The Summer of 1959

The summer of 1959 marked the beginning of my life. The Cleveland Indians' desperate battle for the pennant, led by the charismatic Rocky Colavito and the enigmatic Tito Francona, shook me awake. At the age of 9, I experienced euphoria and torment, discovering, through a mere game, the full range of human emotions.

Of course, 1959 marked the beginning of, not quite a death, but a long decline for our beloved Tribe. The Indians' failure to win the pennant in the final days of the season sent Frank "Trader" Lane on a quixotic trading spree designed to push Cleveland over the top in 1960. (Not that Lane did anything by design.) The Colavito-for-Kuenn trade may have been the worst in Tribe history. But other deals, like shipping budding star Gordy Coleman to Cincy for aging tippler Johnny Temple, were also disasters. (Coleman's 26 HRs in '61 helped propel Cincy to first place in the N.L.)

But I was hooked. Baseball had brought me to life, just as directly as Dr. Frankenstein's machine jump-started his monster. Before that summer, my memories are mostly vague ones. But I can still recall vivid details of that summer, that pennant race, and the men who fought so hard but fell short in the end. Pitcher Jack Harshman, an aging Baltimore cast-off, winning a key game late in the season with timely hitting as well as gutsy pitching. All of it brought to me by the voices of Jimmy Dudley and Bob Neal, pouring the flow of the game into my ear, pressed against my transistor radio. "Colavito swings, and there it goes! That ball is going, going--it's gone, for a home run!" Dudley's signature home run call, sweet music to my ears.

So, while my date of birth says I am 58 years old, my conscious life age is 49. Many times I have tried to break baseball's grip on my life. Impossible. I remember my grandmother Dowding, in her nineties, leaning into the radio,listening to the Tribe, praying to her god for one more pennant. She died at 99 without one. (Pennant, not a god.) With any luck (I don't have a god except baseball), I will only have to wait until October to see another Tribe pennant fluttering in the breeze. Don't laugh. They were awfully close last year, a year very much like 1959. With no Trader Lane around to sell off our heroes, I think we'll be OK this year.