By Lenny Moon
I’ve always found baseball discussions over the years, particularly on the major level, to serve as a bridge to previous generations of the sport once known as “America’s Pastime”. Being a proud Baby Boomer, the collection of trading cards as a kid was always a highlight each season to compare with the vast accumulation already in your shoe boxes. This of course predated the explosive windfall that would beset that industry down the road (boy if I had a fraction of that collection in contemporary times). Be that as it may, on the verge of the upcoming 2023 Major League Baseball season, I browsed through some of my previously released MLB-related videos and chose to post the links in this baseball edition. Before we dive in, congratulations to the 2022 World Series Champion Houston Astros led by future Hall of Fame skipper Dusty Baker. Perhaps it not ironic that the first two video links are pertaining to the “back in the day” version of Baker as he speaks with Lenny Moon about former teammate Hank Aaron’s lack of respect as an all-time great, as well as the Hammer’s torturous home run chase of Babe Ruth’s then-record (see below).
Following an up and down early career with the Los Angeles Dodgers, hurler Dave Stewart found himself up the coast in Oakland and developed himself into the ace of the Athletics (1986-92) and later the Toronto Blue Jays (1993-94) where he won World Series titles with both franchises. Stewart talked with Lenny Moon about why he felt that there were not more Black pitchers in the modern day game (see below).
We caught up with famed Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vincent Edward “Vin” Skully during our MLB coverage days as he talked about why he felt the southern California team produced so many Rookie-of-the-Year Award winners. Skully served 67 years as the voice of the Dodgers prior to retiring in 2016. On that same video, “Mr October” Reggie Jackson talked with Lenny Moon about being a star in New York and “doing his thing” in fabled Yankee Stadium (see below).
We wrap this segment with a gentleman that created history in 1974 by becoming the first Black manager in the history of Major League Baseball. Hall of Fame slugger Frank Robinson talks with Lenny Moon about his preparation of posturing himself to become the game’s barrier-breaker as the leader of a MLB team (see below).
WITH THE GAME’S RICH HISTORY, THE CALENDAR TELLS US THAT IT’S TIME AGAIN FOR SOUNDING THE ALARM TO “LET’S PLAY BALL”
