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Happy 85th birthday to one of the greatest baseball players who ever lived, if not *the* greatest: Willie Mays!

There are several nice pieces about readers favorite ballplayers. Mine was "the Mick". Mickey Mantle. I know I share that memory and perspective with many many of a certain age and time. In fact Bob Costas who gave the "official" eulogy at Mickey Mantles funeral used these words: You can read the eulogy here You can see it on video here: In the late 1950's and early '60's television had been around for a while but the volume of sports broadcasting was limited, sports broadcasts were simply rare, but living in the New York area we got to watch the Yankees and we got to watch the Mick. Nobody ever filled out a uniform so well, took a more powerful swing, and crushed more tape measure home runs than the Mick. At those moments when the meat of the bat hit the center of the pitch it was bye bye baseball!!! He looked damn good doing it: the All American boy. Mickey played at a time with phenomenal outfielders: Mantle and Mays in Center Field. Frank Robinson, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, and Al Kaline in Right Field; all of them were sublime outfielders who were awesome 5 skill players. They are the ones that come to my mind. You might suggest others. As the 60's evolved and more baseball hit TV one got to watch more of them. Each was spectacular. Mantle always looked the best doing the same things as all of them. He was naturally strong and incredibly fast. He was timed at 3.1 seconds batting lefty from Home to First, still considered the fastest time in baseball. He did that with injured legs. And he crushed home runs. Crushed them. If you search on the web for "who hit the longest home runs" you'll find two articles referencing 10 long home runs. One is exclusively about Mantle's 10 longest. The other is a Sports Illustrated article featuring long home runs by a variety of players. Mantle is first on that list...and they reference two of his mighty shots. He could club them. Mantle's career was annually short circuited by injuries. He was injured in his rookie year in '51, and it is suggested he played with a torn ACL ever after. He was timed at 3.1 seconds to first after that injury and other leg injuries. Recently Mickey Mantle came to mind for me on several fronts. Albert Pujols just passed Mickey on the all time home run list. Pujols now has 540. Mantle has 536. Pujols is 16th on the list of all time home runs and Mantle now 17th. Above them are at least 6 cheaters who are tied to steroids. On a list of who hit the most home runs per at bat. Mantle is tied for 15 at one every 15.11 at bats. Above him are ranked at least 5 known steroid cheaters. Besides Pujols passing Mick, a short while before my old town classmates had a reunion. It was fun and relaxing. Among the "jockish" guys I heard more than once, phrases such as this" "crushing the ball like the Mick". One guy had posted a nice FB picture of him hitting a golf shot. Responses included...."you look like the Mick". Mickey Mantle and making the perfect swing go hand in hand and is deeply imprinted in a generation's mind. Mickey Mantle was beyond sports. He was truly mythological. I suppose he ranks with the first TV Superman; The Adventures of Superman. It ran from '52 to '58. That roughly coincides with the start of Mantle's and Mays' careers. What wonderful synchrocity At the start of that show Superman would be described: Faster than a speeding bullet (I reference 3.1 seconds to first one more time ). More powerful than a locomotive (I think of that as more of a football basketball analogy: Jim Brown, Earl Campbell in football and Charles Barkley come to mind). Able to Leap tall buildings in a single bound (Mickey Mantle could put baseballs at the top or over huge stadiums.) Mickey Mantle was the living sports analogy to Superman. Now we learned way later in life that Mick was a drunk, a philanderer and womanizer, he was not great with his wife and kids, and had flaws up the kazoo. Regardless as a child and a teenager Mick was a one and only idol...for myself and I suppose millions. Here is to you Mick. Take another swing at a pitch....the greatest swing in the history of baseball.

Live long and prosper Mr Spock...

"Naismith Hall of Fame Finally Does Right by Lefty and Votes in Driesell" by John Feinstein on washingtonpost.com Brian Magid's Facebook Status regarding the announcement Pam Driesell's Facebook Status regarding the announcement Some insider trivia: The Driesells lived right across the street from Springbrook High School in Silver Spring, MD - I went to school with Pam since 5th grade (when they moved up here from Davidson, NC), as well as Chuck (who played for Maryland), but here's the really esoteric, insider trivia: Their house was literally right next door to the family of Harold Solomon. who is the only tennis player from Maryland ever to be ranked in the World Top 10 (excluding Fred McNair in doubles) - the Solomons (with son Harold, and daughter Shelley) were, as incredible as they may sound, the best-of-the-best in terms of Maryland Tennis - now, having been next-door neighbors (although I think the Solomons might have moved to Florida before the Driesells arrived in the early 1970s) these two families can perhaps boast the only next-door homes whose family members are in the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame (although my former tennis coach, rival, and friend, Gil Scheurholz, who was ranked #1 in the United States in the 35-and-over division for several years, has a father *and* a grandfather who are both in as well - if you ever go to Camden Yards, look on the wall - they're both in there, and I assure you that Gi III deserves to be also - he is the most devastating tennis player I have ever faced in person; not the best, but the most devastating).

