Good stuff, man. I still have an autographed Bowman card Ken Keltner signed for me. He was a terrific clutch hitter and a fine fielder.
Even in my day, we could walk right up to Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Henry Aaron, and Don Drysdale. They treated us kids with grace. Frank Robinson gave me his bat. I still have it too.
Mostly I don’t recognize today’s baseball.
To get that same feel today you have to go to a minor league park. At many of them, you can sit right next to the bullpen and talk to the players during the game.
Major League ball, and major league players, have become so commercialized and it’s such a business thing that there is little room for the average fan anymore. We are just a collective mass, such as Marlon Byrd salutes the bleachers in Wrigley when he takes the field. We are expected to pay up and show up.