ITS ANOTHER OPENING DAY OF BASEBALL!

28 03 2025

RUDY SHEPTOCK MARCH 28 2025

Is there any day as close to perfect as Major League Baseball’s Opening Day? As far back as I can remember, I would have to come up with annual bouts of some type of rare illness to get out of going to school so I wouldn’t miss the fanfare and pageantry. And most of these recollections only occur in glorious black and white! Having attended my first professional contest at Shea Stadum in Flushing, Queens on the final day of the 1968 season, I couldn’t wait for the start of the 1969 campaign. The Mets were hosting the brand-new expansion Montreal Expos in their inaugural game so how could my team blow this one? Miraculously, my sore throat disappeared by 1:10 p.m. and I was shouting, “Lets Go Mets,” so loud, I’m sure Sister Cecilia heard it just down the road. My forever hero, Tom Seaver, was on the mound and when he was taken out for the bullpen, he was up 6-4. Up until then, the Mets had never won on opening day, but the fortune had to change. I was even praying for forgiveness and making deals with God to do anything to tilt the scale in the direction of the orange and blue.

By the top of the ninth inning, the Mets were losing 11-6. The bullpen wasn’t very good at closing out victories in the late 1960’s any more than they can be relied upon to seal the deal in 2025. But I was nine years old, and I believed in comebacks and Santa and that my Dad could walk on water. My father got home from work just in time to fix this embarrassing display. I filled him in on everything he missed because while I wasn’t very good at math, I was a wiz at keeping score of the ballgames. After Kenny Boswell struck out looking, Cleon Jones singled to left off former Mets southpaw, Don Shaw. Ed Charles who we called “The Glider,” followed with a walk. Al Weis popped out to shallow right, but it took three outs to win the old ballgame. Jerry Grote, the Mets catcher and the first player who ever signed a personal autograph for me singled and Jones scored, making it 11-7. Duffy Dyer was sent up to pinch hit and he proceeded to hit a home run. I thought we had tied the game but Dad pointing out my addition was something less than desired, proceeded to poke a pin into my balloon by sharing that the Mets were still behind by a run. It was only 11-10 and the Expos were still winning. I cried out quickly, “No problem, Dad, Amos Otis is up and he is a power threat,” Amos Otis singled and Tommie Agee walked and then the worst that could happen, actually did. Rod Gaspar took strike one. Rod Gaspar took strike two. Rod Gaspar swung and missed for strike three. Now I really felt sick. I don’t think I even ate supper that night, that’s how downtrodden I was.

But as history would prove, these weren’t the same old Mets. These “Amazing Mets,” would win 100 games that season and become the 1969 World Champions even at the 100-1 odds set for them. It was the “Summer of Man Walking on The Moon in July. It was the summer of “Woodstock” in August. But for me, it will forever be the best year a kid who loves baseball could ever experience. On the actual weekend that everyone was buzzing upstate to Max Yasgur’s New York Farm, Dad and I were at Shea Stadium for what was known as “Banner Day.” During the break in between the doubleheader, we fans could walk on the field parading the artistry of kiddom by stealing Mom’s bedsheets and painting them with slogans like, “Even Though We’re in The Red. The New York Mets Are Far from Dead. So come on Mets and Get Ignited. And Get Us Mets Fans So Excited!” Maybe my poetry ability was right up there with my arithmetic skills. But I cherish those times as some of the best moments that I ever experienced. Dad was alive and well. As a child, my whole world revolved around playing baseball, watching baseball and dreaming about baseball. I used to sleep with my Gogel Tires Little League uniform on and it was made of itchy wool! That Miracle Mets team will always be my team and my favorite players ever because they helped a kid who was always a bit of a dreamer learn that going for the impossible is actually the right stuff! It’s the stuff that lasts long after the last out has been made and the last person has vacated the premises.

I just got off facetime with my daughter Abbie. What was she showing me? My twin grandsons were playing together in the back yard with the wiffle ball set they just received for their birthday. Levi is a Phillies fan like his Daddy, John. Benji is a Mets fan like his Pop-Pop. Baseball continues to be a key ingredient in defining our legacy. I coached all my kids from T-ball through high school level softball and baseball. I still love to go and watch the Shamokin Games. I just asked Felicia who is a power threat from the left side of the plate when her next game is. Baseball has never been boring for me. There are so many facets and nuances that must be addressed when it comes to performing well as a team out there on the local diamond. The Commissioner of MLB, Rob Manfred, has single handedly tried to ruin the sport with time clocks and ghost runners. One of the best aspects of this contest was that there were no time limits other than the sun going down and no lights to turn on. How many of us can remember holding on to that last slice of sunlight to keep on playing? One more pitch! One more bat! One more swing! Isn’t that what we all yearn for anyway?

