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Despite my family's relocation to the Memphis area, my favorite team was the Cincinnati Redlegs - changed from "Reds" during the McCarthy Era. My family had moved from Cincinnati two years earlier - and would move back there in 1957. I well remember that '57 move - right in mid-World Series, as Lew Burdette and the upstart Milwaukee Braves stormed to World Series victory over the evil Yankees. Meanwhile, back in 1956, I couldn't hit a lick. Then, my sports crazed older brother bought me a Ted Kluszewski autographed Little League bat, a black and white beauty. My hitting soared. Suddenly, I was Wally Post and Gus Bell, Big Klu, Smoky Burgess and young Frankie Robinson all rolled into one. Good thing I wasn't a pitcher, though. I can't recall that the Redlegs had one ... Sort of like now! The Redlegs, of course, would soon trade Big Klu for Dee Fondy, and nevermore would I be any team's hitting sensation. Safely back in the Queen City with my family, we gloried in the Reds 1961 season, the dawn of Cincinnati's golden baseball era. I was often there at Crosley Field, sometimes sitting in the Sun Deck/Moon Deck (called Burger-ville by radio voice Waite Hoyt, after Burger Beer, "the beer that brings you baseball!"). Jerry Lynch was my man - "Lynch in the pinch." I left school an hour early to catch all of World Series Game 2 in '61, the only game the Reds won. Elio Chacon stole home and Yogi went nuts. Time passed. Pete Rose arrived in 63, Tony Perez broke through fulltime in '67 and Johnny Bench fulltime in '68; and I graduated from Ohio University in Athens with a degree in journalism in 1969 (the Reds couldn't beat the Braves that year, though it was the first year they called themselves "The Big Red Machine"). My youthful decision to chase newspaper journalism was spurred, in large part, by the jeering columns of Jim Murray, who outraged Cincinnati in 1961 with his frequent columns braying about how bush-league Cincinnati was and how long it was taking to redevelop downtown. ("There was no cement mixer in downtown Cincinnati this week. It must have been Kentucky's turn.") From there it was a year at The Cincinnati Enquirer as a general assignment reporter, then off to fulfill my ROTC military obligation, most of which was spent at the Defense Information School (What's a DINFOS?) at Ft. Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. My two-year stay there was due in large part to one SGT Warren Wool, who pulled strings to make sure I stayed there once I arrived. As Warren recently told me, I would never have made it as a tank platoon commander. I barely made it as a jack of all trades at a journalism/broadcast school, but my Army experience was marked by several notable events:
Back in the real world, I returned to the Enquirer in '72 as a reporter and columnist, and became an editor in 1991. I have been night city editor since 1999. I stayed in face-to-face APBA leagues from 1970 to about 1980, then lapsed. I picked up again in a face-to-face Strato league in 1992, and have played 11 seasons there. I'm looking for a new challenge, and this league will be a whole new experience. I've never played fantasy or computer, never been in anything but a face-to-face, old- fashioned board game league. My first year in Strato, by the way, my inherited team compiled the worst record in league history. In three years, I was in the World Series. I've been back twice since and won it all two years ago. And if we ever bring back great players from history, I might try that 1970 Carbo card again. Jim
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This page was last updated 07/30/2003 09:15:04 PM
by Warren Wool
