The Yogi Berra Experience

[majordanby]

Originally Posted by 71buc

I posted this a while back but thought I would share it again. When Tacoma was the Twins AAA affiliate I played whiffle ball with Lyman Bostock in the parking lot of Cheney Stadium. I was 11 and he was very friendly and left a lasting impression. I was crushed when he was murdered.

Although it is not a baseball story it is still fun nonetheless. I took my son to an Oakland A’s spring training game about eleven years ago. During the game Mohammed Ali made a surprise appearance. When he entered the ball park you could hear a pin drop. It was surreal. The game stopped and the players applauded him.

The crowd chanted Ali, Ali! He sat a few rows away from us and an autograph line quickly formed. He signed between innings. Those in line knelt to avoid obstructing the view of others during the game. My son asked why people were kneeling. My wife smiled and told him you do that before royalty. I told my son that this was an autograph opportunity he should not miss. At that time he was painfully timid but with a bit of coaxing he stood in line by himself for two innings. When it was his turn to receive an autograph play resumed forcing him to kneel and wait. Ali looked over at him and motioned to him. My son approached Ali rather nervously. He told my son to sit next to him in a vacant seat. He then opened a bag and pulled out a large oatmeal cookie broke it in half and handed half to my son. He sat with Ali eating that cookie for a half inning. At the end of the inning Ali smiled at him and threw a quick jab his way. He then signed the autograph and thanked my son for sitting with him.

When we returned home my shy son shocked us with the announcement that he wanted to be a boxer. My wife and I cringed but he was persistent so we relented. He boxed for a few years and although he was an average boxer the sport changed him in a positive manner. He became assertive, disciplined, and extremely confident. He is in law school and has grown into a young man I am very proud of. I have to attribute some of that to boxing and his fifteen minutes with Ali.

thanks for sharing that story - shows how athletes can have a substantial impact on the thoughts, beliefs and lives of the kids who follow them. it's a shame that many athletes (old and young alike) take that for granted.

[CW]

Great Feller stories, Derek and Mike! Thanks for sharing.

Good one about Boggs, too, Drew.

[steve B]

I don't do autographs often at all, I think maybe about eight total in person.

But they've all been really good. A couple were average because of the show setup or the size of the crowd. Orr, Rice, Evans.

The others have all been great

Especially Feller.
Dad took me to see him pitch a home run derby between games of a AAA doubleheader. Pretty amazing since he was a bit older, late 50's and still had a lot of speed.
During the second game he came out into the stands with a big stack of printed pictures with some career highlights on the back and started signing them. Being a bit shy I hung back and was one of the last lids in line. Got a couple pictures and a scrap of paper for dads autograph album. He asked if I played and what position. When I said I wanted to pitch but my league didn't allow pitching if you were over 12 (They went to being T ball a year or two after I became too old.) He started explaining what the pitcher in the game was doing and why apparently the guy in the game had some speed but not great even for the mid 70's so he mixed his pitches a lot. during all this kids kept coming up for more pictures but they were making paper planes out of them! I asked if that bothered him and he said "they're kids, it's what they do" I must have been there about two innings getting a lesson in pitching from one of the best before he said it was fun talking but he had to leave. That never really sunk in until I was telling someone about it maybe 20 years later.
It didn't help my pitching, which was hampered by a serious lack of raw talent, but it did very much improve my understanding of the game.

Brooks Robinson was also fantastic.

The other two really good ones were Neil Gaiman, and Chris Hadfield (Graphic novel author and Astronaut respectively)
Hadfields book signing schedule was pretty insane, having already done one about 3 hours away earlier in the day but he gave a nice talk answered questions and was really pleasant. We had a nice exchange since the two books I was getting were for my daughters and he remarked that the names didn't seem like mine. I mentioned them and that one of the great things was having made a part for the space station and being able to watch it go over with them and telling them that light was a spaceship that daddy made a piece of. Nowhere near as cool as going there, but as close as I'll likely ever get. I was surprised that after so long a day he asked what piece and when I told him he apologized for not recalling it. When I said I wasn't surprised because they had thousands of bits of equipment he just smiled and said yes we do.

Steve B