As an old Brooklyn Dodger fan, we dreamed those dreams every year and made it a couple of times, so dream on. There was nothing like a ballgame in Ebbets' Field. Cheshire Jean

On Sat, 23 Mar 2002 23:09:44 EST, [email protected] wrote: :As an old Brooklyn Dodger fan, we dreamed those dreams every year :and made it a couple of times, so dream on. There was nothing :like a ballgame in Ebbets' Field. Jean, I am *so* remiss in responding to you in a proper way that I cringe with guilt (well, slightly) each time a new message from you comes in. I keep trying to get the "quickies" out of the way so that I can give the serious emails the attention span they merit -- but the backlog just seems to grow and I never seem to get caught up. Maybe today ... Back in the late 50s my dad bought me a "How to Play Baseball" tutorial produced by the '56 (?) World Champion Dodgers. This was a vinyl record inside covers which folded open to reveal perhaps 24 pages of "how-to" photo pages glued in. Clem Labine's fingers demonstrated how to grip the curve ball, Jackie Robinson demonstrated how to bunt and steal, and the Duke showed how to play the outfield and hit. Carl Erskine showed the windup and the fastball grip, Labine the stretch, Gil Hodges how to play first, and Roy Campanella demonstrated the "tools of ignorance" behind the plate. Pee Wee Reese covered the art of the double-play. I think the third-baseman may also have been in there, but I'm drawing a total blank on his identity. By the time my dad picked this up (probably on closeout), it was a couple of years later (maybe 1959?), the Dodgers had moved to Chavez Ravine, Campy was disabled and out of baseball, and Robinson had retired. Still I played that instruction record dozens of times, and practiced the windups and the swing hundreds if not thousands of times in front of the mirror, so there's a little bit of Dodger blue and Ebbetts Field in me as well. But only a little :-) Chris