That's a great article. It brings back memories of Gil Hodges, the first baseman for the Dodgers. His house was on my way when I walked to junior high school. I never had the pleasure of meeting him but all of us kids knew where he lived. I had heard that Roy Campanella (the catcher) used to sit on his front stoop and talk baseball with the neighborhood kids.
It certainly was a different world. Baseball (and other games) were actual sports instead of cash cows for rich owners. Televised baseball involved announcers who actually said relevant things. I remember watching Dodger games on TV when Red Barber was the announcer (before he went to the hated Yankees). He wasn't afraid of dead air time and didn't fill up the spaces between plays with meaningless stuff. He would say things like, "Here comes the pitch; strike two." and then remain silent until the next pitch. Today, it's completely different and the only way that I can watch a ball game is to turn off the volume. The announcers say things just for the sake of filling air time and trying to make themselves look knowledgeable. (The same can be said of so-called "newscasters".)
