Entries Tagged 'Flashbacks' ↓

I’ll be enjoyably droidless for the next several days for the induction, so there won’t be a whole lot going on around here outside of the usual tweets. Until next week, I was backing up some media and stumbled upon 26 of my letters from Honolulu recorded by my grandfather on October 15, 1972. The kid could hit a note, right?

Aloha.

Along with the induction materials, I spent some time this weekend scanning, scanning, and scanning a boatload of old newspaper clippings Pop gave me documenting the events that went down back in the day. These hardcopies are quite large, and don’t fit on my scanner, so I currently don’t have digital copies of the complete newspaper articles that were written during the years of 1961, ‘62, and ‘63, which chronicle his games and the numbers he put up. THE DUDE WAS A WITCH. But I did grab a bunch of scans from the parts of these artificacts that had his handsome face. Enjoy.

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I’m going to the motherland tomorrow for a long weekend. Honolulu, where it all began. For me, anyway. Pop’s getting inducted to the Punahou Athletic Hall of Fame. I finally spent a couple hours this weekend scanning some of the materials my old man gave me. Below are a few of the letters of his recommendation submitted to the Hall from coaches and teammates. One name you may already know: Uncle Norm Chow.

I have a vague memory of Mike Lum, the big lefthand stick my old man was once teammates with. Mike went on to play in the bigs with the Cubs, the Braves, and the Cincinnati Reds. One night my dad took me to a Dodger game to play the Reds here in Los Angeles. It was my generation’s good old Dodger days; Garvey, Lopes, Cey, Yeager, Baker, et al. Pop’s buddy Mike was in town. I must’ve been about six or seven years old. We went to the game, Mike had a hit. After that, the only memories I have were waking up on my dad’s shoulder in a dark hotel lounge. Dad and I were chilling with a bunch of guys in leisure suits holding cocktails. One of them, Uncle Mike, gave me the old “pat the buddy’s kid on the head and pretend like you mean it” maneuver, along with a baseball signed by the Cincinnati Reds. I’d imagine they had several barrels of those balls for the guys to use on these types of occasions.

To put things in an on-field perspective: a traveling U.S. team of fourteen players was chosen to play Japan back in 1961, with talent pulled from two states in the union, California and Hawaii. Mike and Dad both came from the Hawaii pool. Mike Lum batted fourth. Pop? Third. THAT DUDE HAD STICK.

Below, some of the paperwork involving the induction gig:

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Last night, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of calling Los Angeles home, the Dodgers played an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox at the Los Angeles Coliseum located several miles south of downtown. For those who don’t know, the Dodgers played their games at the Coliseum in South Central Los Angeles for their first four years here (’58, ‘59, ‘60, and ‘61) while their permanent home at Chavez Ravine was being built just north of downtown.

And so we rallied, braving traffic, parking fees, and the scalping scene to take in the experience. What a trip. A gummer in the hood! We joined 115,000 other people with the same idea, packing the Coliseum to capacity. That’s like packing Dodger Stadium more than twice. To quote KFWB News: “Not since the Christians were thrown to the lions has the Coliseum been this full.”

Two of the first things we noticed were the glaring absence of Dodger Dogs (replaced by bratwursts; did the Farmer John deal come after 1961?), and a left field that looked smaller than my backyard. With this set-up, the Left Fielder assumes more of a Rover role, which most of the time equated to having three middle-infielders.

The photo above was taken from our scalped seats on the southwest curve of the venue. I imagine this is what it looked like fifty years ago, although, if I’m not mistaken, they didn’t play night games back then. I also doubt they ever drew 115,000 people to one game. And I guarantee you beers weren’t ten bucks a pop.

And yeah, I kept expecting the Trojan horse guy to come galloping out at any minute.

A book report from 1981:

Some teachers give stars for perfect scores. Mrs. Vanick threw down the hottest logomark around, the Hang Ten feet. Genius. What better incentive could a 4th grade teacher think of in 1978? Other than Lightning Bolt, of course.

A book report from 1980:

An assignment from 1978:

Here’s a classic I’d forgotten about. Casey Kasem performing a long distance dedication on his radio program and finding himself at odds with the audio engineer’s song decisions. I had it on cassette tape in the mid-nineties, before the Internet. I’ve since lost the tape.

YouTube keeps the memory alive:

Photo by Royman, the big brother I never had. Gracias, amigo!

I’ve honestly forgotten much of this valuable information. But seriously, soak it in. A good refresher. From 1979:

I know, I know. I’m digging around for the other episodes.

A book report from 1981:

Found a couple classics of me and my baby sister Heather from 1990. Probably Christmas. Bub. She’s twenty years my junior, which would make her about a year and half plus in this shot. Pushing the Terrific Twos. God, she was so cute at that age.

Funny how some things never change. Still as cute as ever, with her 19th birthday coming up in March. Here’s a shot from tonight. Being the expert in the art of Moment Reconstruction Photography, notice how she threw her hand under her chin. Just like old times. Quite the eye for detail, that gal.