Bob's Blog

There is one thing I ask for, first and foremost, in any movie about baseball. I want the actors playing the game to look like they know what they’re doing.

There’s nothing worse than a baseball movie in which the main characters look like they have never thrown a baseball.

One of the movies I have seen this summer is the re-make of The Bad News Bears. Now, I’m not sure a re-make was necessary; the original movie starring Walter Matthau and Tatum O’Neal was good enough for me. The newer version starred Billy Bob Thornton, who reprised Matthau’s role as Buttermaker, the coach of the band of talentless kids.

Thornton: Good actor, lousy thrower. In the movie, he is referred to as a someone who got a cup of coffee in the major leagues as a pitcher. So, you’d think he would like good when throwing the baseball. He didn’t. He had bad form.

Worse, the movie thumbed its nose at the most simple baseball rule _ a batting order is a batting order, it can’t be changed. Yet for dramatic affect late in the movie, the Bad News Bears’ batting order was altered. This just doesn’t happen, at any level.

There is a reason Kevin Costner has been involved in so many great baseball movies _ he looks like a player and, most important, he throws like a player. Costner was the real deal in Field of Dreams and Bull Durham. Watching those movies, you believed he was a baseball player.

I’m all for baseball movies. Some of my favorite movies have involved baseball. All I ask is that directors get it right. If a supposed major league player throws like a little old lady, you’ve lost me. And you don’t want to lose me.

My five favorite baseball movies:

1) Field of Dreams
2) Bull Durham
3) The Natural
4) 61
5) Pride of the Yankees

Been a while. You know the drill _ I’m on vacation. My brain shuts down when I’m on vacation. I can barely open my eyelids, that’s how brain dead I become. But I need to pay some attention to this blog or run the risk of losing faithful readership.

OK, I have this dream. It’s recurring. Probably two or three times a year, I wake up in the morning thinking I’m going to high school. Really. Truly.

I haven’t been to high school in more than 30 years, but this dream is as real as the gray in my hair. I’m up, sitting on the bed, and thinking about first hour. Swear. It’s weird.

It probably takes 15 to 20 seconds to come to the realization that I’m an aging man who would be strip searched if I ever tried to set foot inside a high school. And inevitably, when I am shaken to my senses, there is profound disappointment.

It’s really exciting to feel like I’m in high school again. I feel young . There is great anticipation about what is ahead of me in the day. How I’ll meet up with the guys in the hallways when I get to school. How I’ll flirt with the girls. How I’ll annoy the teachers and, ultimately, do poorly on most of my tests.

All of these things run through my head in that short amount of time when I feel as if I’m back in high school.

Do you have dreams like this? This is easily the strangest I have. I don’t often remember dreams, but this one is different. It feels so real.

Let me know. I’m sure the blog readers would love to read about weird dreams.

Good talking with you again.

No, not really. My buddy Steve Harper used to get me out to fish occasionally, but since he passed away in 2000 (I miss you, Steve) I haven’t been back.

Anyway, I’m on vacation. I’m sure those of you who look for my sports column in The Eagle first thing every day (right) have noticed. Don’t fret, I will return.

Vacations are great but they don’t happen nearly enough. I don’t really have any plans for my vacation. Some golf. Some movies. Some cleaning up around the house. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m not going to clean up around the house.

You know, I wouldn’t mind some suggestions from those of you who are paying attention to this blog as to some things I should do during my vacation. I vow to actually do two or three of them and report back on my experience. Be creative but realistic. Climbing Mount Everest is probably not going to happen. And make your suggestions as local as possible. I would like to stay around Wichita and the immediate area, because _ HAVE YOU SEEN THE PRICE OF GASOLINE!?!?!?! Holy moly (not my first choice, but this is a family blog).

I pust $10 worth of gas in my car today and it barely made the needle on the gauge move. It now costs me well over $30 to fill my tank. Yet it doesn’t seem to me people are cutting back. I look at the streets and there as many automobiles as ever, most of them with just one person inside _ the driver.

Where does gas have to go to get people to take notice?  It has to be close. And what can we do? This is an essential; it’s not like we can stop buying the stuff.

I admit, I’m as guilty as most. I most often am alone in my car. I should car pool. Now see, I’m just saying that. As of right now, I really have no intentions of car pooling. I just said it to make myself feel like I was really concerned, which I am. Just not enough to car pool. Maybe someday. If gas gets to $3 per gallon, I might ride a bicycle to work.

Anyway, send along those vacation ideas. I’m eager to get them. And don’t forget, Dennis Rader goes away forever and ever tomorrow. See ya Dennis.

