Croce

 August, 1973. It was just a moment in time, not unlike a million others in a long, eventful life.

My cousin and I walked down the Wildwood boardwalk in the early evening hours. The surf whispered a soft tune in the distance, muted by the jangly carnival sounds of the rides and games.

I used to go down to Aunt Millie's house just about every August for a couple of weeks in those days. I can't remember the exact day or date, or exactly why we were there that particular night. Dominic worked at a poker parlor so I could have been walking him to work. Or we could have been there doing what teenage boys do: girl-watching. Or I suppose we could have simply have been out having fun and eating pizza.

Whatever, there was nothing like hanging out on the Wildwood boardwalk in the heart of summer. Oh, the sounds and smells, and the sheer innocence of being young and healthy, with your whole life ahead of you, dreams laid out before you like a bright field of poppies.

So we walked, taking everything in and enjoying the warm air. The sounds of music could be heard in the distance. At the time, there was a local guy who had two very big hits on the radio. One, released in 1972, was an up-tempo, funny song called "You Don't Mess Around With Jim." Then in March of 1973, the boogie-woogie classic "Leroy Brown" came out, and that was being played just about everywhere.

The author and singer of both tunes, an Italian guy from South Philly, was at the very pinnacle of his career. As musical fans (I was not yet an actual musician; that would come about two year later), we liked both songs and were kinda proud to have "one of our own" achieve such massive success. It was cool.

So down the boards we strolled, happily talking about whatever the hell was on our minds that night.

Suddenly, a family appeared out of the crowd. In an instant, we were face-to-face with them, a young man with a moustache, his young wife, and their two-year-old boy, who really seemed to be loving the experience.

Yep, it was Jim, Ingrid and A.J. Croce.

It's funny how these little memories stay with you for a lifetime. I've never, ever forgotten this one. Croce was happy, nice, smiling, and stoned out of his mind, something that two 15/16-year-old found incredibly entertaining.

I don't think we had much to say to him, but I do remember him being very pleasant and engaging. It was obviously a very positive time in his life, and it was very sweet to see such a nice, happy family just enjoying themselves.

So we went on with our lives from there, just a small moment come and gone like a grain of sand washing back out to sea.

Of course, we had no idea that Jim's clock had almost run out. Just about a month later, on September 20, he perished along with five others when the Beechcraft E18S in which they were flying clipped a pecan tree just beyond the runway in Natchitoches, LA and crashed. The cause was determined to be pilot error. Jim Croce was just 30 years old.

The single "I Got a Name" was released (as previously planned) on September 21, just one day after his death. It went on to become only the third posthumous No. 1 single of the rock era (following Otis Redding's "Dock of the Bay" and Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee."

A week after his death, Ingrid received a letter Jim had mailed while on tour. In it, a weary Croce expressed a desire to quit the music business and take up other pursuits, including movie scripts and short stories, things that wouldn't take him away from his family.

In closing, he wrote: "Remember, it's the first 60 years that count and I've got 30 to go. I love you."

The Story of How Love Alive Came To Be

For you fans of the great Love Alive, I thought it might interest you to know how the whole thing started those many years ago. So let old Nick tell you a story...

My wedding band, Black Tie Orchestra (which included Mr. Hornibrook), had recently disbanded, and I was looking to do something completely different. So I joined an original band -- playing MANDOLIN, no less! I auditioned for the Quixote Project, which featured Jeff Selby as the songwriter and lead singer. They needed a mandolin guy, and there I was. I was not and am not a great mandolin player, but I guess I was at least competent. So off we went.

Well, the drummer for that band was none other than Mr. Oakley! We rehearsed at the Cherry Hill home of the bass player, a now departed fine gentleman known as "Mr. H". H had a literal room full of guitars in his basement, and rehearsing there was kinda like being in a music store with lots of "toys". I used to love picking up the various instruments and fooling around with them! 

H & Co. were noted for CONSTANTLY bringing in people to audition for the band, which was fine by me. Well, one day this girl came in to sing and play some guitar and I thought she was pretty darned amazing. I remember we did Angel From Montgomery that day, and it sounded SOOOOOO good. Yep, that was Lynn King! I'm not sure if I got Lynn's number right then, but though she did NOT join that band, I kept her in my mind. Ya never know! If memory serves, I believe I got her number from Deb Chamberlain, our Black Tie Orchestra vocalist (and my soul sister and friend).

