SELECTING A FORMER NEW YORK YANKEE AS MASCOT FOR MY BLOG

 

Brownsville blogfather Jerry McHale recently compared himself and blogger Juan Montoya to the New York Yankee heavy hitting duo of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.  Wrote blogger McHale:

"But with Montoya and McHale, Brownsville can always rest easily that at least they still have Mantle and Maris in the lineup. They occasionally whiff, but they have also whacked more than their share of homers."

1961 was a pivotal year in baseball laurels and I was a stats junkie, frequently walking downtown in Payette, Idaho on my lunch break, using my lunch money to buy a copy of the Sporting News.

Payette was a big baseball town, being the home of slugger Harmon Killebrew.

Teammates Maris and Mantle were duking it out all of '61 to see who would break Babe Ruth's home run record.

The season ended with Maris at 61, surpassing Ruth's record of 60, and Mantle at 54.(38 years later Mark McGwire hit a steroids-fueled 70 homers to top Maris.) 

My real focus that year was on another race, the National League batting title, with Pittsburgh's Roberto Clemente and Cincinnati's Vada Pinson neck and neck down the wire.

Pinson, my favorite player because, years earlier, he'd played for the Seattle Rainiers, then a Cincinnati farm team, went hitless on the last day of the season, losing to Clemente, .351 to .343.  

Earlier that year, my dad, a self-righteous religious zealot, who thought his son was engaging in hero worship, had slapped me with the sports section of the Idaho Statesman, saying sarcastically:  "There's your hero."

My father had circled an article describing Pinson as "charging the mound" after being hit by a pitch, rendering him unsuitable as a role model for his son.

Of course, Pinson wasn't my role model, just someone I kept up with.

Actually, my baseball glove was an "Al Kaline" signature model. 

Kaline played for the Detroit Tigers and I kept up with his career too, since I was using his glove.

Ryne Duren

Anyway, since McHale and Montoya are represented by Mantle and Maris, I've chosen  another one time Yankee to represent my work in the blogosphere; pitcher Ryne Duren.

Duren, who wore Coke bottle glasses, threw 100 mile per hour fastballs so wildly, many players were afraid to bat against him.

Duren also pitched side arm, once hitting a player in the on deck circle with a pitch.

Duren epitomizes my work in the Brownsville blogosphere, fast and wild.