It is so cool your father played ball friend

I think he instilled the interest in me, along with my grandmother who used to listen to the games on the radio and keep score of Indians day games in a book, for my grandfather, who was working in the steel mills. He would come home from work and look over her game scoring and enjoy the games that way. I wonder if anyone still scores games any more.

Wonderful story about your grandparents.

My grandmother worked concessions at old Municipal Stadium. She retrieved a home run ball from either Vic Wertz or Al Rosen that made it to a ramp and rolled to right in front of where she was working.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time! Did she get the player’s autograph on it?

That old Municipal Stadium was a cavern. I can still smell the hot dogs,stale beer, and flooded restrooms. But when my dad took me to my first major league game, I remember walking up the ramp and at the top opening was the bluest sky and greenest expanse of grass and the whitest uniforms I ever could imagine. It was nothing short of magical.

Speaking of baseballs, I was at a game with my dad, we were sitting on the first base side which is where he always liked to sit. This was the old Municipal Stadium and I was about 11 or 12. Ray Fosse came up to bat and fouled one off that went a mile up in the air and came down and glanced off the knee of the lady in front of me, and rolled under her chair. They were all scrambling to find it, and there it was, as big as could be, right at my feet, so I picked it up and held onto it. I got a couple of dirty looks from that family I assume because it hit the lady in the knee they felt that they should have gotten the ball, but I thought, hey, finders keepers. I still have it.

Ray Fosse was one of my favorite players of that era.

I can't recall if my grandmother ever had the ball autographed. I have no idea what happened to it.

He was one of my favorites during that era, too.