Category: Golden Gophers

If we’re to have a stretch of wonderful weather this year it’s going to be from now until sometime into September.  A sci-fi like soggy spring has sometimes put me in a foul mood but the anticipation of summer and activities associated with cheery days has brought relief (I think).  Today I offer details about pleasurable pastimes that have made summers obliterate memories of ugly winters and springs.

For openers, I’ve always been excited about perusing summer newsstands looking for college football magazines.  Who would think a lifelong Gophers fan could find comfort this month looking at magazine covers featuring Iowa’s Mark Weisman or Wisconsin’s Chris Borland? Unexpected therapy to be sure!  But ever since I was a kid the arrival of college football magazines at the local drugstore was an event not to be missed.

Honestly, working my way through 150 magazine pages covering every college program from Arizona to Yale has always been as exciting to me as eyeballing large packages under a Christmas tree.  I can’t even explain the enthusiasm—not even to this day when my passion to read the predictions about the Big Ten and the rest of the country jump-start my adrenaline in anticipation of another college football season.

Unlike the days of my youth, there’s no waiting until August for the magazines to arrive in stores.  I purchased and read a couple of the football annuals a few weeks ago—devouring them both in one night, not only reading predictions but articles on All-Americans, coaches on the hot seat and high school news.

Your average Minnesotan couldn’t even tell you who the likely starters are for the Gophers this fall.  I can plug you in on why Mississippi is one of the hottest programs in the country.  If you can’t talk Ole Miss football, better get down to the drugstore.

The neighborhood pharmacy was where I bought my baseball cards years ago.  I remember going to the drugstore three or four times per week hoping to buy a packet with cards I didn’t already own.  The excitement of finding a Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays was a rush, and so too was popping a slab of ultra sugary bubble gum in my mouth.  Wow.  Sucking up all that flavor was the best 30 seconds of the day.

I still have most of my baseball cards.  Yeah, some were lost and others sort of foolishly destroyed by clipping them between the spokes of my bicycle tires to make noise that for some reason we thought was cool.  But I have an album filled with old cards and even a few in a bank safe deposit box.  To this day I never sort through those cards without enjoying them and the memories associated with the players.

Baseball had much to do with making my summers magical.  I often joined friends on a school playground where we played “Tennis League.”  All we needed were three players, a bat and tennis ball.  The object of the game was to see who could hit the most home runs over a not too distant chain-link fence.  As one ball after another disappeared over the fence, we placed another notch on the brick exterior of the schoolhouse.

If not playing “Tennis League,” I might be in the backyard with a golf driver, tee and wiffleball.  This wasn’t the start of my golf career but instead a fantasy exercise where a ball that travelled over the house was a home run, or a ball that hit high up on the stucco was a double or triple.

At night the Twins were on TV and I also followed other major league games on the radio.  Listening to games from the West Coast had a special appeal.  A game between the Giants and Braves from San Francisco meant you were up late, perhaps later than allowed but it was sweet hearing the midnight action on the radio while crickets chirped outside the house and the warm breeze of a summer night filled my bedroom.

The All-Star Game was never to be missed, not with a chance to see all my heroes in one setting.  There was even a stretch when MLB played two All-Star Games each summer and the parade of stars was another occasion for my Dad and I to argue over who was baseball’s best player.

Dad couldn’t have liked Ted Williams more if Teddy Ballgame had been a relative.  Dad said Teddy was the greatest hitter of all-time and I also know my argumentative father liked the combative demeanor of Williams.  Dad insisted that not only were Williams’ numbers among the best ever but he also never failed to mention that the Boston Red Sox legend missed several seasons to serve his country during World War II and the Korean War.  “He didn’t play for five years when he would have been in his prime years,” Dad said.

I didn’t care.  At the time I had other heroes, but years later my suppressed affection for Williams came bubbling to the top.  It was 1999 and a debilitated Williams was in a wheelchair at Fenway Park for the All-Star game.  Tears came to my eyes, the only time I ever cried over a ballplayer.

You won’t be surprised to know I no longer play “Tennis League” or hit wiffleballs off the exterior of the house.  But summer would never be the same to me without a tennis racquet in hand or a golf club.

The many joys of summer have long included a visit from my buddy Myron.  We started playing tennis together during our college years and although he’s lived in Michigan for decades, many summers we competed on the court.  There’s a trophy that was established years ago as a reward to the winner of our (sometimes) annual rivalry.  Funny how he initiated the trophy just about the time he started defeating me all the time.

Got to give Myron credit, though, for a few years ago coming up with a new trophy to acknowledge our golf rivalry.  That one is mine so far but I would rather not detail how infrequently we’ve played together and how little time Myron has invested in improving his game.

Long ago I recognized Myron was a better athlete than me.  That’s one reason I wanted him on my side when we played two-on-two summer basketball games on campus at the U where there was this small outdoor court with an eight-foot basket at one end and a seven-foot basket at the other.  Those days were the only times I ever dunked, although the best part of my game was jump shots coming off screens set by Myron.  On defense we might win a close game because of Myron’s shot blocking.  I called him the “white Bill Russell.”  I dreamed he might label me a “young Jerry West.”

Didn’t happen.

That’s one of only a handful of disappointing summer memories from an otherwise abundant collection of awesome moments.  Let’s get some sunshine and make memories.