Anyway, after some rehearsing, it became clear that The Quixote Project could use a lead guitarist.

Enter Bill Hornibrook, who I invited to one of the rehearsals. Billy was also looking for something to do, and this was certainly something. We always enjoy playing together, and this was a quality project. Selby wrote some pretty good, folksy songs that had room for harmony and space to play. So play we did.

The band got a bunch of material together, and we began gigging, primarily at La Campagnola, a fine Italian restaurant out in Shamong. Loved it there. Great food. Go there immediately. 

Our biggest, coolest gig came at the famous Tin Angel in Philly. It was a fun night playing at such a cool place! We had a pretty great time, though the entry point in the rear of joint, up a tiny set of tight metal steps, was just awful!

But the band didn't last for various reasons. In the end, it just wasn't a great fit for us older guys (me, Jim and Billy). Selby, although very talented, was a little younger than us and on a different plain. So things kinda fell apart and Selby went hunting for guys that were a better fit for his particular style. Far as I know, he is still out there playing with The Quixote Project and still writing songs. No hard feelings there, and I wish him only the best.

So what next?

Being in the original music frame of mind, I tracked down Lynn King, and me and Billy joined up with her and a drummer and bassist she had been playing with (can't remember their names; I'm sure Lynn would fill in the blank here). The bassist left very shortly thereafter, and I moved back to my main instrument.

We did series of shows doing Lynn's original songs. I remember playing in Manayunk, Audubon, NJ, Fishtown, and at a few other open mic types of things. And of course, we did some gigs right at Lynn's house in Glendora, which was just awesome. I loved it! We got to play with some big-time talent, believe me! But of course, ain't nobody making any real coin playing originals in clubs or anywhere else locally. That is beyond rare.

A quick aside FYI: the band got our name from the Heart song, which was the very first song we ever played together. It sounded great from the very start!

We decided at that point that the best thing to do would be to form a cover band that also played originals. Bring 'em in the doors with the covers, open their minds to the originals, rock on. Unfortunately, though we liked him, the drummer was just not suited to this particular project for various reasons.

Enter Jim Oakley.

Jim is a guy who can pretty much play any style and pick things up quickly. Not only that, but the dude can SING. It was always tough to decide who was gonna get a particular part in a song because both me and Jim sing in basically the same register. I probably took more stuff than him simply because drumming is hard work and bass playing ain't!

I can't be sure, but I think Billy was the guy who got us our first gig at Carolina Blue. None of us were very enamored of working late hours (11 PM being late for us old folks!), and the Sunday 4-8 or 5-9 slots at The Blue were just PERFECT for us all. The people seemed to like us there, and we began to develop a very small following, which was fun. All that grew into their "Sunday Concert Series," which simply did not exist before us (you're welcome, Carolina Blue). 

But in my never-ending quest for greatness (said very tongue-in-cheek, I assure you!), I thought we needed to be more, and I thought I had a pretty good idea of how to do it.

I had met Joe Lam a lot of years before, in the late 1979s and early 1980s. Joey was writing and recording with his friend, Mike Wilson then, and he was also playing bass in a disco band to make bucks. I used to go see him at a club on Route 73, and that boy could funk it up like nobody's business! They had the Fanelli Twins singing lead, and later I would go see the twins and their brother at Harrah's Atrium in Atlantic City when I was working on the Black Whale with Cousin Paulie. They were SOOO good.

Anyway, Joe and Wilson left disco and covers behind and eventually put together a hard rock band, Ivory Tower, along with my friend Mario Flamini, who also happened to be the drummer in Black Tie Orchestra. And boy were they good!! Mario had been a part of the writing/recording thing with Joe and Wilson back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, so I knew of those guys even back then.

Ivory Tower put out an awesome album and was inches from "making it big," but it just never happened for whatever reasons (hint: the music business SUCKS). So Joe, Wilson and Mario moved on with guitarist Dave Aungst and formed the band Buff The Musket (greatest band name ever), and that morphed into Love Revolution when Wilson went off on his own. They made a TERRIFC CD somewhere around 2000, and were once again on the verge of "making it," but the jagoff music business struck again, and it just never happened. What a business we're in!

