As a kid it never occurred to me that Ted or Bobby would ever play for the Yankees or for any other team wharever. Babe Ruth was not in my memory. I asked the pastor if I could go as I knew he had complementary tickets, as it turned out, to the opening game of the season. Joe DiMaggio was supposed to play and the announcement whether he would or not was going to be withheld intil game time. Of course he wouldn"t because of his heel.
So as the game started the adult, a Sunday Svhool teacher, with me pointed down close to the field where we sat on the first base side, "there's where we would be sitting with the pastor's tickets". No one told me how much my mother was to give me to bring that about. I"ll never forget his name or the stupid coloring books they gave us. The second year I complained, they sent me, mifted, to be with the "men". Another nail in my lititle atheist coffin.
So Joe Page, a good Yankee reliefer, came in to pitch to Bobby Doerr and the crowd booed. I asked why and was told Page beaned Doerr last year. Seemed logical to me at the time, since time was not yet all that familiar to me yet.
Well, Bobby bounced the next pitch off the green monster. I experienced a great thrill over that and he became my favorite player. I followed him in the papers and the sports cartoons of Bob Coyne. When he went into the ZHOLY of Fame in 1986, you would have thought I went myself.
I became known as a rabid Doerr fan and was offered a bet, this in the tenth grade, that he would not get five hits in tomorrow'so game. I grabbed it, but Bobby only got four hits the next day. I was so elated I gave him his quarter in great elation.
