Holy crap, the season starts today!Six o'clock in the morning, and baseball starts halfway around the world. On March 25th!
I'm confused. March 25th? While everyone is asleep? Hey, didn't the Mets kick off the 2000 season while everyone was asleep too?
This baseball season has snuck up on all of us ... especially myself, who spent the past week away on some business. But you'll be happy to know that I did find some down time to visit the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.
Now when you think Alabama, you think football country. You think Bear Bryant. You think Joe Willie Namath. A true connoisseur of football would also think of Bart Starr and Derrick Thomas. Perhaps you know Alabama as the state which roundballers like Charles Barkley and Chuck "The Rifleman" Person called home.
But the list of hardball legends that got their start in Alabama isn't too shabby either. Willie McCovey and Ozzie Smith came from Mobile. Virgil Trucks and Bob Veale came from Birmingham (along with Willie Mays, who I don't understand how I blanked on last night ... thank you whozgotnext). And while we all associate Hank Aaron with Milwaukee and Atlanta, he got his start in Alabama.
But we have Alabama to thank for two thirds of the outfield of the Miracle Mets of 1969. Cleon Jones is from Mobile, and lives there today.
The late Tommie Agee, who once personalized an autographed 8X10 for yours truly, is also a member of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. Of course, Agee really had no choice but to patronize me after I made a fool of myself re-enacting Agee's World Series catches with Agee not 20 feet away when a classmate of mine had the gall to ask "Who's Tommie Agee".Who's Tommie Agee??!?! The nerve.
And here's your bonus Met connection to the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame: from Tuscaloosa, number 15 in your program, and number ... 452 in your hearts, George Foster!
Hey, at least he's in a Hall of Fame. The only way I get in a Hall of Fame is if they had one for idiots (Uh, they do. It's called jail.)Leave it to me to find baseball in SEC football country in the middle of a basketball tournament. But not only did I find a little pocket of horsehide in pigskin heaven, I overheard a conversation on the way to the airport about a Yankee fan at Comerica Park who was so galled that he was sitting 20 rows up from the Yankee dugout, he went to the Tiger ticket office to complain that it wasn't row two.
That made me smile.
Then, at LaGuardia Airport, I found a store selling Derek Jeter shirts ... at 25% off. At that moment I thought that now, truly, I'm ready for baseball season.
Just not at six in the morning.