During the early 2000s, Joey subbed for me (on bass) and Bob Leonetti (on guitar) a few times with Black Tie Orchestra, so I knew he was out and about doing stuff. At this point, which had to be 2007 or 2008 after Love Alive had been playing out for a year or two, I guess, I decided to see if he might be interested in joining us.

As it turns out, Joe had interest -- to my great delight. So we got together to play some stuff, and the rest is history, as it were. Joey is an AMAZING rock singer, a solid guitar player, and a force to be reckoned with. The combination of him and Lynn was just gangbusters from the very start, and the audience responded accordingly. The old hippie following grew, the band got more gigs, and we started to make a little (not much!) money.

The band had some wild and crazy times at The Blue and Riverview Inn (Stan, you are still THE MAN!) mainly, times I will never forget and always cherish. For me, the high point will always be the recording and release of our 2009 CD "Love At 2nd Sight," which I still listen to and enjoy occasionally. It's a really good record, if I do say so myself!

Things went along for many years until in 2017, I just felt like I could no longer keep up the pace. Those three-gig Labor Day weekend things and the pace of the summers was just asking a bit much, and I knew that I was eventually going to make a move out-of-state anyway, which I did in November 2020. 

So I reluctantly said my goodbyes the guys. Luckily, Jim knew George Thompson, a fine bassist, and they were quickly able to replace me and keep on truckin'. COVID put a crimp in everyone's lives, though, and the guys don't get to play out as much as they used to, at least not the full band.

But they are still going strong, still the one of the best bands in South Jersey, and I am happy to still call them friends. I hope I get a chance to sit in with them in the not-too-distant future, if the stars align.

So that's how Love Alive came about. Hope you guys still go out and support them and enjoy the magic they bring to the table at every gig. I am always with them in spirit, believe me.

Nutandyahoo and Other Autocrats

Please do not read my position on Israel as my unlimited and unfettered support for Netanyahu. He is an ignorant, vile, criminal, right-wing autocrat. And like all right-wing autocrats, his FIRST concern is ALWAYS himself. He had clear warning and viable intelligence that something like this was possible. He chose to ignore it for two reasons: 1) Ignorance. 2) Arrogance. 

Like all right-wing autocrats (a certain orange one comes immediately to mind), he believes he is smarter than anyone else, and hence, puts into place a bunch of yes-men and Neanderthals who are like-minded rather than looking for the BEST minds to put into important positions. And guess what the result of that is?

This reminds me of another right-wing dimwit from another era who was given viable intelligence that a possible attack was looming, but who also chose to ignore it for those same two reasons. Does Clinton deserve some blame for 9/11? 

Absolutely! 

But Bush was given all that intelligence PLUS the power to do something about it, and he had nine solid months to do it. He chose to do nothing, and got a hell of a wake-up call while reading children's books in Florida on that morning. The vacant look on his face at the moment spoke volumes. 

Then to make matters way worse, he chose to attack a sovereign nation that he clearly knew had nothing to do with 9/11. He did this (again, as all autocratic, right-wing morons do) because it benefitted HIS wants and needs first. He and the evil one, Dick Cheney, made tremendous profits thanks to that war, and Bush got to live his father's dream of destroying Saddam. 

Did Saddam, another asshole, right-wing autocrat, deserve to get his ass kicked? Hell yes! But our reasons for doing the kicking had nothing whatsoever to do with whatever evils he perpetrated. No. Our reasons were based on one, tiny three-letter word: 

$$$

As in oil and the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned about in his retirement speech. Bush and Cheney are war criminals just as Kissinger was before them. The Middle East has still not recovered from the havoc they wrought upon it.

And then, partially as a result of said attack, the economy cascaded downward into the inevitable crash in 2008. Again, Clinton has to take some responsibility for this, but Bush had eight years to foresee and possibly prevent this disaster. Instead, he again did what all autocrats do: he ignored it because to call it out would have been to cause himself problems at the polls. Obama was handed a major shit-sandwich on inauguration day, and it took him a full eight years to dig the country out of it, which he did.

And that a certain orange stain showed up.

Thanks to COVID, which he made WAY worse by his poor leadership and lies, the economy again was brought to a crashing halt as the supply chains dried up. The Orange One had exactly NO clue how to handle any of this, and things festered along until his rotten ass was mercifully removed from office in 2020. 

