Teach
08-31-2017, 09:20 AM
Sorry, one more baseball story. I'll post my picks, later.
“The Autograph That Got Away”
He had almost died the previous summer – in fat, nearly one year to the day. Yet, when I met him in the Catskills that following, August, 1968, he appeared in good health and in excellent spirits.
At the time, I had been teaching history on Long Island in a New York City bedroom-community. The man I’m speaking of was a Boston Red Sox outfielder. He was tall and handsome like a Greek Adonis (the love of his life was a cousin of Atlanta Braves outfielder, Nick Markakis).
During that summer of 1968, I was reading the travel section of the NYT when I spotted an ad for a singles week in mid-to-late August at a Catskills resort called Grossinger’s. I had heard of Grossinger’s, but I didn’t know too much about the Catskills, save for the handful of times I ventured up route #17 to Monticello Raceway.
Well, as a then 25-year old (this player’s number) soon to be 26 year-old bachelor (my mother would say: “It’s getting late!”), I decided to venture one-hundred miles north of “The Big Apple” to “The Mountains”.
When I arrived at Grossinger’s that Sunday afternoon I couldn’t believe the number of woman who had assembled there. It was like “Sadie Hawkins Day” in Al Capp’s “Lil Abner”. These “fillies” came with racks and racks of clothing. They were, as they say, “pulling out all the stops”.
Well, about a day or two after I had arrived, I was sitting by the outdoor pool looking over “the fillies” (no this isn’t Fasig-Tipton) when an announcement came out over the PA system: “Red Sox outfielder, Tony Conigliaro, is warming up with his catcher at the ballfield” (it was practically right next to the pool).
As a sidebar, word had come out that Tony C. was looking to make a comeback as a pitcher.
I hurriedly rushed over to the ballfield. There he was, the youngest American Leaguer to hit 100 home runs (Mel Ott did it in the “Senior Circuit”). “Conig” looked great, a far cry from the gruesome picture of a year earlier that showed a “shiner” as big as an eggplant.
As I recall, just before Tony C. started warming up, I introduced myself. I told “Conig” that I was from Boston’s the Dorchester-Mattapan section. Tony appeared to relate to that. He was born in nearby Revere (we Bostonians pronounce it “ri-vee-ah”) just north of Boston (think Suffolk Downs on the Boston-Revere line). “Conig” had grown up in Lynn, MA, just a handful of miles north of Boston.
Well, I, among others, watched Tony C. throw to his “designated” catcher. He was “bringin’ it” (he had a very good arm as an outfielder). I’d put it in the 85-90 mph range. What we used to call “heat”. Or, as my college roommate would say: “asper-reen” tablets.
After, he was finished. He tossed me the baseball he had been using. Gosh-darn. Tarnation. Stupid me. Instead of having him sign it, I flipped the ball back to him.
That August, 1968 at Grossinger’s was the only time I’d see “Conig” in person. (I’d subsequently see him in right-field at Fenway Park and on TV several times).
Y
es, Tony C. would make a comeback and, I might add, do incredibly well; yet that Steve Hamilton fastball did serious damage to Conigliaro’s retina. It’s a credit to him that he did so well in his comeback.
In the years after baseball, Tony appeared on TV, places like Providence and San Francisco). He had just had an interview for a Boston job when he suffered a heart attack in, of all places, one of the Boston tunnels under Boston Harbor.
Sadly, Tony C. would later suffer a stroke; he would exist in a vegetative state for some eight years before dying in 1990 at the age of 45.
As a postscript, I was terribly saddened when I learned of Conigliaro’s passing. I believe he had Cooperstown written all over him. From a personal standpoint, it was: “The Autograph That Got Away”.
“The Autograph That Got Away”
He had almost died the previous summer – in fat, nearly one year to the day. Yet, when I met him in the Catskills that following, August, 1968, he appeared in good health and in excellent spirits.
At the time, I had been teaching history on Long Island in a New York City bedroom-community. The man I’m speaking of was a Boston Red Sox outfielder. He was tall and handsome like a Greek Adonis (the love of his life was a cousin of Atlanta Braves outfielder, Nick Markakis).
During that summer of 1968, I was reading the travel section of the NYT when I spotted an ad for a singles week in mid-to-late August at a Catskills resort called Grossinger’s. I had heard of Grossinger’s, but I didn’t know too much about the Catskills, save for the handful of times I ventured up route #17 to Monticello Raceway.
Well, as a then 25-year old (this player’s number) soon to be 26 year-old bachelor (my mother would say: “It’s getting late!”), I decided to venture one-hundred miles north of “The Big Apple” to “The Mountains”.
When I arrived at Grossinger’s that Sunday afternoon I couldn’t believe the number of woman who had assembled there. It was like “Sadie Hawkins Day” in Al Capp’s “Lil Abner”. These “fillies” came with racks and racks of clothing. They were, as they say, “pulling out all the stops”.
Well, about a day or two after I had arrived, I was sitting by the outdoor pool looking over “the fillies” (no this isn’t Fasig-Tipton) when an announcement came out over the PA system: “Red Sox outfielder, Tony Conigliaro, is warming up with his catcher at the ballfield” (it was practically right next to the pool).
As a sidebar, word had come out that Tony C. was looking to make a comeback as a pitcher.
I hurriedly rushed over to the ballfield. There he was, the youngest American Leaguer to hit 100 home runs (Mel Ott did it in the “Senior Circuit”). “Conig” looked great, a far cry from the gruesome picture of a year earlier that showed a “shiner” as big as an eggplant.
As I recall, just before Tony C. started warming up, I introduced myself. I told “Conig” that I was from Boston’s the Dorchester-Mattapan section. Tony appeared to relate to that. He was born in nearby Revere (we Bostonians pronounce it “ri-vee-ah”) just north of Boston (think Suffolk Downs on the Boston-Revere line). “Conig” had grown up in Lynn, MA, just a handful of miles north of Boston.
Well, I, among others, watched Tony C. throw to his “designated” catcher. He was “bringin’ it” (he had a very good arm as an outfielder). I’d put it in the 85-90 mph range. What we used to call “heat”. Or, as my college roommate would say: “asper-reen” tablets.
After, he was finished. He tossed me the baseball he had been using. Gosh-darn. Tarnation. Stupid me. Instead of having him sign it, I flipped the ball back to him.
That August, 1968 at Grossinger’s was the only time I’d see “Conig” in person. (I’d subsequently see him in right-field at Fenway Park and on TV several times).
Y
es, Tony C. would make a comeback and, I might add, do incredibly well; yet that Steve Hamilton fastball did serious damage to Conigliaro’s retina. It’s a credit to him that he did so well in his comeback.
In the years after baseball, Tony appeared on TV, places like Providence and San Francisco). He had just had an interview for a Boston job when he suffered a heart attack in, of all places, one of the Boston tunnels under Boston Harbor.
Sadly, Tony C. would later suffer a stroke; he would exist in a vegetative state for some eight years before dying in 1990 at the age of 45.
As a postscript, I was terribly saddened when I learned of Conigliaro’s passing. I believe he had Cooperstown written all over him. From a personal standpoint, it was: “The Autograph That Got Away”.