Far be it from me to keep hammering like a homer on Hammerin’ Hank. But when the not-so-new news reels come calling …
I just got done phoning and/or texted my one and only brother dear, biologically speaking, about needing a new functional phone and/or fire stick, as he is the one techno one in the family.
I never wanted to be that guy who only contacted him if I needed something, but … However this case was memorable, because indeed he messaged me first!
This was back around the time Bob Uecker passed on … God rest his sarcastic soul … and I got that text from THAT guy. No not Bob, from beyond the grave, but about him, from my bro, asking if I remembered seeing this moment that he called a climatic, if only in our minds, homer that came via the bat of Henry Aaron, he of the brave who returned to our beloved Brewers after a longer-ago stint with the Braves, then in Milwaukee not Atlanta. The game was at the old County Stadium, at a quant old time when the team’s main popularity did not really go much farther than the county line on the reels, but when we drove from not far from northern Michigan that summer, it was a winner-take-all slam of grand proportions. And we were there. Sort of.
— But this is Wisconsin, home of Harvey’s Wallbangers, rather than Iowa and Field of Dreams. But at old Athletic northward Park centerfield, in Merrill, it be over 600 feet away from home plate and over a tall rock wall with spire, but in left some slamming a full 700 feet made it over the river too in back, and in either case — as in Wausau where that same river had flowed 20 miles south — a fielder might spin a full circle, on a bat head, before soggilly catching the ball for himself. —
Mother dear wanted to end our attendance early, understandable for 18 reasons below, not stretching past the seventh inning, as our home team trailed. But when Hammerin’ Hank stepped to the plate in an even later inning, there was a certain something in the air, even though we were sensing it from the car driving away, (having made it a short distance.)
At least known in our minds.
His home run was base-clearing and a game-winner for the Brew Crew. And my brother wanted to know if I recalled the moment, via a four-minute radio highlight clip he happened to stumble upon on the internet, then texted to me. Again, not to repeat as he had so many such homers, but it was Uecker who made the (main) call on play-by-play. The clip rolled on at length through the balls and strikes of the at-bat.
I texted Tom back that I vaguely recalled the moment, thinking that I might have seen it on a church youth group trip, but one such Henry home run that stuck moreso in my mind was a line drive that barely cleared the left field wall. I can recall it landed about 60 feet from the foul line that was running parallel from our prime-seat vantage point — unlike the upper tier blasts of today — and was noteworthy because of its low trajectory and still over the fence. Tom quickly texted back that righto, but that might have been from a different end of that particular doubleheader — we those days would usually take in playing two as we traveled from northern Wisconsin — since we were asking mom to sit through a pair of games.
I did ask Tom if this clip was something that was a product of his cutting and snipping of video escapades, as per capturing their recent family European vacation — and yes, oh you Chevy Chase fans, it did indeed include a long visit to Germany. (I was surprised to see that Tom knew punk rock well enough, even if in light form, to include a bit of tuneage of London Calling from The Clash in an early segment on trekking through the UK. Funky music running like Helter Skelter too. And son Matthew dancing for one of just a few specific times, after being pulled from the crowd by a man doing a stunt, and I think he was wearing lederhosen.) Tom said no, he just came across it while streaming.
I earlier chronicled a come-from-way-behind, walk-off grand slam at a recent game called one of the best ever, where we also had left around the end of the eighth inning, this time Matthew’s choice, and again heard the call over the radio, and do we see a trend here?