Since then, the POTUS has focused most of his energies on rebuilding the manufacturing base here and boosting up the middle class, which has been crushed under 40 years of laughable "Reaganomics," which never worked, never WILL work, and which always and solely benefitted the ultra rich, who spent those 40 years consolidating there wealth. This left us with the largest disparity between rich and poor in the history of the United States, and a huge growth of monopolistic enterprises that have helped destroy competition and have continued to fuel inflation, as greedy conglomerates continue to rake in massive profits while keep prices unnaturally high.

Enough is enough.

If Trump is once again elected POTUS by a bunch of clueless, uninformed, brainwashed numbskulls, he WILL end free elections. He WILL put together a team of sycophants who will SOLEY do his bidding with no regard for right, wrong, or the good of the people. He WILL use the legal system to exact revenge on the people who did not support him.

And we WILL be left with a situation that completely resembles the remnants of the Weimer Republic in Gernany in the late 1930s. And guess what?

It WILL end the same way for us. You can bank on it.

Choking on the Whine

I write this for all the whiny WIP fanboys who will be up early this morning pissing and moaning about how the Phillies choked last night.

You know who you are. You are the 35-year-old wankers who lived in mommy's basement like spoiled brats until the age of about 27, when you finally moved out and got your new yuppy apartment and your meaningless corporate cush job that pays you way too much, where you use a lot of buzzwords to make yourself sound smart in your endless meetings. 

You are the little punks who got your participation trophy at age 12 despite the fact that your crappy little league baseball team went 1-11. That's the last time you played any kind of baseball, let alone the competitive kind where you stand 60'6" from a big, mean, talented SOB who's only goal is to get your skinny butt out even if it means throwing a pitch right down your throat. 

Lesson are learned, my immature friends, when you LOSE. Any moron can win. It's easy to win. Everybody smiles, hoists up glasses, brags, and goes home happy. 

When you lose, you see someone's true character. Do they handle it with grace and thoughtfulness or do they, like you, call out their teammates and whine on the radio like babies for weeks on end?

The Phillies stomped a Marlins team that was simply not ready for prime time (hint: they likely WILL be next year). They then rose up and beat a Braves team they had no business beating, a team that was talented and deep, but whose pitching happened to be thin at the wrong time (just like the Dodgers, amazingly).

They beat the Braves in a pressure-cooker situation in which they played pretty good baseball in a short series. There were cracks in the façade even then, which you would have noticed if you were really paying attention, but I'm sure you were too busy celebrating, name-calling, and pounding your hollow chests. 

So here in the midst of your arrogant reverie come the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team that is well-coached, young, hungry, and on a post season roll, playing well at the perfect time. To opine that the Phillies easily navigated the pressure cooker of the Braves series, but then "choked" against the lesser known Diamondbacks just doesn't make an ounce of sense.

The Phillies got the best of them early, but even in those moments the DBacks were learning where the chinks in the armor were and how to penetrate the fortress.

The Phillies were out-pitched, out-run, out-fielded, and out-hit over the next four of five games. They were solidly beaten by a team that was simply playing better than them. The better team won no matter how you wanna rationalize it. 

Guys like Costellanos and Turner went cold at a bad time, helped along by a Diamondbacks pitching staff that was consistently on point but for a few instances. Harper had several key at-bats where he JUST missed and left balls on the warning track instead of in the seats. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in professional sports, which is why the very best players in the world fail 70% of the time. 

Have YOU ever been in an ill-timed baseball slump, jackals? I'll answer for you: no, you haven't been. 

Well, it's a frustrating, horrible, helpless feeling. The baseball somehow shrinks. The bat you've held in your hands for something like 100 years suddenly feels like a foreign object. Every first pitch is a strike. Every close pitch goes against you. Every pitch they throw you is perfect. You feel like you'll never get another hit. 

There is only one way to get past it: time and extra hitting. Do that and eventually everything will go back to normal again. The bat will once again be your friend. The pitchers will return to their prior status of "human" rather than superhuman. And the world will be right again. 

Unfortunately for Nick and Trea, this absolution will come too late. The series is over, the season is over, and the anguish of a long winter spent wondering what could have been lays ahead like a deep fog just around the bend. 

My message to you idiots is simple: grow up. There are times in life when you lose. You don't have to like it, but you have to accept it and learn from it. Then you have to figure out what steps you need to take to keep it from happening again. 

