WJR. Detroit. AM dial. Tigers hosting the Brewers. Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey with the call.

Brian “moose” Haas on the mound for the Brewers and Vern “golden” Rule for the tigers. Harwell explains how Moose got his nickname…..his dad took one look at him and said he was big; that he was a moose and so it goes.

the game. May 8, 1977 and the tenor of the announcers voices is pavorotti but I know nothing about opera to appreciate its genius, but hearing Harwell say, “Staub swings and hits a choppah to second,” instant grammy award and I had Harwell pegged as a Massachusetts dude, that “choppah” as in “where’s the wine sweetheart?” “Oh, it’s down cellah.”………..turns out Harwell hails from atlanta and so what the hell do i know, just familiar names….Bill Travers, Von Joshua, Sixto Lezcano, my 1970’s Topps doubles and triples and the crowd at Tiger stadium and me too there in some compelling youtube time machine.

The Brewers cruising with Haas and out in front thanks to Dan Thomas who hit a two-run homer off Rule and the Brewers never trailed after that if I’m not mistaken? I could just go and look at the boxscore, but maybe it’s better for my mind to try and remember on its own.

early in the game, between innings, I catch the answer to a trivia question, something about Early Wynn’s 300th win happening when he was 43. I don’t remember the question, but the muse had been launched. I took a look to see who was the oldest to reach 300 and before I looked, I guessed and I got it right, Phil Niekro at 46.

I wasn’t so lucky with the youngest, that being Kid Nichols from another century before my grandpa was born.

it was vinyl jacket day at tiger stadium and there were over 25,000 fans….i had one of those jackets, Brewers colors, rain jackets and they worked unless it poured, then the vinyl just stuck to my skin, but it had the M and B Brewers logo which is all that mattered.

danny thomas’s two-run homer early in the game was one of ~~five~~ six homers in his short, topsy turvy, tragic career and such a horrible end to a short life…talk about potential taking an unpredictable twist. I’m sadly reminded of that beauty gone awry in the movie Requiem For a Dream.

i knew the bullet points of Thomas’s career and have a bunch of his 77 topps rookie card that he shares with Jack Clark, Ruppert Jones and Lee Mazilli, not bad company but there is something amiss in his face in this Hollywood squares card…..he didn’t look like he wanted to be there, but then again, Mazilli looks like he’s ready to disobey a restraining order and you get the idea. All these faces of players that don’t really tell their story, just what our minds conjure up in the moment.

There was birmingham where it began for Dan Thomas and mobile and illinois and tough East St. Louis and according to Danny, his mom was a fanatical, trying out many religions before settling on her own particular poison – World Wide Church of God a sect that started out as some kind of 1930’s radio church.

Danny apparently inherited his mother’s lust for jesus and solutions to this all, but his way seemed more seesaw-ish, on again – blessed be God, off again – screw you god I’m cursed and throw in some other undiagnosed mental issues and drinking and addiction and punching an umpire in the face over a “bad” call, yeh old school, waiting for him in the parking lot and clocking him in the face. Got Danny a 2 month suspension….but the brewers stuck with him, even when he announced that he would be unavailable for a chunk of the season, due to religious ritual reasons. yeh, he was back on that god wagon and with more vigilance than before….he now celebrated the Sabbath and was dubbed the sundown kid because he wouldn’t play friday sundown to saturday sundown and that could be two games.

The Brewers ultimately released him and he argued discrimination due to his religion. I don’t know what came of his accusation if it got taken to court or whatever and I don’t care. I’m just sad the way it went down for him. There were lots of different jobs and psychologists and the little money he made as a ballplayer he spent…

there’s no bottom of the barrel. the blues can go on forever and get downright creepy and get worse and then worse again and for danny thomas…no money, three kids, no job and god knows what else….he was charged with raping a 12 year old and his friend offered him a lawyer, but he declined and wound up hanging himself in jail with a bedsheet.

Danny Thomas’s career WAR was 0.8, but i bet his inner war musta been off the charts…he himself told his wife he wished he had cancer so then people would know what was wrong with him. There was no suicide note and no transcript of his last thoughts.

Oh yeh, the Brewers won the game. I forget the score, a classic bullpen finish with McLure tossing 2.1 inning of relief and Bill ~~Catro~~ Castro getting the last two outs. Castro went on to be bullpen coach with the Brewers for 18 years.

brewers baseball and things

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