In the Mississippi section #8 Morris alludes to Twain's ambition from an earlier time on the other side of the Mississippi of being a steamboat pilot. His equivalent is the ambition of being a major league baseball player. I enjoy this section as he talks about what I call the radio baseball culture of the small town South. Like Willie Morris, I grew up listening to big league baseball on the radio, this before wall-to-wall sports like we have now with ESPN.
We boys of the 1960's lived to play baseball in the summer. In Alabama we listened to the Cardinals on KMOX out of St. Louis and later we listened to the Houston Colt 45's (before they became the Astros).
We watched the MLB Game of the Week with Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese. We knew about the Yankees and Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays. It was all exotic and far away we never dreamed of seeing a major league game until the Braves came to Atlanta in 1966.
I can relate to Willie Morris's baseball fantasies.
1 comment:
Never knew Houston was the Colt 45's. I like that name.
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