That's what the Phillies will be doing in the months to come: figuring out what they need to do to prevent this from happening again. They'll be doing this while you guys are on the radio whining like babies, calling Craig Kimbrel names, blaming the manager for the players' performance, and generally embarrassing yourselves. 

The manager is not at fault in this. He wrote the same names down in April as he wrote down in October. There were no magic potions he could have pulled out to stop this. Arizona played good. The Phillies played bad. They lost. It happens. Live with it. 

I was here in '64. I was here in '77 & '78. I was here in '83. I was here in '09. I know the pain and suffering of being a Philadelphia Phillies fan, and yes, I also reveled in those couple of successes we had in 1980 and 2008. But I will wake up tomorrow and still be a Philadelphia Phillies fan. It's what I am, and no amount of disappointment is going to change that simple fact. 

I hope you guys eventually grow up and learn how to lose gracefully. With me, it did come with age. In my youth, I was as big a hothead as anyone, and every loss was like a thorn in the bottom of my foot. But I eventually realized that losing, like death itself, is simply a part of life you need to come to grips with. 

I recommend you learn this lesson sooner rather than later. It will save you a lot of grief. 

As for WIP, I stopped listening to those idiots decades ago. They thrive on motivating the masses to new levels of hysteria to drive ratings and make money. 

Well, I ain't ever helping their cause. My dial is never, ever turned to that channel, and I've begun blocking them on Twitter so u don't even have to read their endless whining and second-guessing.

Who needs it?

The Motivational Power of Trash Talking

Due to the circumstances of the Phillies' victory yesterday, I thought I would tell you a sports story today, one from a long time ago in a place that no longer exists.

This was a time before the internet and before cable TV, at time where we got our news from either the Courier-Post or from Jim Gardner. There were pretty much not other options. It was a time called "the 1980s". It's a story about a softball team, one best-of-five championships series, and it is a tale of motivation by accident.

Before I played hardball for 25 years with the Washington Township Senators, I had a whole 'nuther "life" in sports as the centerfielder for a softball that existed for 15 years. That team was the Avalon Bar/White Lantern Inn/Richie's Tavern/Oaklyn Manor Bar Softball Club.

There were several reasons why I did not continue to play hardball after the age of 18, which was my last year in the now-defunct Garden State Baseball League. First of all, I didn't think I was good enough. I was a late bloomer, and there were only two league in which "men" could play in those days: The Tri-County League and the Rancocas Valley League. These were VERY good leagues with the Tri-County League featuring great player like Pete Conlin, Doug Kepple, Dave Koerner, Danny Barbara and many others. Secondly, these league played 3-4 nights per week with 6 PM start times, and I was a married man working in Philadelphia. There would have been no way for me to make the games, and to spend 3-4 nights PER WEEK not showing up at home until 8:30-9:00 PM was not a hill I was willing to climb.

Softball, however, was thriving in South Jersey in the 1970s and 1980s. There were literally hundreds of teams, there was coverage daily in the Courier, and the standing published in the Sunday paper were massive. It was a virtual cottage industry around here. So with Mike Veneziani, Rick Veneziani, Frank DeNinno, Mike Deninno, Lou Martelli, Mike Carducci, Chubby Carbone, Danny Martelli, Mike Piontkowski, Pat Dunleavy, Joey Martelli, Jimmy DeClemente, Harry Cristino, Charlie Chambers, Dom Albanese, Billy O'Connor, Stan Howard, and probably some others I am forgetting (with apologies), we started a team in 1977 at the Avalon Bar on Van Hook Street in Camden.

We moved from the Avalon after the 1978 season and played one season for the White Lantern Inn on the White Horse Pike in Stratford, but that turned out to be a horrible fit for us city boys, so in 1980, we made some personnel changes and moved to Richie's Tavern at 4th & Viola in Camden, where we won our first championship in 1981, beating Chuck Seibold's Mutual of Omaha team in the finals. People like Lee Abt, Frank Rose, Mike Schilling, Art Watson, Bill Ernst, Eddie Ciemnicki, Bill Banks, Mike Carbone, Joe Dilks

We stayed at Richies for the next couple of years, finally settling at the Oaklyn Manor Bar in about 1983 (memory is fuzzy on this; I'm sure someone will correct me). We won another championship in 1985, taking out Infotron in the finals with an exciting victory in the finals at their field in Cherry Hill after they beat us handily in a game at our Whitman Park, Camden home field.

