In 1973, I was a proud member of the Eldorado Elementary School Chorus in Spring Valley, New York. Ok, I don’t remember if I was a proud member. Looking back I wonder how I even was in the school chorus. I’m sure they made me do it since I was pretty shy back then and singing wasn’t my bag. Unlike now when I can belt out a tune with the best of them. Sure.

Anyway, I was in Mrs. Mayhew’s 5th grade class and she was the meanest teacher in the school. Time has not softened my view on Mrs. Mayhew. She was intimidating and I truly she believe hated kids. Especially me.  These days teachers have to search students for guns, knives, and drugs. Back then Mrs. Mayhew was on a crusade to eliminate baseball cards from Eldorado Elementary school. That’s right, baseball cards. To her, they were the worst things in the world and she would confiscate them at every opportunity.

On many occasions, she would go into my coat pocket and take away my baseball cards. That’s right, she stole them from my coat pocket! She would rummage through the other kids pockets as well and she would steal our precious cards. Or she would take them out of our desks. Mrs. Mayhew was the baseball card Nazi.

One time she even pulled me off the school bus before it departed the parking lot and looked in my book bag. Yep, baseball cards. She took them.  At recess, she would sneak up behind us and steal our cards. I half expected her to show up at my house, enter my bedroom and take away my cards.  Mrs. Mayhew always took the cards and put them in bags in a big closet in our classroom. Then she would lock the door and our cards were gone forever.

Back to the school chorus. We had our big spring concert on a Friday night. Mom and Dad were there and probably my sister Mary. I can’t definitively recall if Mary was there or not, but she is irrelevant to the story. She’s still pretty much irrelevant. I say that because I hope she reads this story and gets irritated. That’s what brothers do.
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I’m not into hunting or fishing. I retired from fishing at the age of 14 when I started feeling sorry for the fish. Some people claim fish don’t feel pain. Well, when they are thrashing about with a hook in their mouths, it looks painful to me.
As for hunting, I’ve never tried it. I’m not anti-hunting but I couldn’t shoot a defenseless animal.

Wait a minute. Actually, I have hunted before. Not deer or elk or anything like that. I’m a former hunter of…rats.

When I was a kid in New York, my friends and I would grab our BB guns and ride our bikes to the Bronx River. We would head down a dirt path, through all sorts of overgrown weeds and garbage to a clearing across the water from a sewer pipe. We would then throw eggs and tomatoes across the 40-foot wide stream towards the sewer pipe. Then we would wait.

It didn’t take long for some giant New York sewer rats to emerge. They would be sniffing around the debris and the new food items that had recently arrived.  Then four or five of us knuckleheads would pick out a specific rat, aim and shoot at the same time. The rat that was hit would usually jump in the air and then scamper back into the sewer pipe. We would be joyous and laugh hysterically at hitting the rat. Unfortunately, we rarely killed any rats. Those things are tougher than a $3 dollar steak. Or Mrs. Mayhew, my fifth grade teacher.

My rat hunting career came to a close one overcast summer day. As usual, we targeted a rat to pepper with BB’s. We shot a particularly large rat and it barely moved. The angry rat made direct eye contact with me. For a few seconds I was paralyzed by fear. Nothing on this planet scares me more than rats. After locking eyes, the rat dove into the water. It was coming after me. I jumped on my bike and raced out of there. Lance Armstrong would have been proud.

Lessons were learned that day. If you shoot a rat use something more powerful than a BB gun. And always have a getaway plan.

There aren’t too many things that I loved as a child that I still love today, but there is one thing that comes quickly to mind, and that is baseball.  My entire life has revolved around baseball, and each long winter day that passes brings me closer to another season.  This season will be different for me though. The Yankees will be playing in a brand spanking new billion-dollar stadium.  It is said all good things must pass and that is certainly true in this case.  Some of my fondest memories in life took place in the big ballpark in the Bronx.  Maybe my fondest Yankee Stadium memory occurred in the early 70’s when my dad took me to a game.

Back then, I used to bring my glove to each game hoping against hope to catch a baseball. This particular afternoon we were sitting, as usual, in the lower level of the right field stands.  In the latter innings, my favorite player, Bobby Murcer, came up for the Yankees in a key spot.  My dad told me, “Get ready, he’s gonna hit one out here.”

Sure enough, on the very first pitch Bobby ripped a liner to right. It was a long drive that sailed over the right fielder’s head and kept going. The ball banged off a wooden chair about five rows in front of me. I scampered as fast as I could after the ball, heart pounding with excitement. I would love to say I grabbed the ball and it is sitting on a shelf in my home. But that wasn’t the case. An older guy beat me to the home run ball, and my disappointment has lasted a lifetime.

To this day I can close my eyes and remember how big and colorful Yankee Stadium was. I can vividly remember the chills that ran through my body when my dad would ask, “Want to go to the game today?” I never said no.

My final trip to Yankee Stadium was last July, a couple of days after my mom’s funeral. I thought about all the times I was in Yankee Stadium with my mom and dad. Both are gone now. So is Bobby Murcer, who passed just a couple of weeks after my mom. Yankee Stadium is awaiting the wrecking ball.

Baseball is about memories of not just the games, but the people you care about most. It is about family, friends, and the players on the field. It truly is a beautiful, time-tested sport that is more than just a game. It is life. At least for me it is.

