Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Young Love, Baseball and the Atomic Bomb

 

Only the classiest U.S. cities have two professional baseball teams. New York has the Yankees and Mets, Chicago the Cubs and the White Sox, and Los Angeles the Dodgers and the Angels. Oh, and Danville, Virginia, too, with the Otterbots and the Dairy Daddies.

 

What? How can that be? Yes, the Dairy Daddies of the Old North State League have started their season in the same arena in Dan Daniel Park used by the Otterbots of the Appalachian League. Both teams are made up of college players during their summer break. You’ll be hard -pressed to find any born I the last century.

 

What’s with these crazy names? Apparently, that’s the trend in minor league baseball now. Baseball is only part of the entertainment at these games. Who needs pricey Major League Baseball?

 

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My elementary school romance came in the third grade, when I fell in love with my teacher. I was really smitten.

Maybe it was mutual. The young Fairmont School teacher told my mother, “I wish I had a little boy just like Mike.” Aww!

I was so enamored that I memorized all of the state flowers for her, and I recited them in front of the superintendent of schools when he visited the class. I’ll bet my classmates were jealous. I couldn’t tell you what those flowers are today. I’ll bet I am even allergic to some of them.

We had a learning project about China. Really, in 1949, after the Communist takeover? That was pushing things. She took us to San Francisco’s Chinatown, and I had a lovely romantic lunch with her (and the other annoying third graders.) I should have bought her flowers, though I was too young to order champagne.

Then the bottom fell out! She got married! Arghh! My true love has forsaken me! Her new name was Mrs. Marston  (I don’t remember her maiden name.)

If the superintendent ever came back to class, I would have just declared to him, “She broke my heart!”

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News reporters are shown in movies and on TV as aggressive, combative people ducking in foxholes in wars. Or working all hours to bring down corrupt politicians. Or risking their lives to find the killer ahead of the police.

But some assignments can be fun and aren’t that hard. Take, for example, my coverage of nuclear explosions. You heard me right!

I experienced underground nuclear tests when I was the AP’s Las Vegas correspondent from 1968 through 1970. Suddenly the memories of U235 and U238 uranium in high school physics came back to me. I could actually explain an atomic bomb blast.

No, I didn’t go underground to report on these tests.  I sat at a bar at the Mint Hotel, the tallest building in Las Vegas at the time. When I felt the room shake, I called the Los Angeles bureau and said, “Release the bulletin. The bomb went off.” Then I would have another drink. The people in L.A. receiving my call were jealous and didn’t appreciate my style of reporting. I never won a Pulitzer Prize for my sterling stories.

Once, a visiting AP reporter from Boston joined me at the bar.  He was in Las Vegas to get a quick divorce. He started writing his own version: “Las Vegas buildings swayed like palm trees in a desert breeze.” Well, they didn’t, and I rejected it.

The last Nevada test was conducted in 1992. They were banned by a treaty in 1996. No more fun!

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Correction: In the column last week about Paco’s restaurant, I said Arrocha’s wife, Maribel Fragas, helps at the restaurant. She is actually co-owner.


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