At this point in our softball "careers," we were getting a bit long in the tooth, and although we added probably the BEST player to ever wear the uniform, Steve Cordner, we moved to a new league in 1986 and got trounced. Didn't even make the playoffs for the first time in the history of the team. It was demoralizing. 

So again in 1987, there were personnel changes. Cordner had enough and moved on (who could blame him?), and some guys who had already come and gone rejoined the team. We moved back to a league that was more manageable for us, and we were once again a very good, if aging, ballclub. We made the playoffs and beat (I think) ICAC of Fairview to reach the finals, which were to be against a very good team, McMichael's Gym of Stratford.

After the ICAC victory, we returned to The Manor (as it was always called) to celebrate. While we were there whooping it up, a guy from one of the other teams happened to stop by. Wish I could remember who it was, but that information is lost in the mists of time.

Well, this guy told us that he had just come from whatever bar the McMichael's guys were hanging at, and he told us they were actually CELEBRATING because we had won the other semi-final series because they knew they were going to crush us in the finals. We were not supposed to hear this, I'm sure they would never have said anything like this to our faces, but the fates allowed it to get back to us anyway, and we were NOT pleased. Not a little bit.

Make no mistake: we were clearly going to be the underdogs in this series. Those guys were big, strong, and mean, and they even played at a bit of a band-box ballpark in Stratford, a place with a very short right field porch were the balls were known to fly out into the neighborhood, which gave them a big edge against our rag-tag bunch of skinny lawyers and geeks. And they would have the home advantage, too. So on paper, this was NOT a very good scenario for us, even though we played our home game at that time on a wide-open field that likely would favor our style of play, which was defense and small-ball.

But as the Atlanta Braves learned this week, it is never wise to poke the bear. The bear gets angry, and he eats you.

So let the snacking begin.

The first game was at their ballpark, and we came out hitting. We had a team meeting and decided to make NO mention of the incident, but to instead let our bats do the talking. We beat them up and down the field by a 20-7 score. This is slow-pitch softball, so there is always a lot of scoring generally, but we were not a team that scored 20 runs all that often. But we did on this day.

Game #2 was at our place, which I believe at this point was at a school in Pine Hill (if memory serves). It was an open field with no fences, which we hoped would negate their power advantage. This wound up being the closest game in the series, and we won by a score of 18-13 (could have been 17-13). We now had them on the ropes.

Nonetheless, I'm sure the McMichael's boys were confident they would bounce back, Game #3 being at their home bandbox park.

Well, not so much.

Our furious bout of offense simply rolled on, and we pounded them by a 22-4 score, taking the best-of-five series 3-0 in a beautiful, surprising, earth-shattering sweep. We were elated, and we celebrated much as you saw the Phillies celebrate against the Braves last evening. That stuff is a LOT of fun!

Of course, this was the last hurrah of the Oaklyn Manor Softball Club. As the next couple of years wore on, the core players began to drift away one by one, we couldn't muster any momentum again, and at the end of the 1991 season, we decided to call it quits. It was the right time.

I wound up playing one more year of softball in 1992, going "professional" for a single season with RPF Transport of Gloucester. I played with some GREAT ballplayers that year (the Cowgill brothers, John Chiodi, Keith Kowalski, Jazz Thornton, Michael Tompkins, Chris Nardone, Darryl Henderson, and others, won a LOT of tournaments, and played in over 125 games. It was grueling, as in addition to twice-weekly night games, we often left early on a Saturday morning and played all day Saturday and all day Sunday in tournaments. I had a lot of fun, finally determined that I could play that game on a big stage with pretty much any level of ballplayer, and achieved some very big numbers. A highlight was when we got up a 4 or 5 AM, had breakfast at The Club Diner, had a practice at Bellmawr in the early morning fog, drove to Mercer County Park for an 8 AM game against a team from Lynn, Massachusetts, and promptly scored 22 runs in the top of the first inning before they even came to bat.

But though it was all fun, nothing could possible top that series with the Manor boys, when a loose tongue from the opposition found its way to our ears, and cause a spark that brought us our final championship together. The Manor teams were legendary for rising above our level of talent to perform at a level that was beyond what should have been possible. Those are the things you can do when you have a team that believes in itself.

Like these Phillies.

The Day I "Met" Ben Affleck

 Quite a thrill to meet Ben Affleck last night.

