LSU and ULL baseball have come to the forefront of publicity during the 2015 season.
Sunday, June 14th, a towering 6 foot nine inch pitcher from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas helped to humble the LSU Tigers with a wide assortment of pitches and blazing fast ball. LSU did defeat University of Louisiana-Lafayette (ULL) but went down in the game with TCU.
BIZZARO, the cartoonist featured a coach peering down like that towering 6’9″ pitcher on a group of aspiring little boys with these words of wisdom: “Baseball isn’t just a game boys, it’s a metaphor for life: *we dress alike *we follow the rules, *we run in circles *there are winners and losers and *suddenly it’s over.”
Those who are familiar with the sport know that only one out of 5000 hopeful baseball players might make it into the major leagues. University baseball is parallel to Triple AAA minor league baseball. Scouts probably abound at the Omaha World Series baseball to lure outstanding university players to join their team.
The peak earning for Babe Ruth (1914-1935) was $80,000 the highest salary of his era. Ruth hit 714 home runs, and struck out 1330 times. By corrupting contrast, Albert Pujols will be paid $24 million in 2015.
During childhood my dream was to play major league baseball. I had a shoe box full of professional baseball player cards. One day while cleaning house my mother thought they were worthless and threw the priceless cards into the trash bin.
As a senior in a St. Louis, MO high school I was elated to receive a letter from: Bing Devine, General Manager (died at age 90) St. Louis Cardinals. The letter stated: “You are one of the 100 best baseball players in the St. Louis area and are invited to a weekend tryout with the Cardinals on….at the Sportsmens’ Park in St. Louis. Bring your own equipment.” Of the 100 high school or university students, only one was actually signed by the Cardinals in 1955. Fortunately, I was not the signee. Professional baseball began to be corrupted by outrageous salaries in the 1950’s, 1960’s and on to the present day multi million dollar contracts.
By 1963 I was a theology student in a seminary located near Sing Sing prison in Ossining, NY, 25 miles north of Manhattan.
Each year we played baseball against inmates of Sing Sing. One Saturday in June 1963 a left handed pitcher “hung a curve ball” (it did not curve!) before me as I held as thick Jackie Robinson Louisville Slugger bat. After connecting with the failed curve ball, observers claimed it travelled 450 feet over the left field wall where it hit the smoke stack of Sing Sing’s power house. A veteran deputy said, “only one other man hit a ball over the wall here – that was Babe Ruth.”
Dr. Joseph Fahey, PhD, a teacher at Manhattan University is still in the class room and remembers the day all Sing Sing inmates in the audience wanted to look for a home run ball beyond the left field wall.
