Yanks and Cards would be great…it was in `64

thanks to the Royals season-long embarrassment.

I scratched off the top item on my baseball wish list many weeks ago

thanks to the Royals season-long embarrassment. Maybe I can do better

now that the playoffs are here.

Seeing both the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals in the

playoffs takes me back to 1964. The Beatles had just “invaded” the

United States and rock and roll would never be the same. The summer and

fall of `64 was pretty carefree to a 9-year-old busy with baseball,

comic books and a brand new municipal swimming pool in town.

The growing conflict in Southeast Asia hardly registered as an event

that affected my world. Sure, I was hit pretty hard by the

assassination of President Kennedy the previous fall, but baseball had

a way of making things better again. In 1964, the word “terrorist”

wasn’t even in our vocabulary. The only Arab I remember seeing at that

age was on the big screen in “Lawrence of Arabia” or maybe Bob Hope and

Bing Crosby’s “Road to Morocco.”

The Kansas City Chiefs were just entering their glory years in the old

American Football League. Dad had just taken possession of the only new

vehicle he would ever own during his married life, a 1964 aqua blue

International pickup he bought at Gallatin Truck and Tractor. It was

what I learned to drive in a few years later. The Bonnie Bird Cafe was

a good place to eat in Gallatin, just as The Blue Castle was the stop

for a meal in Hamilton.

Anyway, when October 1964 rolled around it was, for me, a classic case

of the good guys against the bad guys. St. Louis vs. New York. On the

side of the good guys Bob Gibson, Curt Simmons, Ken Boyer, Bill

White, Tim McCarver and rookie Mike Shannon. The names of the bad guys

were, of course, more recognizable to the national baseball media

Whitey Ford, Jim Bouton, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Elston Howard and

Bobby Richardson.

Baseball has surely changed since 1964. There was no such thing as a

night time World Series game, so school age kids rarely got to see a

televised game during the week. A game might start at noon or one

o’clock and be over by the time you got off the bus route. Heck, back

then you might follow a team for an entire season and not even know

what many of the players looked like.

Thank goodness for my little transistor radio and understanding

teachers, who didn’t seem to mind a little break from the lesson plan.

I know most of my female grade school teachers didn’t give a hoot about

baseball. They probably didn’t even know Bob Gibson from Mickey Mantle.

I’m sure it was all a strange ritual to them. I can’t help but wonder

now what they thought of announcer Harry Carey’s play-by-play style.

I don’t remember many particulars about the `64 Series, but I know the

Yankees belted a lot more home runs, but those hit by the Cards were

more important game-winners. Jim Bouton pitched some great games for

New York but Gibson was a work horse for St. Louis and pitched three

complete games, including the final victory in game seven.

So I’ll think about 1964 and watch closely this week and next, hoping

later this month to see Clemens and Mussina, Jeter and Williams go up

against Morris and Kile, McGwire and Pujols. And if that happens, may

the best Missouri team win…again.