SPEAK THE TRUTH, EVEN IF YOUR VOICE SHAKES
My passion for baseball and my hometown Philadelphia Phillies would begin at age nine at the start of the 1971 Major League Baseball season. The 1970's marked the beginning years in my life-long relationship with the game and the decade would close with attending my first World Series in person.
Jim 'Catfish' Hunter and his Oakland Athletics ball club were the two-time defending World Series champions, the first repeat MLB champions in more than a decade and just the second in two decades. “The Swingin’ A’s,” as they had become known, were a beloved Oakland phenomenon
Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr is the only three-time winner of the Homer Run Derby, taking the crown in 1994 and then in both 1998 and 1999 as a member of the Seattle Mariners.
For the teams of Major League Baseball in the 2024 season, those injuries seem more frequent and more cruel than usual. Star players and prospects are dropping like flies, filling up the Injured List in both MLB and in Minor League Baseball.
The ending for Mike Schmidt had come at last. It came too fast, 35 years ago this week, in a season that had begun with so much promise. And it passed too slow over those agonizing final weeks.
MATT VEASEY 