Good morning!
Interstate driving isn’t what it used to be. There was a time when the next Dunkin’ Donuts past Richmond wasn’t until Jacksonville, when Jesus and country music dominated the airwaves and brake lights were the first warning of trouble ahead.

Now we have GPS, podcasts, E-ZPass and satellite radio. My bags are packed, the gas tank’s full and if all went according to plan I was in Gainesville last night watching the Florida Gators host Miami with my erstwhile grammar school chum Crosby Hunt.

This afternoon we’ll watch the Lady Gators host Troy and Western Michigan, and after a marvelous southern style dinner cooked by Crosby’s wife Deborah, I’ll be on my way to watch the Astros, Nationals, Cardinals and Marlins in Palm Beach County. Maybe I’ll drive up to Port St. Lucie to watch Juan Soto play for the Mets, and go to Fort Myers to see who’s playing third base for the Red Sox.

I caught the spring training bug when my father took me to see the Washington Senators in Pompano. We sat on weathered wood planks near the Senators bench, and Jim Duckworth sat down next to us when he was done pitching. The game was tied in the ninth and the PA announcer quipped, “No charge for extra innings.”

‘You’re a Fan!’

I began writing for the Valley Advocate in the 1970s when the Red Sox played at Chain Of Lakes Park in Winter Haven. In those days I lived and mostly died with the Red Sox, which caused Bill White to exclaim, “You’re a fan!”

White was a former player and future National League president and at the time was part of the Yankees broadcast team. Desperately trying to defend myself I thought of Phil Rizzuto, the Yankees’ all star shortstop during the Casey Stengel years who became a popular Yankees broadcaster.

“Phil Rizzuto’s a fan,” I said.

“Rizutto’s a fan,” smiled White.

Baseballs & Autographs

The Red Sox gave me a press pass that was good for every ballpark in Florida. When my college roommate Pete Dailey showed up at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland, I told him to say he worked for the LA Times. Peter wasn’t convincing, but got the pass anyway.

Hunt showed up and introduced himself to Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell, and Hunt didn’t need a press pass for Harwell to invite him into the broadcast booth for the game. 

In the Tigers’ press box I spoke to Al Kaline, the great Tigers outfielder, then Pete and I grabbed a beer and climbed a ladder up to the stadium roof and watched the Tigers play the Yankees from a spot called the Crow’s Nest.

Nobody bothered us. Everyone was in a good mood. It was March and winter was over.

During batting practice I had asked Tigers outfielder Ron Leflore if he could get me some baseballs. Leflore had grown up on Detroit’s mean streets and had done time for robbing Dee’s Bar near the Chrysler plant. Tigers manager Billy Martin watched him play for the prison team and signed him to a contract and he played nine years in the big leagues. 

After the game he called me over, reached into his locker and pulled out his glove stuffed with five baseballs.

Back in Winter Haven, I handed one to Jim Rice who glared at me and said, “You come up with more baseballs!”

Rice was an angry man, an African American from South Carolina playing in lily-white Boston. One day at Chain Of Lakes he parked in Red Sox PR director Bill Crowley’s parking space. When Crowley confronted him, the Boston slugger twisted Crowley’s arm so badly it needed to be bandaged.

Rice signed my baseball, but Reggie Jackson did not. “Who are you?” Jackson asked. “Who are you?”

When I jokingly told Tigers pitcher Steve Baker what had happened, he took the baseball and autographed it Reggie Jackson.

Ned Martin Unplugged

The St. Cardinals played at Al Lang Field in St. Petersburg from the 1940s until they moved to Jupiter in 1997. In the press box a Florida beat writer recounted the time a batter hit a long home run that landed across the highway. “A boy was watching from behind the fence,” said the writer. “He saw it bounce off the road and chased after it and got killed by a car.”

Behind us there was a heated exchange between a writer and the St. Louis PR director telling him where to sit. “You don’t own this place!” shouted the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell.

After the game, Red Sox broadcaster Ned Martin asked if anyone was going back to Winter Haven. I grew up listening to Martin and his predecessor Curt Gowdy and giving Martin a ride was like winning a contest.

During the drive we spoke about the ’75 World Series, Carlton Fisk’s home run and why manager Darrell Johnson was fired midway through the ’76 season. “You can’t be out drinking until 5 a.m. and manage a doubleheader in the afternoon,” said Martin.

Era of Eck

Midway through spring training in 1978, Red Sox GM Haywood Sullivan sent rookie Ted Cox, journeyman catcher Bo Diaz and pitchers Mike Paxton and Rick Wise to Cleveland for catcher Fred Kendall and pitcher Dennis Eckersley.

Cox had made news by going six-for-six in his September call-up, and now everyone was waiting for Eckersley in the cramped publicity office next to the clubhouse. “It’s a helluva gamble,” Sullivan said to the Boston Globe’s Peter Gammons.

I stepped outside just when Eckersley turned the corner wild-eyed and disheveled after his long flight from Tuscon. Sullivan’s gamble almost paid off. Eckersley won 20 games but the Red Sox would break hearts including their own by losing their one-game playoff to the Yankees. You know the details.

All told, Eckersley won 94 games in a Red Sox uniform. In 1984 he was traded to the Chicago Cubs for a player whose name became a part of Red Sox folklore, first baseman Bill Buckner.

At Chain Of Lakes Park, writers could watch from wherever they pleased. Ted Williams often showed up and regaled everyone with baseball stories. Carl Yastrzemski drove across the state from his seasonal home on the Treasure Coast.

One day I sat down the rightfield foul line with Gammons and Bernie Carbo. They dished about Dwight Evans and Pete Rose, and a Baltimore player’s wife who was having an affair with an Orioles publicist, and I mentioned the freelancer from Vanity Fair.

She was looking for an angle, and somehow took the “No Pepper” signs behind home plate to mean No Cocaine. Told of it Gammons said, “She’s the biggest fraud in camp.”

Most mornings everyone pow-wowed over coffee and breakfast at the Clock Restaurant across from the ballpark. The Red Sox had traded pitcher Rick Kreuger to the Indians for infielder Frank Duffy, and Gammons wrote that Duffy was all glove, no bat.  

“Duffy gonna be angry when he reads that?” I asked.

“Who cares?” said Gammons.

Such are the memories from almost a half-century ago as I prepare for another trek south, this time without a press pass or even a beer to have with my late buddy Pete Dailey. We suffer loss the older we get, but baseball will always be there for us.

Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet715@icloud.com