#5 Baseball

 Joanna gained admission to Sophia University in Tokyo. For baseball, that mean full immersion into NPB - Nippon Professional Baseball.  The 'bridge' for American baseball diehards to baseball in Japan has been Bob Bavasi's JapanBall.  Bavasi, son of long time Dodger General Manager Buzzie Bavasi, had a program that scheduled going to baseball games at all twelve home team stadiums (plus a countryside game) in a two week period.  In 2012, I went on that program which ended on 17 September at the Sapporo Dome where I celebrated my 70th birthday with a whole lot of hi-fiving fans as the four of us JapanBallers passed out CrackerJack packets .........birthday parties do not get as unique as this one was!

I never met Bob Bavasi prior to JapanBall but I did meet his father.....and Walter O'Malley.....at the Chock Full O Nuts coffee shop across the street from the office building at 215 Montegue Street where the Brooklyn Baseball Club offices were located, as was the downtown Brooklyn branch of Central State Bank where my father was principal loan officer.  This was in an era long before either Starbucks or coffee machines in offices.  Once upon a time, a cup of coffee (and slice of datenut bread) was a great, inexpensive coffee break that Buzzie Bavasi, that Walter O'Malley, that Joe Lipsher took.    And on a day when I went to work with my father, I met the guys who ran the Dodgers in a coffee shop.  Try that today in an era where a conglomerate runs a mega business that takes in 4,000,000 paying ballgame attendees.  Things sure as hell are different now from 75+ years ago.

We were one of the first families in our 102 apartment building to get a television - in our case, a 10 inch Philco which my parents got primarily because I could be found most afternoons at the open door to Kelly's Bar on Utica Avenue where the bartender, having few customers and nothing better to watch, turned on Howdy Doody for me to watch.   We got that television in time for the 1947 World Series, where the sponsor was the Gillette Safety Razor Company (The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports is on the air!) and Red Barber, broadcaster for the Dodgers and Mel Allen, broadcaster for the Yankees shared both radio and television tasks for the first World Series, ever, that was televised.  The Dodgers lost in 7 games.  I'm not sure but I think that there were only one or two cameras doing the video in what was a grainy black and white.

Compare that with today.......only I can't - I do not have a television - out of personal choice!! Between Netflix, Prime Video, Peacock and You Tube, I can watch movies and news broadcasts and baseball games on my computer.....but not the Dodgers.....and I do not really care because I'm living a deja vu life, sitting out on our front porch as the sun sets in the late afternoon during baseball season, listening to Dodger games, live with radio broadcasters - the very best in the business, separate from the television broadcasters - also the very, very best in that media -the Dodgers are one class organization!

Somebody is assisting you in what you visualize from a radio broadcast.  Two broadcasters, assisted by nearby staff providing various and sundry facts and stories to make 'continuity'.  For a three hour game, that's one thing.....but what about that 18 inning game - that's a hell of a long time for a couple of guys to hold your interest by just talking.......they talk great!  Steven Nelson and Rick Monday obviously held my interest.   With the Blue Jays leading 3 games to 2 and games 6 (and hopefully) 7 in Toronto, I shut down virtually everything else to listen, first to Yamamoto pitching his way to victory in game 6 and then to Yamamoto's coming in for 2+ innings with no rest to end game 7 and get his third victory of this, the 2025 World Series.

I listened to it all........and I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!