I was at an upstairs bar with my bandmates in a busy Southern city. Could have been New Orleans, maybe Charleston, possibly Wilmington, NC. The bar was very loud and fun, and we were talking with someone and having a few drinks.

I decided to take a walk downstairs to see what was going on outside.

When I got down there, the street was crowded and bustling with people, and it looked like there was some kind of event imminent, possibly something to do with baseball and Henry Aaron. There was a marching band nearby and hordes of people in a festive mood. It was Mardi Gras-like, I guess.

I walked over to an outside counter-top on which rested an autographed Aaron baseball in some kind of display box. As I got there, I noticed a gentleman leaning on the top of a vehicle nearby. He looked vaguely familiar.

In a few moments, I realized who I thought it was and said "Affleck"?? He looked at me, resigned to the fact that he was recognized, and said simply "yeah".

I replied with "Nice disguise" -- he was wearing a Yankees jacket and hat in the hopes of confusing anyone who recognized him. He is a huge Red Sox fan who would NEVER be caught in Yankees garb.

He smiled at my recognition of his "disguise". I could tell he appreciated the fact that I caught on to it so easily. I invited him to come up and have a drink with us.

"We are up there talking with another actor, his name is...um, I forget." He said "Yeah sure. There are a bunch of them (actors) running around here today." It then hit me who is was.

"Oh it's Daniel Craig, James Bond!"

We went into the club and started walking up the stairs.

Of course, none of this is true. Rather, it was all manufactured by my mind in the late hours of the morning while lying in bed dreaming on a rainy Carolina morning. 

It's amazing the reality and detail that can be conjured up by your mind in the throes of sleep. I have very little interest in Ben Affleck nor Daniel Craig, they never enter my waking mind, and I really have little interest in ever meeting either them, honestly. Yet there they were, stuffed into my subconscious for some odd reason.

Life is comical.

I Hit a Few Homers

 

This is more of a personal post so I won't forget them all, but I would also love it if someday my grandson stumbled upon this site and said to himself, "hey, my Fresepop was a pretty good ballplayer".

I hit no homers when I was a young man. I was a late bloomer, and by the time I matured, I was just about done with baseball. In my very last hardball game,  I almost hit two home runs. But we were playing on an open field at Dudley Grange in Camden, NJ in a Garden State League game against a team from East Camden. Earl Adams was the pitcher, I remember. He was a good one who I had faced in high school ball when he pitched for Woodrow Wilson High School.

I came up in the middle innings with the bases loaded and launched a ball over the leftfielder's head that almost certainty would have been a grand slam had the field been fenced. Instead I settled for a triple and three RBI.

Next at-bat, I launched yet another bomb to left, but by now they were wise to me and had moved WAY back. Again the ball would have certainly have been a home if there was a fence. Instead, my last hardball at-bat for 18 years became a long, loud out.

Starting in 1976, I began playing softball. We had a lot of fun, won a few championships, and I hit a LOT of homers. But when the pitcher is throwing underhanded and slow, it just ain't the same, believe me.

Anyway, I played softball until 1992, and then, at age 36 in 1993, I decided to go back and try my hand at hardball again, joining the West Deptford Athletics. The idea was that me and my boy would both be "learning" to hit together. Tony was just reaching that age where he understood the game, and I thought I could help him more if I was playing myself.

So off I went on a journey that would last some 25 years in the game.

It was a struggle at the start 

Manager Mike Malatesta, a really nice guy, was spotting me here and there in games, and getting back into the swing in hardball was no easy task. Took me a while. 

I hit .231 in that first season, and did not have a homer. But i wound up playing a lot of 1B and some OF as well.  I always had a good glove, and that helps get you on the field. 

In 1994, I was a bit more ready to really play. I got mt first-ever hardball homer off a lefty on the Reds. He threw me a fastball away, and I hit a lazy, deep fly to dead right field. As I rounded first, I saw the ball drop just beyond the red temporary fence just out of the reach of the right-fielder. It was a neat moment.

I got another one later that same year at a night game in Deptford, NJ. It came against a very good righthander on the Moorestown Indians, Tony DiSipio. He made me look bad on a pitch, and I stepped out and had a quick chat with myself to reset.

It worked. 

I crushed the next pitch into the night, a line drive that easily cleared the short centerfield fence at the Almonesson Complex. I had family there, my cousin Cathy and her boys, which made it even neater.

