Over My Dead Body

Dear Boo and Bubble,

My goodness, it’s been such a long time since I wrote to you! A combination of things, I guess – busy end to all our warm weather activities here on Sugar Mountain….. and some civic duties and……perhaps…..sometimes (if you can imagine) Meemaw just not having anything to impart.  Last night, however, another memory was uncorked and I couldn’t wait to share it with you.  What, you might ask, happened last night and what could it possibly have to do with The Bridge Project?  Well…it was the white-knuckled, teeth gritting, breath holding, extra innings barnburner of a seventh game of the 2016 World Series – which the Chicago Cubs finally won ending a championship drought of 108 years……and the sight of former Cincinnati Reds baseball player Pete Rose as a commentator on Fox Sports Network……and your great grandmother Mary.

I have chronicled for you before the importance of baseball in our family (“The World Series” – Nov. 3, 2012) and I’ve also explained to some degree Mamaw Mary’s feelings  (“1974-#755” – August 30, 2013), but I don’t think I’ve made it quite clear enough just how passionate …..dare I say obsessive….or fanatical ….she was about the game.

While growing up at 3 Lakecrest, I can remember every year during baseball season – after the supper dishes were done and family responsibilities completed – Mamaw would take to her rocking chair in the corner of the kitchen where she kept a basket full of knitting yarn and needles.  Nestled in the yarn was a transistor radio with a set of earbuds attached.  Before she began furiously clicking the needles to make either a blanket or booties for someone’s newborn baby, she would turn the dial of the transistor until she found the broadcast of a baseball game somewhere on the East coast.  She didn’t really care who might be playing, she just wanted to listen.  As the evening progressed and the East coast games concluded, she searched the airwaves for those that were beginning in the heartland.  Many a time, she tiptoed down the hall to the master bedroom – where Granddaddy Schaefer had been comatose for hours – at 3-4 in the morning after the last West coast game went off the air.

When the Braves moved to Atlanta and became the closest professional team, she adopted them as her own and rooted for them through bad times and good.  She had a bumper sticker on her Volkswagen that read “I was a Brave Before the Braves were Cool” and, truth be known, she is buried with two Braves tickets underneath the pillow in her coffin where she eternally rests her head.

Mamaw grew up in Houston, TX, and cut her baseball teeth on the likes of Jerome Herman “Dizzy” Dean who pitched in the National League for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs.  He holds the distinction to this day of being the last National League pitcher to win 30 games in a season.  He became a commentator after his career and Mamaw loved to listen to any game that he might broadcast.

To say that she was a purist about the sport would be an understatement.  She particularly admired that it was a game unaffected by a clock – where it was literally never over until it actually was – and she enjoyed the strategies of sacrifice flies and bunts and intentional walks and stolen bases.  The rules of the game were sacred and, with each player individually exposed in the field, their triumphs and debacles alike laid bare for all to witness, she felt they were very hard to break.  I guess, perhaps, that would be the best word to describe Mamaw’s feeling – sacred.

Enter Peter Edward “Pete” Rose Sr. to the game of baseball.  He began his professional career in 1963 and quickly was dubbed the moniker of “Charlie Hustle” for his abilities.  Over the span of 23 years, Rose amassed a record of accomplishment that is unparalleled to this day – all-time leader in hits with 4,256; games played at 3,562; at bats of 14,053; and a total of 3,215 singles.  He won three World Series rings with the Cincinnati Reds and made 17 All-Star appearances playing five different positions – second base, left fielder, right fielder, third baseman and first baseman.  

He was the epitome of a baseball player with the charisma to match his monstrous skill.  The entire nation reveled in his success, but Mamaw Mary was not among them.  She hated his brashness….his contempt towards the opponent and the umpires…his cocky attitude.  His ego was anathema to her.  While everybody else cheered, she surreptitiously pulled for whomever the Reds played.  If she could have willed lightening to strike, I think she would have, which made the whole situation almost comical because it went totally against her normal loving, caring, understanding nature.  And your great, great Uncle Bob Poerschke, if he were still alive, could attest that all you had to do to get Mamaw riled up was to mention Pete Rose’s name.  Any talk of his presumed induction into the MLB Hall of Fame was met with an unapologetic “over my dead body.”

Pete Rose retired from baseball in 1986.  Mamaw Mary died on April 4, 1987.  In August of 1989, with a great sense of irony and affirmation of Mamaw’s instincts, it came to light that Rose had gambled on baseball games while both playing for and managing the Cincinnati Reds, including bets on his own team.  In light of that, he had to agree to a permanent ineligibility from baseball and in 1991, the MLB Hall of Fame formally voted to ban those on the “permanently ineligible” list from induction.

Although there is always some talk about lifting this ban on Pete Rose, I bet it will never happen.  Unfortunately for him, Mamaw Mary is and always will be dead.  Maybe ….. just maybe …. if there is a resurrection at the Judgment Day, he’ll have a chance.