Cup of Coffee

November 13, 2024: Mr. Blue Sky

17 Comments

I'm a little pleased this website has suddenly picked up in the last week or so. As mentioned last night, I created this list for new or current BS members. As I also mentioned, please let me know if I'm missing anybody.

17 thoughts on “November 13, 2024: Mr. Blue Sky”

  1. Well, after catching the end of the Miami game and seeing the box score for last night's game, I am reverting to my lack of interest in the Wolves. I miss KAT.

  4. Farewell and following seas to my paternal grandfather, Pops’ namesake and therefore mine as well. The love of baseball that connected Pops, me, and my brother originated from Gramps. He was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan during childhood. Why the Dodgers instead of the Cardinals, which were close enough to Minnesota to listen to on the radio and had Polish-American hero Stan Musial? I don't know. When Boston moved to Milwaukee, he became a fan of Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Warren Spahn, and the rest of that great squad, but much of their time in the Midwest overlapped with his Navy service in San Diego & overseas. Eventually the Twins arrived, about a year after he had moved back to Minnesota. He followed both teams until Milwaukee left for Atlanta. Gramps passed along his love of the game to my dad & uncles, who passed it along to me. But that's only part of the story.

    On a picnic date sometime while Gramps was in the Navy, he realized the girl he was dating could play catch. Grams had many fantastic qualities, but her throwing arm might have been the one that caught Gramps. When I was a kid, we’d have backyard wiffle ball games with Pops, my uncles, Grams & Gramps’ neighbors, & my great aunt & uncle’s family. Gramps would watch from the patio, listening to Herb call a game or music by folks like Hank Williams, Sr. & Patsy Cline, but Grams would play with the rest of us. I might owe my existence to how well my grandmother could throw a baseball. How many people can say that?

    For reasons that don’t matter anymore, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents on both sides when I was young. Some of my earliest memories are of Gramps keeping stats or sorting baseball cards at the dining room table in their house, with a can of Schmidt beer to sip and a Winston burning in the ash tray. I'd sit next to him, coloring or playing Crazy Eights with Grams. Cards slid easily on the clear plastic table cloth that protected the lace tablecloth and wood underneath. He kept his binders & boxes of cards in the Baseball Room, my uncles' childhood bedroom that featured posters of Musial, Aaron, and Mathews. Gramps as always liked to turn in early — 0500 reveille came natural to the Petty Officer 2nd Class in a way it never has for me — often at the same time as his grandson. I'd curl up next to him in my grandparents' bed and we'd listen to Herb calling the Twins game on the radio he kept in the headboard. Grams would stay up until my dad arrived to take me home.

    Grams passed when I was in high school, and that took a lot of light out of Gramps’ life. He sold their house because he couldn’t bear to live in it without her. He slowly dropped ties to her family, even though they had been close and his in-laws, nieces, and nephews loved him. Losing Pops hurt him, too. The last dozen years would have been precious for both of them, and neither of them got the time they deserved. I’m grateful for the extra time I got with him, but I know those absences weighed heavily on him. I hope all three of them are making up for lost time starting today.

    5. What a great tribute. Like the dread pirate this brought me memories of my grandpa sitting in his chair watching tv on mute listening to herb call the game from a small radio perched on the window sil.

      Sorry for you loss, brother.

    6. I'm sorry for your loss but happy you have such fond memories. My grandfathers died when I was seven and twelve and we only saw them for a few weeks every year on vacation, so I never got to know them very well.

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