Sunday, August 15, 2010

A Chat With the Bambino

"Hello Babe! How have you been? What are you up to these days?"
"Hiya, Kid. I'm swell. Thanks for askin'. I'm getting together a barnstorming tour. Gonna get some of my pals together from the old days and set up some games against some fellas we never got to play."
"Really? Like who?"
"Well, I'm gonna get some of my pals from my Red Sox days... thought I'd do a little pitching. And then I'll get a hold of some of the fellas from New York, and do some hitting... a LOTTA hitting," The Babe grinned.
"Who are you going to play?"
"We're gonna challenge some of the greatest teams of all time. Newer teams... older teams... guys from the dead ball days... guys from the '90s..."
"Babe, would that be the eighteen-nineties or nineteen-nineties?" The Babe grinned again.
"Both! Anyone who thinks they have a chance against the boys I get together."
"Will we see the 1927 bunch?"
"Oh, yeah... but not only them. If yer a Yankee fan you'll get to see guys like Wally Pipp, Lefty Gomez, Carl Mays... even ol' Home Run Baker. I had a whole lotta teammates over twenty years. Wanna give 'em all a chance to loosen up and saddle up one more time."
"You played on a lot of great teams, Babe. Nothing much to prove."
"Prove? No one's gonna prove anything here, kid. This is gonna be pure baseball. For the pure fun of it. We're gonna play hard, don't get me wrong. But nothing's on the line here. Like... I wanna play the '21 Giants. You know, the guys that beat us in our first Series as the Yankees. Gonna play them a whole season. 154 games. Know what? We beat 'em 154-0... they'll still be the World Champs of 1921. And I'll still tip my Yankee Cap to them for that."
"That was an all Polo Grounds affair, right Babe?"
"Yeah! Man, I liked the Polo Grounds. I mean, Yankee Stadium was great. But Polo Grounds was where it all got started for me in New York. Kinda sad to leave it. Kind of sad that the Giants left it years later."
"You know about all that, Babe?"
"Know about it? You kiddin' me? I love the West Coast! Lotsa guys did... in the old days, guys stayed in the PCL rather than come to the bigs... just riding up and down the coast and playing all year 'round! I love Frisco. Cobb moved there later on, you know. Anyway, I wanna try out that new park they got on the water... try to see how many I can put in the water... take batting practice with that Bonds kid."
"Kid?"
"Well, I do have a few years on him, don't I?"

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