I tingled with anticipation about Balor Moore, the youngest pitcher in the league and his batterymate Terry Humphrey who give the impression that he didn't care much about baseball. Surely he never hit bothered to learn to hit, which would have been a small courtesy to the fans. I'd watch the weekly Expos game in solitude on a tiny black and white TV on the balcony of 227 Westminster in Mo'West.
This required hooking up the TV with an extension cord. It seemed worth the trouble at the time. For a while I cheered against the Expos. A brother suggested that I should cheer for them. Thus I instantly transformed into a lifelong diehard Expo fan only recently cured of my affliction by their extinction.
One day in around 1972 the TV broadcast introduced a new segment. During the final minutes they kill after a game until the next show starts, they would speak to a fan over the phone and broadcast the conversation on air. The fan would be rewarded with an autographed baseball from the Expos as recompense. I mailed in. Near the end of a game I received a call from Brodie Snyder, a longtime sportswriter who presumably also had a role in the production of the TV show.
I would be interviewed. The gameroonie ended and I anxiously awaited my chance to speak on TV about the Expos. The phone rang. I clutched my notes. It was Snyder. He told me that they'd be forgoing the ritual for this evening due to time constraints. I was crestfallen. Snyder assured me that I'd still receive an autographed baseball. The hosts, Dave Van Horne and Russ Taylor kept blabbing for quite a while after the game anyway. There had in fact been plenty of time to interview me. I had been lied to. I was a victim of ageism. I never received the autographed baseball either. So Brodie Snyder, if you're still alive I shake my head disapprovingly in your direction.
The next year, my father's friend - newspaper photographer Aussie Whiting - brought me up to a baseball practice at Jarry Field in in a car which had floor rusted clean through. You could see the road under your feet. The concrete zoomed by at a good clip. They should invent glass bottomed cars.
That old rustbox was the coolest. We toured the locker rooms of the Expos and the Phillies and watched practice from the empty stands where a strangely belligerent Dave Van Horne watched on in a trenchcoat. Tim Foli field a grounder and Dave quipped loudly : "Tin foil wraps it up!" Maybe the much married Dave Man Hornee nixed me as the TV guest. I shall find out when I reach that omniscient state following death. I got an autographed baseball thanks to Aussie. Whiting died around 1990, while working for the Montreal Daily News. There was a whole story around his life, about how he came here on a boat from Australia and his sister was actually his mom or something. I never heard the full story. Alas I believe I ended up using that autographed baseball as an actual baseball. The autographs got rubbed off and eventually ended up wherever old baseballs end up.
One day in around 1972 the TV broadcast introduced a new segment. During the final minutes they kill after a game until the next show starts, they would speak to a fan over the phone and broadcast the conversation on air. The fan would be rewarded with an autographed baseball from the Expos as recompense. I mailed in. Near the end of a game I received a call from Brodie Snyder, a longtime sportswriter who presumably also had a role in the production of the TV show.
I would be interviewed. The gameroonie ended and I anxiously awaited my chance to speak on TV about the Expos. The phone rang. I clutched my notes. It was Snyder. He told me that they'd be forgoing the ritual for this evening due to time constraints. I was crestfallen. Snyder assured me that I'd still receive an autographed baseball. The hosts, Dave Van Horne and Russ Taylor kept blabbing for quite a while after the game anyway. There had in fact been plenty of time to interview me. I had been lied to. I was a victim of ageism. I never received the autographed baseball either. So Brodie Snyder, if you're still alive I shake my head disapprovingly in your direction.
The next year, my father's friend - newspaper photographer Aussie Whiting - brought me up to a baseball practice at Jarry Field in in a car which had floor rusted clean through. You could see the road under your feet. The concrete zoomed by at a good clip. They should invent glass bottomed cars. That old rustbox was the coolest. We toured the locker rooms of the Expos and the Phillies and watched practice from the empty stands where a strangely belligerent Dave Van Horne watched on in a trenchcoat. Tim Foli field a grounder and Dave quipped loudly : "Tin foil wraps it up!" Maybe the much married Dave Man Hornee nixed me as the TV guest. I shall find out when I reach that omniscient state following death. I got an autographed baseball thanks to Aussie. Whiting died around 1990, while working for the Montreal Daily News. There was a whole story around his life, about how he came here on a boat from Australia and his sister was actually his mom or something. I never heard the full story. Alas I believe I ended up using that autographed baseball as an actual baseball. The autographs got rubbed off and eventually ended up wherever old baseballs end up.
I can fully concur that Dave Van Horne is a prize ass. Snarky, belligerent, not one to socialize with other members of the media. He always had decent guys as on-air partners, from Russ Taylor to Duke Snider to Joe Cannon, et al, but Dave was a handful and a half and not missed in this market one iota as a person.
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