Most people know Martin Milner as Officer Pete Malloy on Adam-12, some people know him as Tod Stiles on Route 66, and almost nobody knows what a *tremendous* actor he was. And I can prove it to you in one hour: There's one, single episode of Route 66 that should have won Milner an Emmy Award, and quite honestly, I can't fathom how it didn't. Season 2, Episode 11, "The Thin White Line" (here on Hulu) is an honest-to-God, one-man, tour-de-force by Milner, and it's unlike any other Route 66 episode. In my entire life, I have never seen such demands put on an actor in a single hour - Milner is drugged (with what turns out to be television's first-ever portrayal of LSD), and as you hear the physician describe the scenario that will play out over 6-8 hours, you know exactly what Milner will be going through in advance, and he gives an absolute virtuoso performance - one of the best acting roles I've seen in my life, in any medium. Do yourself a favor and watch "The Thin White Line." Milner himself said that this was his favorite episode, and the biggest challenge he ever faced as an actor. On a sadder note, Adam-12 radio dispatcher Shaaron Claridge (an actual LAPD radio dispatcher) actually made this radio call when Milner passed away:

Robert Duvall, almost surely most famous for his work in "The Godfather" franchise, began his career in 1952. Here are some excerpts: 1962 - as Arthur "Boo" Radley in "To Kill a Mockingbird" - 1963 - as Charley Parkes in "Miniature" on "The Twilight Zone" - 1964 - as Louis Mace in "Chameleon" on "The Outer Limits" - 1969 - as Lucky Ned Pepper in "True Grit" - 1970 - as Major Frank Burns in "MASH" -

Sam Cooke sang like an angel come down to earth. His cruelly curtailed career (shot dead in 1964 aged 33) spanned gospel, blues, rock-n-roll, and, towards the end, a kind of jazz-inflected pop that might be at home in Vegas nightclubs. Here are a couple of more-or-less rock-n-roll numbers. "You Send Me" and "Wonderful World" are better known, but I like these more: "Bring it on Home to Me" (1962) "You're Always on my Mind" (1961) Gospel recordings with the Soul Stirrers (1926-), before Sam Cooke was a pop sensation: "Jesus I'll Never Forget" (Recorded in 1954) "I'm Gonna Build Right on that Shore" (Recorded in 1951) Night-Clubby "Fool's Paradise" (Written in 1955, covered on the 1963 Album "Night Beat"): "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" (Written in 1940, covered on the 1961 album, "My Kind of Blues"): As I say, one for the ages.

You may wonder why on Earth I'm writing about Washington Square Park - a beautiful public park in Greenwich Village bisected by an imaginary continuation of 5th Avenue, with half of the park being in East Village, and the other half being in West Village. Don't get me wrong, Washington Square Park is fantastic; it's just that this is only the second thread in the "Visiting New York" Forum, and we could probably come up with something with a bit more gravitas than this - you know what I'm saying: MoMA, One World Trade Center, etc. Well, as it turns out, there's a banal reason I'm writing about it, and a profound reason I'm writing about it. The banal reason is that I'm watching the 1967 version of "Barefoot in the Park," and guess what the park is? Yep. The fountain was originally built in 1852, and replaced in 1872. The profound reason is the unmistakable mastery behind the photograph in <drum roll> *Google Maps* - yes, Google Maps. Look at this *amazing* photograph of Washington Square Arch (1892) - the only comment necessary is pointing out that, yes, that's the Empire State Building (1931).

If anyone could commit to being my reading-discussion partner with "Runaway," I'd love to do something similar to what we're doing with "Troilus and Cressida" over in the theatre forum. Obviously, the more the merrier, but I need at least one person. I'd never read Alice Munro before she won last year's Nobel Prize for Literature (*), but from what little I've read so far, she is an astounding, amazing, unique writer - as Cynthia Ozick states in something of a hyperbolic fit: she is "Our Chekhov." Or, as Jonathan Franzen writes: "Runaway is so good that I don't want to talk about it here. Quotation can't do the book justice, and neither can synopsis. The way to do it justice is to read it ... Which leaves me with the simple instruction that I began with: Read Munro! Read Munro!" The eight stories are between 33 and 65 pages long, depending on which edition you have. This book is easily found in Barnes and Noble, and can be ordered in paperback from Amazon (the book pictured is the exact edition I have). Having recently spent some time in Vancouver and Victoria, BC, this book is especially meaningful to me because Munro writes about "little things" from small-town British Columbia (this "Impressionist-like" celebration of local, ordinary life is what inspired Ozick's Chekhov comment, although Munro's laser-like prose is certainly not Impressionistic). Unlike Shakespeare, we can't copy the text here which is a shame, but it's all we have to work with. Who's in? Let's begin with story #1: the eponymous "Runaway." (*) It's such a shame Eudora Welty passed away before she, herself, won the prize.

Does anyone remember this commercial: for Boxcar Willie's album? IMHO he's one of the most amazing musicians since Slim Whitman. Weird fact: There's a Boxcar Willie Park near L'Enfant Plaza. Huh?