So, earlier this week the Albany Herald ran an article about early voting for the Georgia Republican primary. It ran photos of four candidates: Mitt Gingrich, Newt Romney, Rick (“Belongs In A”) Sanitorium, and, um . . . Barack Obama (?). Huh? No Ron Paul?

Yes, we have no Ron Paul.

I had half a mind to call the Herald, but I already knew how the conversation would go:

Them: “Albany Herald.”

Me: “Is Harold there?”

Them: “This is the Herald.”

Me: “So, Harold, why did you leave out a picture of Ron Paul in your article about the Republican primary? You managed to include everyone else, and even throw in Obama.”

Them: “Oh, that. It was an honest mistake.”

Me: “Ah, yes. An honest mistake that just happened to exclude Ron Paul.”

Them: "As Rick Perry would say: 'Oops.' ”

And that would be that. So I didn’t bother calling.

And of course the “honest mistake” line would be a lie. I’m not that stupid.

Mistakes like that don’t just happen. Someone made it happen.

Even my high school newspaper never made that kind of a screw up, even when I tried to screw things up. Twice during my senior year I tried to slip something in, and both times the mistake police (or rather, prank police) caught me right before going to press.

This was when we literally cut-and-pasted the pages together. Think X-ACTO knives, glass cutting boards, and paste.

Once, a photo of me pitching was on the back page of the paper. I found a stray jet-black scrap that looked like a huge mustache and pasted it onto my 17-year-old mug. Then I crossed my fingers and hoped no one would notice. This was a big mustache. Bigger than Cesar Geronimo’s in 1982:

Unfortunately, a diligent editor spotted the 'stache, and my lame prank attempt was foiled.

I tried again a few weeks later. And this time, there was no way I would be caught. Buried inside the paper was a listing of all the seniors and what they planned to do after high school. A typical listing was something like, "Susie Smith, University of Oregon."

In Portland, there is a Cleveland High School (I went to Wilson High School). Back in the day, their nickname was the Indians. Also, our sports teams played at the AAA high-school level. So . . .

I found one scrap that said "Cleveland Indians" and one that said "AAA," and by the time I was done, my post-high-school plans said, "Tom Kowitz, Cleveland Indians AAA."

Like I said, there was no way I could get caught. The list had nearly 500 names, in maybe 7-point type. This was going to be awesome.

Except some freakazoid of an editor, a high-school kid with no sense of humor and no soul, caught it.

And I'm to believe that somehow the editors at the Albany Herald can't catch a huge and obvious mistake on page one above the fold?

Ain't buyin' it.

February 7, 2012

You'll find plenty of awful news all over the place, including elsewhere on this web site. But this Baldy's Bombast isn't about the police state / surveillance state or the inevitable financial catastrophe.

This is about baseball.

Why baseball? Because I need to take a time out from tyranny, and baseball is one of the better ways to clear one's head. If you don't care for baseball, try the Baldy's Bombast page for previous posts.

So, anyway . . .

I was four years old in the summer of 1965, six weeks from starting kindergarten. My parents loaded our old station wagon with themselves and their six kids, and we hit the highway, from Portland to L.A., almost a thousand miles away.

Anaheim, actually. Disneyland.

The only thing I remember about Disneyland was riding the Matterhorn. Who puts a four-year-old on the Matterhorn? To this day, riding the Matterhorn was the scariest event of my life. Seriously. Hey, I was four.

Some time during that trip, we went to Dodger Stadium to catch a game between the Astros and the Dodgers. I remember a few snippets, like where we sat. I don't remember anything about the game, but my dad told me years ago that Sandy Koufax pitched for the Dodgers that day. That was cool, but I never really gave it another thought.

Until . . .

Until, through the miracle of the Internet, I found that game's box score and play-by-play. And I discovered that what happened that day, July 20, 1965, was rarer than what happened on that same date four years later. After all, there were several subsequent Apollo missions, but what happened at Dodger Stadium that day might well have never happened since, and certainly will never happen from here on.

The score was 2-2 with two out in the bottom of the ninth, bases empty. The Astros pitcher was Ron Taylor, who was on in relief of Mike Cuellar. Cuellar, of course, would go on to win the Cy Young Award with Baltimore four years later.

Other players of note that game for the Astros were Rusty Staub, Jim "The Toy Cannon" Wynn, and Joe Morgan, who finished second in Rookie of the Year balloting that season and went on to a Hall of Fame career. By the way, Wynn stole 43 bases in 47 attempts that season. Rickey Henderson never had that high of a success rate. Neither did Lou Brock, Willie Wilson, Vince Coleman, Maury Wills or Tim Raines (except one year when he was 13-for-13).

Notable Dodgers were Maury Wills, Wes Parker ("The Rifleman"), and Jim Lefebvre (that season's Rookie of the Year and future big-league manager).

So, back to the game.

Taylor walked Jim Gilliam. Then he walked Lefebvre. Koufax was due up. Remember, the score was 2-2 in the bottom of the ninth.

Now, Koufax was a lousy hitter, even for a pitcher. One of the worst things you can say about a player is that he could not hit his weight. In his career, Koufax didn't hit even half his weight. He tipped the scales at 210 pounds and hit .097 lifetime. Oh-ninety-seven.

In his first three at-bats this game, Koufax had struck out once and grounded into two double plays. Certainly, manager Walter Alston would send in a pinch-hitter. Alston knew a thing or two about baseball. He won four World Series and was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a manager in 1983. Alston would definitely send in a pinch-hitter.

But he didn't.

He let Koufax hit. Koufax was, after all, in the midst of perhaps the most dominant four-year run a pitcher has ever had in this galaxy, if not the universe. But still. The Dodgers were playing for keeps. They had won six in a row and were in first place by two and a half games over the Reds, with whom they had been tied just three days earlier. Plus, Koufax threw left and batted right, which meant his pitching arm was exposed during every at-bat.

Earth to Alston: You just don't have Koufax hit here.

But he did.

And that's the thing we'll never see again. No way, no how, no chance will we ever see an anemic-hitting starting pitcher bat for himself with two out in the bottom of the ninth, score tied, winning run on second. Never ever ever.

But I saw it through my four-year-old eyes.

Koufax singled to left, scoring Lefebvre. Dodgers win, 3-2.