Hope springs eternal on Opening Day! Everyone is in first place. Everyone has a chance to be the champions. All the uniforms are crisp and shining, all the batting statistics and earned run averages are perfect. It may be sunny in San Diego or snowing in Cleveland. It may be the Los Angeles Dodgers or the Omaha Storm Chasers. It may be a 700-million-dollar pitcher or a five year old bonus baby, but for a moment, it is all new. I remember how excited I would get when the groundskeeper lined the field before the game. Mom used to wonder where all her baby powder went when I was young. It was new. It was untouched. It was Spring ready to be sprung.

Maybe that’s why I have a feeling baseball will be played in Heaven. Not only does the Bible start with, “In the Big Inning,” but the whole purpose of the reason why we are all gathered together is to get home. It is always about crossing the plate and coming home. Could this be why, as in life we get so disappointed when the effort of our days end only on second or third? And unlike any other game, I can sacrifice my time at bat to get you home safe where you belong. “Put me in Coach! I’m ready to play, today, look at me, I can be, Centerfield!”


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BASEBALL IS MORE THAN A GAME

18 10 2024

RUDY SHEPTOCK  SOUL MINING OCT 18 2024

I write this on the 55th anniversary of the day my “Amazing Mets” shocked the entire world by winning their first World Series over the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles. I attended Catholic School at the time and unfortunately Sister Cecilia couldn’t give two shiny nickels about a baseball game, never mind the biggest one that I had ever experienced in my ten years on planet earth! I never darted out of a building so fast in my life as I raced the mile home to get to our glorious black and white television to watch the last 2 and a half innings. Al Weis had just hit a homerun to tie the game. I learned later that Weis, a career .200 hitter, used a souvenir bat which was for showcase purposes only to knock that baseball over the left field wall. Hey, whatever works. In the bottom of the eighth Cleon Jones and Ron Swoboda smacked back-to-back doubles and Jerry Grote got an insurance run in with a ball that Boog Powell booted, and the Mets were 3 outs away from the miracle. My poor Dad was at work and so I knew I would be watching for the two of us as Jerry Koosman made future Mets Manager Davey Johnson to fly out to Cleon Jones for the biggest upset victory of the decade. As providence would have it, Davey Johnson would be the skipper who was at the helm when the Mets won their only other championship and Jessie Orosco who the Mets got in a trade for Jerry Koosman would be on the mound on that October night in 1986. These are the nuggets that make Baseball so much more than a game. It is a tinge of what folklore and legends are made of. I celebrated the Mets beating Baltimore the only way I knew how. I took my bike out for a victory ride shouting throughout the Cedar Knolls, NJ neighborhood that the Mets were the best!

Baseball is Abbott and Costello’s timeless routine about Who’s on first and I Don’t Know on third base! Baseball is Babe Ruth and the House that Ruth built. When I was a kid, I actually believed that Babe and the rest of the team actually built Yankee Stadium. I also believed that Lou Gehrig walked off the field after his famous, “Luckiest Man on Earth,” speech and died right there at the ballpark. Baseball is going to “Bat Day,” with the Cub Scouts on an old rickety school bus that made you so nauseous, the den mothers had to keep attending to their boys in blue with plastic bags in tow. Can you imagine giving out wooden bats to crowds today? Neither can I! Some stadiums don’t even allow you to bring an umbrella in never mind supply you with a free weapon that is decorated in your team’s colors! Baseball is the seventh inning stretch when men who won’t sing Happy Birthday at their own kids’ parties are belting out, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” at the top of their lungs. Baseball is having a hot dog fresh from that metal holder that the vendor guy has been sweating in for the last five innings! It was Humphrey Bogart who once said, “a hot dog at the game beats roast beef at the Ritz,” and we’d never dare question the judgment of a man who was cozy with Edward G Robinson! My Dad never let us buy anything at the ballpark. When you went anywhere with Mom, you ate first class. Dad would pack up the sandwiches and tell us to go find the water fountain. Obviously, the man didn’t care about the sanitation factor! Yet, I miss him so much and there are times I go to the ballpark looking for him to be there in the crowd cheering for the comeback nobody expected. Dad passed just before the Subway Series in 2000. Yes, I thought he would have some pull over the Mets beating the Yankees that year, but I was wrong. I wonder if Dad still uses the water fountain in Heaven or if he actually takes the Lord up on the offer that the Living Water is free!

