Thanks to all
I did come with the high heat, and almost knocked Gio Gonzalez off his feet. Of course, I was throwing at him from 20 feet! I'm sure he thought this old geezer was going to loop one, but as many have pointed out, there's a family tradition to uphold. Also, I didn't want to take any chance that Phil Wood's beautiful 1924 World Series baseball would take a bounce on the red clay Gonzalez was standing on. This was actually my fourth "first pitch," together with Opening Day 2007, August 2, 2007 at RFK--Walter's 100th anniversary of his first game--and June 2006 at Fenway, where my old friend Bob Wood, Smokey Joe Wood's son and longtime memorabilia dealer at Valley Forge and Fort Washington, taught me a valuable lesson. As we were being escorted to the mound by the ball girls, Bob pulls me close and whispers "Don't let 'em take us all the way, Hank, stop when I stop." So when Bob stopped at the edge of the mound, I stopped, and the girls had to stop, too. Looking in to the plate, I immediately realized the wisdom of his approach. Bob, who I'm sure had done this many times, had cut ten feet off our throw and we were still on flat ground. Nice. Anyway, last night was fabulous fun. The 1924 uniforms looked fantastic, so classy, and because the only "entertainment" during the game was 1920s organ songs, it was discovered to everybody's amazement that you can easily fill the time between innings talking baseball or about the heat, and that you don't need rock music blaring or constant stupid contests, etc. And the crowd got no--and never needed any-- prompting whatsoever to express its enthusiasm for their team. Gosh, all you need, it turns out, is A BASEBALL GAME going on. And speaking of the Nationals, for those who don't know it yet, this is one terrific and very exciting ball club, and our highest paid player (Jason Werth) and lights out young closer (Drew Storen) are both about to come off the DL for the second half. Go Nats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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