Detours: a country in search of direction
On the eve of the election, a reporter and photographer set out for Washington, via America. We tell stories from seven towns, touching on seven issues from politics and real life.
Friday Night Rewind It doesn't matter which team you cheer for. We've got video previews of every high school football program in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando County.
Game show themes
These themes are probably going to make some of you have flashbacks to wasted mornings or afternoons spent sprawled in front of the TV.
Where have you gone, Joe Garagiola? Out of the national mainstream, but certainly not out to pasture. Now 82, the former big-league catcher, network baseball commentator and game-show host appears a bit more frail and slower afoot, but figuratively he hasn't slowed down. An Arizona resident, he still writes the occasional book (Just Play Ball was published in 2007), remains a nationally outspoken opponent of what he calls "spit" tobacco and still works a dozen or so Arizona Diamondbacks games a year for TV. On Saturday, he delivered the commencement speech — only the second such address of his life — at Saint Leo University, where the Times caught up with him to discuss the state of baseball, his detestation of chewing tobacco and boyhood pal Yogi Berra.
It's hard to believe you're 82. How's your health?
Pretty good. My legs are giving me some fits, and I would imagine the birth certificate tells you, "Hey, you're going to have arthritis." … Every finger on this (right) hand has been broken, and I have big arthritis here (pointing to left knuckles). These guys today, they're smarter than we were. We caught with two hands because of the glove. These guys put their hand behind them when there's nobody on base, which is a wise thing to do, but we couldn't do that with our gloves. It was always two hands; you catch the low ball coming up, the high ball coming down.
What are you involved in these days?
I'm still going with my anti-tobacco campaign. The Diamondbacks have started a tobacco campaign for the youngsters, which I would hope will spread; we've got a chance. When I was growing up as a kid, they had what they called a Knothole Gang, and you would be going to the ballpark, probably chaperoned, and you sat in leftfield. It was free. So what the Diamondbacks have done is, if you join what we call the "No Chew Crew," and you pledge that you're not going to use tobacco, you get a T-shirt which says "No Chew Crew," and on the back of it is a cartoon from Bil Keane of Family Circus. I believe very strongly that's the way you get the people's respect: No. 1, not nagging them and loving them, because it is an addiction; and then the kids helping like that. So that's been a big campaign.
You lost a couple of buddies to oral cancer, right?
Yeah, I had (ex-big leaguer) Bill Tuttle and I had Bob Leslie, a 31-year-old baseball coach out of Santa Rosa (Calif.). They both were crushers, but Bob Leslie more so. … I wanted him to go in the clubhouse with me and talk like Bill Tuttle, but he never got healthy enough. He wanted to do a tape, which I said, "That would be great," and we still use that tape. … The thing that sticks with you is, it didn't have to happen. It was the tobacco. Baseball's image has been put through the wringer in recent years, yet in 2007 you write a book that essentially lauds everything good about the game.
Well, I think that baseball is still the most entertaining game because it's the simplest to watch. To begin with, size is no factor as far as making it … and the game of baseball itself, I think, is one of the best because No. 1, it really unfolds. It doesn't come at you like football or basketball. And the other thing is, baseball more than any other sport is still a fun game and people say funny things. I mean, we're going nuts on statistics now. I'm not a statistics guy, I'm a people guy, and there are enough stories out there. The book itself is doing well. It's one anecdote after another because I think people would rather hear about baseball players on kind of a positive side and get a laugh out of it if they can, than statistics.
I'd be remiss if I didn't ask Joe Garagiola, one of baseball's great ambassadors, about steroids in baseball. What do we do about the hitting records being set in the steroid era?
I don't think you can do anything. I think you're handcuffed. You can't change the record books and put an asterisk because then you'd say, "Wait a minute, what about when there were only 16 teams like when I played? Now there are 30 teams." You can't change it, and it's sad. Yogi and I were talking about it one time. He said, "Why do they have to hit it 500 feet if the fence is only 350? If they hit it 351, it's a home run." It's a sad commentary.
What are your thoughts on the scandals swirling around Roger Clemens?
Same thing. I feel badly for his family. I don't know, I don't want to believe it, but it keeps coming at you.
Have you had a chance to see the Rays play?
No, I have not. I haven't even seen them in spring training. But I look at the box scores; they have really come up with a pretty good ballclub now. They've done a pretty good job of, I guess you'd call it, renovating. They're not a pushover by any means. I've never seen that ballpark. I can't imagine playing in that ballpark they play in.
How often do you see Yogi?
I don't see him as often as I talk to him. He's 9 months older than I am. I was 82 in February; he's going to be 83 in May. He's in pretty good health, and everybody's tugging at him to go places. … People really think that he's funny. Yogi is not funny. He can't get up and do funny stuff. But he always says things funny. For example, he'll say something and you'll walk away like, "Did I hear that right?" And of course, when people don't know who to hang something on, they'll hang it on him. Like he says, "I didn't say a lot of the things I said."
[Last modified: May 05, 2008 07:48 PM]
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