I know I’m a Mets Fan surrounded by Phillies Fans. Before I moved to Shamokin, I lived in Cape May County surrounded by Phillies Fans. Living in the Coal Mountains is no different. The very first baseball game at Shea Stadium that I ever saw in person was a Phillies vs. Mets contest and some slugger named Richie Allen clubbed three tape measured home runs. I think one of them is still flying somewhere over Flushing. These were the days when Philadelphia had those big numbers on their uniforms and guys like Cookie Rojas, Tony Taylor, Clay Dalrymple, Johnny Callison and Chris Short were on the team. I probably know more about the team than most Philadelphia Fans do. But when the Mets made the play-offs this year on the day after the season ended by beating their true thorns in the side, the Braves, I was shocked. Then the Mets went on to beat the Phillies in the NLDS to make the NLCS. I have kids and grandkids who were rooting against Pop-Pop’s team, but I’m used to that! Now here we are playing the mighty Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers and who knows yet where that will lead but this I do know, I’m not taking any of it for granted. My Mets have only been in five World Series my entire lifetime and they lost three of them. The last time they were there was 2015 and look, 9 years have flown by, and they are 3 wins away from returning. You can keep your sabermetrics and computer analysis and who hits right handers the best on Thursdays when the temperature is below 60 degrees and the pitcher’s name begins with a vowel! For the next few days, I am ten years old again trying to disappear from the nuns and escape the clutches of those who won’t matter in a few years from now anyway!

So put me in Coach, I’m ready to play today! If Jim Morris of the Tampa Bay Rays could make his debut at 35, so what if I’m 30 years older than him. There must be a few pitches left in this body of mine. And speaking of Jim Morris whose story was portrayed in the Disney Film, “The Rookie,” it begs the question of what is your favorite Baseball Movie? Is it “The Pride of the Yankees,” “Field of Dreams,” “The Natural,” “Eight Men Out,” “The Sandlot,” or some other film about America’s Past time? It is hard for me to pick just one although when Benny the Jet Rodriguez laces up his P.F. Flyers, it is hard not to get nostalgic for what was basically my childhood on the big screen. Who needs adults to play the game we love? Not us! We played until the sun was a distant memory and the last trace of daylight was disappearing with the rising moon. Baseball was not just a professional sport. It was our rite of passage. Dad telling stories about his mother throwing out his baseball cards and me guarding mine like gold from Fort Knox! Hey, I still have each and every one from my collection in the 60’s and early 70’s! I’ve been to Fenway and Wrigley and many other places where there used to be a ballpark. I get lost in my own world with every visit to Cooperstown and when I close my eyes, I still can see pitches from my college days that I just missed. That pop up to short should have been a line drive to left if only I was just a little more patient.

Will the Mets make the 2024 World Series? I have no idea and won’t shed any tears if they don’t. Nothing will ever top those days gone by when I bought 5 packs of cards for a quarter and couldn’t wait to buy The Sporting News so I could check out the box scores of games we never saw a highlight from. The voices that used to describe the game over the radio are mostly gone and with every season, it’s a little harder to hear them in my mind. I treasure Gary Cohn and Howie Rose of the Mets, and I love Tom Hamilton who does the Cleveland Guardians’ games. But today’s broadcaster loves to hear the sound of his own noise rather than actually bringing something to the table that is worth digesting. Maybe this is why I have worn out the Ken Burns documentary of the sport I love the most. If I could go back to any era, it would easily be the 1950’s when Willie Mays, Duke Snider and Micky Mantle patrolled center field in New York. When Ebbets Field still existed, and Gil Hodges was being prayed for in every Catholic Church in Brooklyn. There were no millionaires playing ball and the guys had to work in the winter just like the common man. The rivalries were fierce, and the fandom was passionate. Oh, what a time it must have been to experience a real subway series when even the athletes had to buy a token to ride. I have my memories and to me they are my trophy, and they are my moments of pure joy! Play Ball!


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