Hark, the unheralded Angels make their only 2024 visit to Fenway Park this weekend – games against the Red Sox on Friday, Saturday and Sunday come very early this time around for some reason we don’t quite understand. It’s such a great summer road trip to take otherwise.
This is also a missed opportunity.
Had the Angels been allowed to stay just one more day, they’d have landed a rare trifecta — an April 15 appearance that would a) celebrate Jackie Robinson Day, b) celebrate Patriots’ Day (as the city shuts down for the Boston Marathon) and c) celebrated the dreaded 2024 Tax Day, with perhaps some planned tea party re-enactments in Boston Harbor.
The Angels struggled against the Red Sox at Angel Stadium last weekend, losing two of three to mark their home-opening series. Their return to Boston this time will be without their not-so-secret weapon, Shohei Ohtani.
Back on Day 7 of this series, we dialed into the call-up that Fr. Burke Masters once experienced. As a college player at Mississippi State, he thought someday he’d be in the minor leagues and get that summons for MLB duty. Instead, he experienced something that we’d like to consider a higher calling.
All in all, getting the call up to the big leagues — whether it’s winning a spot in spring training or sent up to fill in during the season — will never be a dull deal. It can be awe inspiring.
Zak Ford, a lifelong San Francisco Giants fan, chapter leader with the Society for American Baseball Research and on the advisory committee of the Pacific Coast League Historical Society, took up the task of sending out dozens of requests to former MLB players to ask about the emotions they felt, the circumstances they encountered, and the staying power they experienced when that event happened.
Before going forward, play this in the background and enjoy the tribute:
Now, we look back at history.
The reviews in 90 feet or less
So where were you when Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home-run record on April 8, 1974?
I was sitting in the third-base dugout of my Hawthorne American Pony League Dodgers’ team (and we wore green and white for some reason). It’s about 6 o’clock and the sun is in our eyes as usual. Lots of squinting to see what was going on in front of us. Amidst the glare, everyone on my team — and around the park — knew the Dodgers were in Atlanta playing the Braves. A few of our parents brought their transistor radios with them, listing to Vin Scully’s call. It was also a nationally televised game on NBC, with Curt Gowdy doing it. But we had Vin.
At this exact moment 50 years ago (April 8, 1974, 9:07 pm ET), Hank Aaron made history. pic.twitter.com/IPCM7H3QFQ
There was a buzz was in the stands as Aaron hit his 715th homer in the fourth inning off the Dodgers’ Al Downing.
I knew I was going to the Dodgers-Braves game at Dodger Stadium a few weeks later. The Dodgers gave away a special poster commemorating the feat. On May 17, 1974, it was “Hank Aaron Poster Day” at Dodger Stadium — a Friday night, the first trip the Atlanta Braves came to L.A. that season. Downing actually started this game and went the first eight innings in a 5-4 loss to the Braves that went into the 11th inning (as Aaron went 0-for-3 against Downing this time.)
The beauty of this poster is that it was a chart so kids could document Aaron’s home runs in 1974 — and we dutifully logged in the information. We participated. We were invested in recording history.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Aaron’s accomplishment, so many things were going on April 8, 2024.
The Baseball Hall of Fame announced it was erecting a new statue in Aaron’s honor. An MLB Network remembrance narrated by Bob Costas. A new set of U.S. postage stamps for those who still use letters. At a ceremony before the Braves’ game, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced a $100,000 endowment of a scholarship at Tuskegee University, a historically Black university in Aaron’s home state of Alabama.
If you’re in Cleveland, today rocks. While waiting for the start of the Guardians’ home opener against the Chicago White Sox, the ballpark was be filled with thousands staring into space to witness a rare total solar eclipse.
Hopefully, precautions were taken. We did this drill in 2017. Some need reminders.
The Guardians of our baseball galaxy decided to push the start of its game to 5:10 p.m. local time, two hours after this celestial event is celebrated. The eclipse peaked at 3:13 p.m.
Cleveland’s team then blinded the White Sox a few hours later in a 4-0 win.
This kind of event hasn’t happened in Northeast Ohio since 1806, and it isn’t supposed to happen again until 2444, if the planet hasn’t melted. It is cause to pause and consider if former Cleveland first baseman Julio Franco had a career that spanned that long.
Heaven also help us, as Peter Golenbock has come up with another idea to make us wonder if an Iowa cornfield really is heaven on earth.
The stories wedged into our data stream with the non-latest on Shohei Ohtani’s curious plight of paying off someone’s gambling debts — his own, his interpreter, or something else we’ve lost in translation — essentially hits on the same few notes.
Tom Hoffarth's The Drill: More Farther Off the Wall 