Strange baseball season

With the basketball season coming to a close, we will be into baseball. 

It will be a strange season; I can’t name a single player, on any team.

I remember that when I was covering baseball, I kept track of several big league players, many of them from the Boise Valley where I worked for the Idaho Statesman newspaper.

Baseball was big in the valley, partially because we had a Milwaukee farm club locally. The Boise Braves were part of the Pioneer League, a class C franchise.

But baseball was big for another reason. We had several players from the valley who had made it to the majors.

There was Larry Jackson, with St. Louis; Harmon Killebrew, with the Senators and, later, Minnesota; and Vernon Law, with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

During the season my time was spent covering our Boise team, sometimes also when they were away.

The team management always let me know when big-league scouts were there for the game, or when home office personnel were checking on the team. That afforded a new take for me to write about.

The home team had a player/manager by the name of Billy Smith, who could play several positions, but usually second base. He was my pick for someone who would make the majors someday.  

He never did, but he was great copy, and I got to talk with him often.

But one of our players then, Tony Cloninger, did make it to the majors. 

I spent a lot of hours at the ballpark. In fact, during the season I did little else. 

The Statesman was a morning paper, and sometimes when the team went into extra innings I was hard pressed to get my story written.

The day went like this: breakfast at 2 a.m., a four- or five-hour sleep, and out to the ballpark at noon. I went early because this was the time that I could talk with the manager or individual players.

After the games I went to the newspaper office to check on what our local big leaguers had done that day.

When we checked the wire reports and someone reported that Killebrew had hit another home run, there would be a roar from the reporters and others.

When the Pirates beat the Yankees in the World Series in 1960, our Vernon Law won two of the games.

And Larry Jackson, a local boy pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals, was winning his share of games.

Larry worked for the paper during his off season, and did me a big favor in my getting together with his teammate, Stan Musial.

Musial was scheduled to be in Boise to promote the presidential candidacy of John F. Kennedy. I had asked Larry if I could spend time with Musial when he was in town for a ticker-tape-like parade through the city, and Larry said sure. 

As it turned out, I got to ride in the convertible alongside Musial and enjoyed a lengthy visit with him.

He was so casual that I felt like I had known him for a long time. I guess any friend of Larry Jackson’s was a friend of his.

So, with that background, I find it strange that we are in baseball season and I find myself a stranger.

In later years, I was at the inaugural opening for the Seattle Pilots and even rode up in the elevator to the press box with Howard Cosell.

So, I am going to try to get connected with the sport of baseball again.