I was born in a small town in Kansas when Ike was President and the Brooklyn Dodgers were the baseball champions of the world. My dad enjoyed the ’55 Series because he loved underdogs, but especially because he hated the New York Yankees. The Yankees always seemed to win and to dominate the other teams in the American League, of which my dad was a fan. Specifically, he followed the fortunes of the Athletics, who often lost their best players to the Yankees. When I was old enough, he would take me and my three older brothers with him to watch twi-night or weekend double-headers at Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium, often when the A’s were playing the dreaded team from the Bronx. I enjoyed the games so much, and being with my father in the crowd surrounded by smells of stale cigar smoke and beer, I never realized how bad a team the A’s really were. I never noticed that they were at the bottom of the standings year after year.
Nevertheless, I loved the A’s and everything about them, and often thought I would have died for them. I loved their red, white, and blue uniforms, and later their Kelly green and gold jumpers with white kangaroo leather shoes. I loved the pennant porch beyond the right field fence where sheep grazed and a battery of foghorns stood ready to announce home runs and show the way to rare Athletics’ victories in the gathering gloom. I even loved the idiotic mule that served as the team’s mascot. Never mind that the audacious owner, Charles O. Finley, broke my heart when he moved the Athletics to California. It was because of the A’s–and my Uncle Henry–that I came to love the game of baseball.
(First installment in a series.)
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