Two nights ago, I watched the Phillies trounce the Dodgers, 11-0. What a colossal drubbing! HDTV let me appreciate Cliff Lee's southpaw masterpiece in exquisite detail. But for me the most memorable moment of the evening wasn't Lee's artistry or 270-pound Ryan Howard's mad-dash triple to right. Instead, it was the discovery that the Phillies' lanky, awkward-but-effective scraggly-bearded right fielder Jayson Werth sports a noteworthy baseball pedigree His grandfather was Dicky Schofield, a good-field no-hit infielder from the 1950s -- from the days of my golden youth. Holy jumping jiminy! I saw this young feller's grampa play!
Youch! More evidence, as if more were needed, of my long-in-the-toothedness.
Why should I be surprised? I went to my first baseball game in 1946; (At Ebbets Field -- Cardinals 3, Dodgers 1.) Before there was TV. I've been attending to the game for 63 years. Close to three generations.
I've grown accustomed to father-son combos. Bobby and Barry; the Griffeys (who once played together in the same outfield; Felipe and Moises; huge Cecil Fielder and his even more enormous son, Prince; the Hundleys, the Stottlemyres, and many, many others. Sometimes I can be watching a game and suddenly lose track of time. Eric Young, Jr. looks and runs so exactly like his father that it's easy to fall into flashback mode. I remember watching a game in which Pedro Borbon came in to relieve. Holy moly, I said to myself -- he's a right-handed pitcher. Why the heck is he throwing with his left hand? Then after a few seconds of complete bafflement it came to me: Pedro Borbon, Jr. I had simply lost twenty-five years -- a phenomenon to which your "mature" brain is occasionally and increasingly prone.
Jayson Werth isn't even the sole grandson. Aaron Boone's father was the catcher (and manager) Bob Boone and his grandfather was the Cleveland infielder Ray Boone, whom I also saw play, but only on the TV. And then there's the Bell family: grandsons David and Mike, father Buddy, and grandfather Gus, a big hitter with Cincinnati during the Dicky Schofield years.
So here's the question. Will I hang around long enough to watch the great-grandsons play?. Is Jayson Werth married? Does he have any kids? Are there any budding Boones or baby Bells waiting at the horizon?
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