"Listen My Children and you shall hear of the morning attack of the Red Sox Here-Peter

I know, Jenn; I know, that's a pretty lame attempt at channeling Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but what the hell, where I grew up you had to memorize the entire Ride Of Paul Revere, which is why we have a Patriots' Day game after all. As Casey Stengel used to say, "You could look it up." Come to think of it, Jenn, I think that's the second time in the history of this blog that I've invoked a former Yankee to make a point. In the Old Perfessor's case, however, it's OK. The guy was one of a kind, a brilliant baseball mind and one who'd absolutely leave everyone and anyone within earshot dying of laughter. Yogi had nothing on him. Since Ted Williams was well before your time, you'd never have seen this, but one time Teddy Ballgame, Ol' Case and a few other leading stars were testifying before Congress. Stengel was answering some questions of the committee chair and by the time he was done,all you could hear was lots and lots of hysterical laughter--from TW and everyone else in the hearing. They had to take a ten minute break to let everyone recover.Remind me to show you a newspaper clip of one of his brief, for him, comments on, believe it or not, monetary policy.

All of which brings me to a couple of things that this date, more or less, is important for to Sox fans historically. Hell, I'm almost borderline on writing the way Casey spoke. On this date, April 20, Ted Williams played in his first game as a member of the Red Sox, 70 years ago. Got his first major league hit, a ringing two bagger, but was on the losing end to the Yankees. At least then they weren't owned by Steinbrenner. By the time he retired, he had assembled a Hall of Fame career, including the last guy to hit .400 for a season and being one of only two players in MLB history to win not one, but TWO triple crowns and an on-base percentage for his CAREER of .482!That means he was on base 1 out of every 2 times he went to the plate--for NINETEEN YEARS!! What the guy might have done had he not had to serve nearly six years in two wars at the prime of his career. You could look it up.

The other item I think I've mentioned to you previously. The Patriots Day game used to be a doubleheader (another thing of the past thanks to the players' union). However, unlike most twinbills, these weren't played back-to-back. Instead, the first game started at 10 a.m. Boston time and usually finished just in time to head over to the finish line for the Marathon nearby. Then, the second game started at 1 p.m. and your ticket got you in a second time for Game 2. It made for a great day all around, and, yes, you could look it up! Oh, yeah--they were also ON Patriots Day, April 18, not some day close to a weekend-and you could also look THAT up!

Say goodnight to Casey--and Dad, Jenn