SJ’s teenage Japanese nephew, Taku, whose home is in Tokyo, has been visiting with SJ and family. Taku wanted to see an American baseball game and so it was off to the Yankee Stadium. Things looked grim for the Yanks that day but in the later innings, Ichiro Suzuki, the Japanese star, made an appearance. Ichiro, in the ninth, got a hit. Harassed the opposing pitcher with threats of a stolen base and then scored the winning run for the Yanks. Taku was overjoyed. This pleasure was topped the following day when Taku went fishing in Long Island Sound off New Rochelle. Caught a lot of porgys. (An earlier PEI fishing expedition was disappointing — hefty currents kept the mackerel from biting and not one fish was pulled from the choppy waters). This all brought back memories to HG. One happy year (probably 1939 or 1940), HG went fishing off City Island (HG’s first fishing experience) and caught three fish. HG also went to Yankee Stadium that year to see the Detroit Tigers play the Yanks. HG’s hero, the Jewish home run hitter, Hank Greenberg, starred for Detroit. Hank hit a homer that day. Memorable. This was one of the few days in which HG was disloyal to the Yankees. As part of their community relations program, the Yanks took a Bronx elementary school to a game once a season. HG munched peanuts (free) and gloried in the heroics of the Yanks of that golden age (DiMaggio, Henrich, Gordon Crosetti, Rolfe, Ruffing, Gehrig etc.). In maturity, HG has lost pleasure in watching baseball and has transferred fandom to the NBA.
Thanks for this piece. FWIW (0?), I was football teammates with Glenn Greenberg, and baseball mates with Steve Greenberg (1967), and Steve introduced me to his dad. A thrill for me.
I thought Kinky Friedman was the only Jew in Texas. And, why were these Greenbergs playing ball when they should have been home studying to become doctors or hedge fund managers?
I was teammates with the Greenbergs at Yale. Kinky, on the other hand, was making music in Austin with the Texas Jewboys at that time. So there might have been more in Texas than just he! Glenn Greenberg is, as you wondered, a financial manager (Chieftan Capital), and Steve is a lawyer who played in the Texas Rangers org and who then founded a cable sports network which merged into ESPN. Kinky is still trying to find permanent employment. He’d dearly like to replace Rick Perry, but it just isn’t happening.
My favorite Kinky tune: “They don’t Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore.”
Yet another HG post that sends a quiver of amazement through me at the extraordinary recall of the writer/eater. While I can’t come close to matching this level of recall, I can say that I remember vividly my first fish catch–barely more than a minnow, pulled in at Haines Point, in Wash DC (city of my birth). Thrill beyond all thrills up to that point!
HG remembers with fondness Peter H. surfcasting on the shore of Fire Island.