I'd Rather Be Frying Bacon

In honor of the Red and White Sox ending their long championship droughts, here's an article my uncle wrote for America Magazine a month or two back. Honestly, this might just top nearly all the ND football stories my family has.

Wait ’til Next Year
By James N. Gelson

The other day I asked a friend of mine, an old-timer and a longtime baseball fan, if he remembered the 1955 World Series. He thought a moment, and said: “Oh, yeah, wasn’t that a Dodger-Yankee series?” “Yes, it was. But 1955 was special. It was the first and only time the Brooklyn Dodgers won the World Series.” And Willard Mullin drew his famous cartoon of the grinning, toothless, unshaven hobo with the caption: “Who’s a bum?”

I asked more. “Do you remember what the crowds looked like at World Series games in those days?” He didn’t understand, so I continued. “I could show you pictures where the only spectators seem to be men in business attire, coat and tie with a black or brown fedora, aged 35 and up. Remember, World Series games in those days were all played in the afternoon.” (I always like to add: “on grass, in the daylight, as God intended.”)

My friend added: “Yes, school was in session; no kids were there and few women.” Right. “Now in ’55 there were four games at the rather large Yankee Stadium, and three at Ebbets Field, where any more than 32,000 were truly shoe-horned into that grand old bandbox on Bedford Avenue. The official attendance for the series was 362,310. How many do you think are still alive?”

My friend mused: “Well, if you had to be a business guy with enough seniority to take off from work, and since that was 50 years ago, there can’t be too many still with us.”

“Yes, that’s what I was thinking. But what really gets me is: How many are alive today who saw, as a paying spectator, in person, at the ballpark, every one of those seven games?” My friend shrugged, and said: “Oh, for every game, and with tickets for a subway series so hard to get, and still living 50 years later, that’s a real, real long shot.”

“That’s what I thought. But I was there. For every game. When Brooklyn finally won a World Series. Bums no longer. And! I wonder if I’m alone now with these memories.” With a bit of a we and wonderment my friend asked: “How did you manage that?” So I told him.

( I had been sent home... )