Something a little different

This blog wasn't created to show off mail days, or to do any other sort of "Look What I Got!" posts. However, about a month ago I received a surprise envelope from, Matt, the guru of haiku, behind Diamond Jesters, that I thought was more than worthy of making an exception for.

In his note, Matt said that he didn't know whether of not batboys were being included into my all-time collection. To be honest, I had never even thought about it. I suppose I'm not really looking to add items from them to the collection, however, once again, this card is worth making an exception for.

Vince Pesky was fairly well known in Portland. I remember him mostly from his various speaking engagements during my teen years. I also knew an older fellow at one time who had been coached by Vince at Marshall sometime during the early 70's (I believe).

Vince passed away last year at the age of 99. There's a pretty good obituary for him on the Riverview Abbey Funeral home website. If you have an extra minute or two, I think it's worth the read. The only thing that I can add to it, is that a number of his former students went on to do great things, mostly outside of sports, but there were a few guys that some folks might remember from their accomplishments on the field, namely Terry Baker and Mel Renfro. 

Oh, and there was that time that he "guilted" his brother, Johnny, into signing autographs after a game:

The Durham Sun 9/25/42

I'm thinking that those kids would've appreciated Vince being around more often, as the implication is, that Johnny wouldn't have gone out to sign autographs, even on 'kids day', had Vince not been there.

It's always a little sad when a good person leaves us, but he had a good run, and by all accounts, inspired more than a few to follow in his footsteps. He definitely left the world in a better in a better place than he had found it. We could all be so lucky!

Matt got this card in a lot that he had bought, and mentioned that he thought of me when he saw it. Hearing that was almost as nice as getting the card itself. Many thanks to him, not only for sending this card my way, but also for alerting me to a book that I had previously hadn't been aware of. Now if a cheap copy would just pop up somewhere...