For the Love of the Game

Where were you on July 7, 1978? I was a baseball loving 9 yr old boy living in Queensbury NY. I was watching a baseball game, a NY Mets game. I don't remember who they were playing or if they won(they lost to the Cubs, I looked it up) but I do remember something else. A sports update for the NY Yankees game. The game I really wanted to watch but couldn't. The Yankees were playing the Milwaukee Brewers and the Brewers were killing them. Some player named Larry Hisle hit two home runs against Ron Guidry. I watched those highlights totally shocked and in disbelief. I thought nobody could do that. Guidry had been invincible, dominating and nasty. We were told that Hisle had been added to the all star game lineup. I didn't know who Hisle was but he had to be awesome. Guidry would lose that day, his first loss of the season against 13 victories but he ended the season with 25 wins and just 3 losses and was the leagues most valuable player(MVP).

Larry Hisle was a good hitter and an all-star that year but perhaps he wasn't quite as good as I had esteemed him to be. That day though, I became fascinated with the Milwaukee Brewers. I could never have guessed how significant that would become until much later. It was going to alter the course of my life and I didn't know it.