“He threw everything toward the plate but the ball.” —Ted Williams
Conrado Eugenio Marrero, the oldest living major league baseball player, celebrated his 102nd birthday in Havana on April 25, 2013 with one of his patented cigars. Connie passed away just short of his 103rd birthday on April 23, 2014.
Connie Marrero pitched 735 innings for the Washington Senators in 1950-54, compiling a W-L record of 39-40. He was named to the 1951 All-Star team but did not play. He left after being scratched from the 1955 roster.…
I watched last night’s Washington Nationals-Boston Red Sox game with a Red Sox fan named Hank, whose reactions may be of interest to baseball fans in general, as a suggestion of how the game is managed by some folks these days.
Top second, Nats 1, Sox 0
Hank: “Your team looks pretty good. I think they’ll win.”
RL: “Just wait.”
Bottom fourth, Nats 2, Sox 2
Hank: “Bases loaded, one out. Lannan the pitcher’s up next. You need runs now. Hernandez is fast and the infield’s back—why not squeeze?”
RL: “Our managernever squeezes. Doesn’t teach bunting.”
Hank: “Hit and run then?”…
As a sequel to 1960, let’s take 2019. See “Nats Win!”
Until 2019 I was a frustrated fan of the Washington Nationals, as I was the old Washington Senators. As a New York schoolboy in the Fifties, I’d go up to Yankee Stadium to root for the Senators when they were in town. Always wore my navy blue cap with the white block “W.” Big, scary Bronx voices would shout: “Hey, kid—the Washington section’s in the bleachers.”
The Senators were perennial heartbreakers, although in mid-1952 they were only five games out of first place and considered to be pennant contenders.…
