Fasolamatt, a new entrant into the COW contingent, won us over with his surprising use of one of our favorite words: comely. He also saw three baseball games in one day. You can’t argue with that. He kept with a nostalgic theme in his guest post. Please note that this must have been a long time ago. Like the middle of Julio Franco’s career.

I won the coveted COW award when The Proprietor requested stories about sports road trips, but my
fondest sports memory involves staying home one summer …

Each of the six teams besides my hometown Cleveland Indians had won the division in the last six years. Any thoughts of going to work at summer camp in northern Minnesota were put aside until later in the summer, and the girlfriend from White Bear Lake would have to wait; I was going to stay home in Cleveland and finally see some winning baseball at the Stadium downtown. My county commissioner lined me up a summer gig that would start early, as a special favor. The gig was, joy of joys, across the street from the Stadium, specifically gate A where Alvie’s Bar was open from the end of the workday through the beginning of the ballgame. It was going to be a great summer.

Growing up in Cleveland, you expect heartbreak, disappointment, and abject failure at every turn of the sports page. That summer was no different. The summer gig turned out to be six weeks of filing personnel forms that were tossed in a basket for the whole year awaiting some summer help to file them. The Tribe lost 100+ games, and if memory serves, they were 8-23 in games I went to. It was always easy to get my favorite $6 seats with my buddy Spotts: Section 23, Row B, Seats 7 and 8. The girlfriend from White Bear Lake stuck with me, but ultimately it was not to be (she ended up in Cleveland, and later Dayton; I ended up in St. Paul). The county commissioner? Still county commissioner. Married now to Captain Janeway.

Really, though, it was a great summer. The beer was cold, the friendships tight, and there was one good joke that remains etched in memory: “What do Julio Franco and Michael Jackson have in common? Both wear one glove for no apparent reason.”

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