Encounter With Yogi

When I learned that the Baseball Hall of Fame Tour was coming to Albuquerque I knew I had to check it out.

As part of my Bucket List Tour, I visited the Hall in Cooperstown with my oldest brother in 2011. This time I visited the Tour with my oldest son. The tour itself was an impressive display of artifacts combined with virtual reality technology that put you right at the ballpark.

Of course, my son was perhaps a little more impressed with virtual reality, but it was the artifacts that took me back to my boyhood and early adulthood. Growing up in NJ, just on the other side of the George Washington Bridge meant you were a Yankee fan. Pictures and film of the old Yankee Stadium brought back memories of seeing my first major league game at about 10 years old and the feeling I experienced when we walked up the ramp to the field and the world opened up to an emerald green diamond. That picture has never left my mind and I get chills every time I walk up a ramp to a baseball field; and as Yogi once said, it’s “Déjà vu all over again.”

When I saw a picture of a young Yogi, I immediately remembered my high school days when our first game every year was against Montclair High School. The Montclair catcher in those days was none other than Yogi Jr. He donned the number 8 on his jersey and looked just like his dad behind the plate. Above the field and standing in the shadows, when he was able to attend, was the familiar unmistakable silhouette of Yogi Berra. I remember straining my eyes to try to get a better look at him. Then, at the end of the game, I got brave and purposely walked up the small hill and past Yogi. I tried not to be obvious, but as I passed by I heard Yogi’s voice; he said “good game Slezak.” I think I may have wet my pants because Yogi knew my name. That was a great memory that made watching him catch even more special.

As I took in the Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig artifacts I went back to that special day in 1973 when I was lucky enough to escort their wives during a ceremony to celebrate the renovation of Yankee Stadium.

One other artifact caught my eye. It was a green piece of rusty metal that had peeling paint and a few dents. It was a piece of Boston’s famous Green Monster. I was lucky enough to be invited to Fenway for a Red Sox tryout as a teenager. On the way there, but still in NJ, my 1964 Ford Galaxy 500XL broke down and I never made it to the tryout. Being a Yankee fan I had to attribute my breakdown to the “Curse of the Bambino.” It was a few years later that I got to stand next to the Green Monster and look up 30 feet to the top of the wall and realized that I was on hallowed ground.

I find it interesting how something you see can trigger memories from long ago and make you relive that memory in your mind as if it were happening again. The sight of the green grass as I come up the ramp to the field, the smell of the leather from a baseball glove, or just holding a baseball in my hand never fails to take me back to those glory days.

Humphrey Bogart, of all people, summed up baseball rather nicely when he said, “A hot dog at the game beats roast beef at the Ritz.”

That’s just the way I feel whenever I’m at the ballpark.