My 10 favorite vacations:

Houston, 1965 _ Rode the train with my father to see the St. Louis Cardinals play the Houston Astros in the Astrodome. It was magical.

Boston, early 1990s _ A great trip to New England. Didn’t have to rent a car, mostly walked through the city.

Los Angeles/San Diego, 1984 _ Took the entire clan in a van. Drove to Flagstaff, Ariz., the first day. That van konked out about a week after we returned to Wichita.

Winter Haven, Fla., 1998 _ This was a baseball trip. I coached my son’s team, the Cyclones, and we played in a national tournament.

New Orleans, 1990 _ Again, tagged along with my kid when he played in a Biddy Basketball All-Star game. He was 8, but quite a terror on Bourbon Street.

San Diego/Los Angeles, 1999-2000 _ First, covered the Holiday Bowl in San Diego on Dec. 29. Two nights later, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, saw the Eagles bring in the new millenium along with Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Brown. My son was along on this one, too.

Orlando, Fla., a few times _ Was there for work, covering spring training, for several years. But work has a strange way of occasionally turning into pleasure. Just don’t let my bosses know.

Steamboat Springs, Colo., twice _ Both times for baseball tournaments. Yes, without my son’s expolits I would have no life.

Las Vegas, four times _ And never with my son (wink).

Charlotte-Raleigh, N.C. _ This was around 1991, I believe, when Don Henley was on a summer tour. Saw him one night in Raleigh; the next in Charlotte.

Like I said, I’m Bob in the newspaper. I’m Bob on radio. I’m Bob on the streets. Well, actually, my street name is Hector. But in this blog (or should it be on this blog?) I’m Robert. And I want to thank the two people who have responded to the new me with the kindness and acceptance that goes with this venture.

On a side note, a week ago I asked a trivia question: Who were the four St. Louis Cardinals infielders who started for the National League in the 1964 All-Star Game? A few people have guessed, but nobody has been right. The answer: First baseman Bill White; second baseman Julian Javier, shortstop Dick Groat, third baseman Ken Boyer.

The Cardinals have been near and dear to me since 1963, Stan Musial’s final season. OK, that must mean I’m old. Perhaps even ancient. Pretty much. But what a life I have lived. I’ve done all but about 4,329 of the things I wanted to do. But there is still plenty of time.

What is some of the unfinished business in my life? Glad you asked. I would like to write a book. I would like to travel to Europe, New Zealand, Australia and British Columbia. I still haven’t been to several states: Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Michigan, Maine and New Hampshire.

I would like to do baseball play-by-play broadcasting. I would like for the Cardinals to win another World Series before I die. I would like for someone to make me understand the popularity of soccer. I would like to talk to a family member of Charles Nelson Reilly, just to find out what he was really like.

I want to take a cruise to Alaska. I want to cash a winning lottery ticket, even if it’s for $2. I want to make a hole-in-one. I want to see the Eagles, my favorite group, make a new CD instead of constantly cashing in on their song catelog.

I want to win a Pulitzer (fat chance). I want my son to be twice the sportswriter I am (fat chance). I want the best column of my life to be in my future. I’m not going to go quietly.

There are grown men at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium who would step over the carcasses of their relatives to retrieve a foul ball.

I know. I’ve seen them. They normally wear blue jeans with a big belt. And they have on a hat _ always a hat. One that looks as if it was picked up in a 1978 garage sale somewhere. Their faces are usually leathery. Teeth? All but four or five.

As far as I’m concerned, it should be illegal for anyone over the age of 18 _ make that 16 _ nah, 14 _ to grab a foul ball unless it is hit directly at them and they catch it without the aid of a glove. Then they can keep the ball without potential jail time.

The men I’m talking about, the men who make fools of themselves on a nightly basis, are in no short supply during the NBC World Series. Some have been seen seen shoving kids aside _ sometimes it’s not subtle _ to get to the foul balls. Tuesday, I saw a guy running so hard down some steps in the beer garden while chasing a foul ball that he fell. Undeterred, he got up and ran in a sprint toward the baseball. Pathetic.

Another man leaned over the chain-link fence along the first-base side of the stadium, reaching for a baseball that he finally was able to corral. But not before he had fallen over the fence and briefly on to the playing field in foul territory. Of course, he made a fool of himself. But oblivion can be a wonderful thing.

I’m told there is a man who comes to pre-game batting practice before most Wichita Wranglers games and parks himself outside of the stadium, waiting for balls that leave the park. The Wranglers don’t particularly enjoy losing their batting-practice balls, so they have started to place a part-time employee in the same spot. It’s a sight to see the two of them racing for a $3 baseball.

Foul balls are for kids. Not for leather-faced adult men wearing tank tops and smelly hats from the Seventies.