I finished that year at a much more respectable .385, and I was beginning to feel it.

The year 1995 would be my last with the Athletics, and it was a good one.  I hit an even .400, the only time I would reach that number in my career. I also cleared the fences three times, and a fourth time at the All-Star Game. 

One of my favorites came in Trenton against the Giants on a really short Babe Ruth field. 

I take a lot of pitches, and I was having one of my usual long at-bats. After taking a few pitches, I swung and missed at one.  

Well, the centerfielder, a rather talkative black dude, screams for everyone to hear, " Oh, so he CAN swing!" I stepped out and regrouped.

The next pitch was a fastball down, and I sent the baseball and a message to the centerfielder, crushing a line drive over his head and over the short pitch for a homer. But, did that feel good.

The next one came off a great pitcher in a game against the Cinnaminson White Sox in which we were getting crushed. Mike Behrend was a terrific righthander who really knew how to pitch. But we were playing at Union Field in West Deptford, which is a cozy 300 feet all around.

I got a fly ball up in the air to dead center and I got just enough of it to sneak it over the high fence for a dinger. I don't think Behrend was very happy, but hey, he had the last laugh, as they beat the crap out of us. 

With the great year I was having, I was sent to the All-Star Game in Cooperstown, NJ. It was quite a thrill to play the first game at Doubleday Field, but I got just one at-bat there, and I think I struck out. But I played a very good defensive first base, and hence got a start in the next game at Olde Milford Towne Field.

I had a late at-bat against a lefty reliever who was a but of a junk-baller. He threw me a breaking ball down and in, and I just dropped the bat head on it and watched it fly down the left field line. 

And fly. And fly. The ball wound up hitting a house down there, and if it wasn't a 400-foot homer, it had to be damned close. My buddy Frank Rose was there to see it, and he talks about it to this day. It was majestic.

The final homer came in a doubleheader at Pennsauken High School, a field I had played at in high school. I had to catch both games that day. No easy task!

Late in the first contest, I got a ball up in the air to right field and it sailed over the fence, barely. It was very reminiscent of my very first homer, but I felt better because a) I knew I hit this one on the screws and b) I hit it as a catcher, which was cool.

The next year, 1996, we started the legendary Washington Township Senators, a franchise that would last until 2021, a very impressive show v of longevity for a local men's baseball team.

My first of two homers that year came against a hard-throwing righthander on the Downbeach Tigers on a windy day in Ventnor. Oh, and the wind was blowing in. Hard. Off the bay.

It didn't matter. 

This guy threw me a belt-high, straight fastball and I swung as hard as I could and hit the ball as hard as I've ever hit a baseball.  Given that the wind was literally gusting in from left, I still wasn't sure I got enough of it until I saw the back of leftfielder Chuck Urban's jersey as he watched it sail waaaay over the fence for possibly my longest homer. It felt AWESOME.

The late Joe Pavlik greeted me at home plate with a bewildered look on his face and said "How did you do that??" I just shrugged. I didn't have an answer. One of my favorite moments on the ballfield.

My second and final homer of the year came in a ridiculous game in Ocean County, NJ against the Ocean Cardinals, a team that really should have stayed home. We beat them 43-0. With a couple of men on, I smoked a line drive that got over the centerfielder's head and rolled into the asphalt that led to the school far in the distance. By the time they retrieved that baseball, I could have circled the bases twice. But once was enough. Not sure how many homers we had that day, but it was a LOT.

We moved to a wood bat league in 1997, and that was pretty much it for my power game. Baseball is very different game with a wooden bat. Trust me on that one. 

I got my only wood bat homer in the year 2000 at Cherry Hill Babe Ruth Field, another short porch. I was getting a tad long in the tooth at this point, and at age 43, this would be my last season in 25+ ball. I would move up to the 35+ division in 2001.

The Cherry Hill pitcher threw me a fastball, and I got a good swing on it, sending it high into right-center.

My fondest memory of the hit comes from the late Pete Conlin. I heard Pete say "That could leave the yard" as I headed for first base. 

As usual, Pete was right. The ball became my first — and only — wooden bat home run, and last home run I would hit in men's baseball. I played for 17 more season and had many more hits, thrills and championships. But I never hit another home run.

So I managed a total of nine home runs in my baseball career. Every one of them was special. I'll take them with me in my heart wherever life takes me.