Picture by Bill Stokes
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has no real choice about where to go with his posting on the day of MLB’s All-Star game, and so he goes there: back to 1953 in Cincinnati when he was a young-post Korea-soldier and was down on Crosley Field-pre-game-by dint of an invitation from an RKO Movie News crew. There he got a game program autographed twice by the 46-year-old Satchel Paige when a news photographer shouted, “One more, Satch.”
He-the keeper-also had a brief conversation with Ted Williams who was also just back from serving in Korea and who threw out the opening game ball.
The keeper was blown away some years ago when he googled “Baseball All-Star game (1953) You Tube” and found the video that included his appearance with Paige just after the introduction of the team managers—Casey Stengel and Charlie Dressen. It-the You Tube-is still there, and the keeper calls it up more often than he might admit to Phyllis.
While the keeper’s qualifications as a lifetime baseball fan may be in question, there is no doubt about them on this day: He will be back there down on the Crosley Field diamond and later up on the no-railing roof watching the game with the RKO crew, and remembering the crew chief’s warning: “Do not chase any fly balls.”
