behind home plate when Pittsburgh’s Bill Mazeroski hit the home run that beat the Yankees in the seventh game of the 1960 World Series.
With all due respect to Don Larsen’s perfect game and Pudge Fisk’s 12th inning home run off the foul pole, the 10-9 win was the greatest World Series game ever played. The Pirates scored five runs in the eighth inning to go ahead, 9-7, but the Yankees scored twice in the ninth to tie it. Up stepped Mazeroski who sent Ralph Terry’s second pitch into the trees beyond the left field fence at Forbes Field. The game took two hours and 36 minutes.
According to Sports Illustrated, Mazeroski lost his batting helmet during the celebration. Jackowski retrieved it and kept it as a souvenir.
After he retired in 1968, Jackowski returned to Walpole and took a job as the public relations director at Hinsdale Race Track.
Most times he was self-assured and charming, but when I asked him if he ever missed a call he became gruff and ornery. His face turned red and he glared across the desk at me. “Never!” he bellowed, putting his fist on his chest. “Not here! Not in the heart!”
Hinsdale was strictly a harness track in those days and Jackowski was friendly with the owners and drivers. One afternoon before a stakes race we were in the Lower Club when someone spotted him talking with Warren Harp, one of the track’s top drivers. When he returned to the table his crony asked, “Did Warren speak to you?”
“Like a Dutch uncle,” he griped.
Jackowski is buried in Westminster, Vt., about 130 miles south of Bill Lee’s home in Craftsbury. Lee pitched for the Red Sox when Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” was No. 1 on the charts. He’d tell reporters he sprinkled marijuana on his pancakes, but he was a fierce competitor.
The baseball documentary includes many extraordinary interviews, none more so than Spaceman’s description of his last at-bat before the DH rule took effect in 1973: “(Mickey) Lolich tried to bust me inside with a fastball — or so I was guessing — and he did and I hit a line shot to right field and Al Kaline who was the Ancient Mariner of their ballclub — he had pigeon [poop] on his shoulders ’cuz he was already a statue — he came in and the ball went under his glove and I rounded first, I rounded second, I came around third, and it would’ve been an inside-the-park-home run for sure and I’m looking for (third base coach Eddie) Popowski — Popowski’s only 3-foot-6 and he held me up and that was my last at bat in a Red Sox uniform.”
The box score backs up Lee’s story. He tripled in the bottom of the third inning and was singled home by Luis Aparicio in a 7-1 loss to Detroit on Sept. 23, 1972. Three years later he was traded to the Montreal for the immortal Stan Papi and hit one home run in 137 at-bats for Les Expos.
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Usually this time of year is double duty for Shelburne native Skip Smith, who works as a television camera operator in Tampa Bay. Normally he’s either perched inside the Rays dugout at the Trop or lugging a hand-held camera during Lightning games at Amalie Arena.
But these aren’t normal times, and Smith said he’s struggling. “The virus has killed those of us who work professional sports, or any sports for that matter,” said Smith. “As of April 1st, I will have lost 14 games between hockey and baseball, and with no end in sight it’s hard to stay positive.
“My next day of work on the calendar is July 11. We are now ‘sheltered-in place’ so even part time work isn’t an option. We aren’t salaried, we’re independent contractors who pay for our own insurance. This hurts, but it’s a great profession just the same.”
Smith and other Patriots fans in the Bay area are the beneficiaries of Tom Brady’s decision to play for the Buccaneers. “Actually, I’m disappointed,” he said. “I’m one that believes in loyalty. There’s no state income tax, true, but quarterbacks don’t fare well having an offensive line that can’t stop the pass rush. I just don’t think it’s a good fit, but the NFC South is weak. The Saints (13-3) were the only team over .500 last season.”
Bucs’ outgoing quarterback Jameis Winston threw 30 interceptions last year; Cleveland’s Baker Mayfield was a distant runner-up with 21.
Brady’s receiving corps features Chris Godwin and Mike Evans (2,490 yards and 17 touchdowns), but the Julian Edelman of the group might be 5-foot-9, 183-pound Cyril Grayson, who ran the 400 meters in 46.51 seconds at LSU. Grayson was picked up by the Bucs in December after he was released by the Saints.
The third annual New England Green River Marathon is still a go for Aug. 30. “Yes, we are still on for now,” emailed race director Tom Van den Broeck Raffensperger. “As soon as the BAA announced the new date of September 14 for the Boston Marathon, we offered our registered runners a refund if they were planning to run. Our race would be much too close for most people to do both, and we recognize that Boston is the priority race for many. We had eight people take us up on the offer, but as you know we fill up months in advance, so I don’t think it will end up having much effect on us.”
The race is sponsored by the Sugarloaf Mountain Athletic Club, which will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in two years, to help fund the Connecticut River Conservancy.
SQUIBBERS: If there is going to be an MLB season it likely won’t start before the Fourth of July, and the proposed seven-inning doubleheaders would be a great way to play catch-up. But please, no separate admissions. … Tom Brady leaving the Patriots reminds me of Carlton Fisk leaving the Red Sox. Two great players who left town because they didn’t like management. … UMass basketball fans got to see AP Player of the Year Obi Toppin score 19 points for Dayton at the Mullins Center on Feb. 15, and next season it might be Tre Mitchell’s turn to take the national stage. The Minutemen won five of their last eight games and will be a force if the starters keep growing and add a few pounds of muscle. … When Ron Roenicke was hired to manage the Brewers in 2010, his two main competitors for the job were Joey Cora and Bobby Valentine. … Poor Chris Davis. Baltimore’s $23 million slugger was finally getting his stroke back after he struck out 526 times and batted .188 the last three seasons. Davis was batting .467 with three home runs and nine RBIs this spring. … Talk about a horse for the times, the winner of the 13th race at Gulfstream Park last Saturday was Social Paranoia.
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for four decades in the Pioneer Valley.