I’m looking forward to the upcoming season and watching games on TV from the new Yankee Stadium. I’m also anxious to visit the new park. Maybe I’ll even like it. But it can never replace the original stadium..

I took a recent trip to New York to attend to family business. Feeling a bit nostalgic, I decided to drive over to the park near my mom’s house to take a look. You know, for old time’s sake.

Not much had changed since my last visit a decade ago. The basketball court where I dominated in my younger days (note sarcasm) was still there. The same for the baseball field, tennis courts, and handball courts. The small lake looked the same.  The park was quiet except for a couple of mothers with baby strollers enjoying the late morning sun. There was a dopey kid on a skateboard nearby and an older gentleman throwing a ball against the handball wall. Just a quiet Monday at the park.

After taking in the scene, I began to stroll with flashbacks and memories stirring in my head. As I got closer to the handball courts, I recognized the man throwing the ball. He wasn’t just lobbing it either. He was firing the ball against that huge cement wall. I looked closely at the man and I couldn’t believe it.  It was John Verwoert, one of my former baseball coaches and a man whom I had met 27-years earlier. I hadn’t seen him in at least ten years.

“Mr. V,” I yelled.

He walked over to the fence. It took a couple of seconds before he replied in his New York accent, “Billy Rogan. What are you doin’ here? You’re supposed to be in Denvah.”

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My first radio job out of college, in 1984, was working for WRKL in Rockland County New York . I announced high school football games on Saturday and during the week covered insanely boring things like planning board and town hall meetings.

One of the few meetings I actually enjoyed covering was the monthly board of health gathering. I found it interesting and informative to know which restaurants had been fined for health code violations.

At the first board of health meeting I covered, I spoke with a woman who was there for the local newspaper. She warned me about Doctor Fletcher Johnson, the board of health president. She told me he was tough to deal with. When the board of health members walked into the meeting I was struck by how huge Dr. Johnson was. He was about 6’8 and solidly built. All throughout the meeting I kept thinking, “Fletcher Johnson. Where have I heard that name before?”

At the conclusion of the meeting, I went up to Dr. Johnson, a cardiovascular surgeon, while carrying my tape recorder and introduced myself. He didn’t appear all that impressed with me. He wasn’t rude, but he gave the impression he had other, more important things to get to.

Before I began the interview I asked him, “Are you the Fletcher Johnson who played basketball at Duquesne?” He stared at me. Then his eyes lit up. He even smiled.
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The drive took an hour from home in Buffalo, NY, to Sunset Bay Beach, west along Lake Erie to the Silver Creek/Irving area. A long stretch of sand that continued into the water, it was much better than the rocky bottoms of closer Canadian beaches that jabbed the feet of unsuspecting swimmers. The beach was great for tanning, swimming and volleyball, and meeting new people, (who somehow never turned out to be that perfect summer love, but hope never died). And, yes, the sunsets over the water were beautiful!

We’d begin our day trip early, stopping at a Tim Horton’s on RT 5 for coffee and donuts, and hitting the beach in time to get a good spot where you could see everything and everyone, and they could see you. Our favorite was by the one tree, so that in between your time in the sun and water you could grab some shade. Later, when families were drifting back to their cottages, we would move the fun from beach to bar. The best beaches, as far as I’m concerned, are the ones with bars and restaurants; this way you go from hot sand and cool water to hot music and cool drinks. Now I see they have hot bodies, too, with bikini contests every weekend at Sunset Bay Beach Club.

One really hot summer Sunday, we took a friend’s boat to Sunset, and you could see the beach and bar were packed. The only way to get there was to swim. After we jumped in, it seemed a lot farther to the beach than it had looked from on board. Before that day I had believed I could only swim enough to save my life. It was then I learned to swim for a good time, and the trip was so worth it.

It was the summer of 1972, and as usual I was spending it with my grandfather in the Bronx. Why they call it “The” Bronx but not “The Brooklyn” or “The Queens” I don’t know. Anyway, I digress.

My entire summer revolved around baseball. We played baseball all day at Van Cortlandt Park, or we would venture over to Coyne Park and play against the kids from Yonkers. When not playing pickup baseball games, we would play stickball or go to Yankees games. There were no video games to play and no air-conditioned malls to hang out in. It was just baseball, all day every day, and I loved every minute of it.

Late one hot and muggy afternoon, I was involved in a spirited game of stickball in the schoolyard of P.S. 19. The kid I was playing against was twelve years old, two years older and much bigger. I didn’t like this kid because he was a Mets fan, and he was wearing one of those plastic replica Mets batting helmets, the inside of which read, “Not to be used for protective purposes.”

As the game moved along, we argued over every pitch, every ruling. It was getting nasty. I was pitching and decided “enough is enough.” I fired a pitch with everything I had in my skinny body, directly at his head. The rubber ball flew out of my hand and made a beeline to his noggin. Perfect aim. Pinpoint control. Bulls eye! I drilled this yappy Mets fan squarely in the head, his shiny Mets batting helmet shattering into hundreds of pieces.

The thrilling feeling I had didn’t last long. The big kid was somewhat perturbed. Actually, worse than that. He jumped off the asphalt quickly and threw his stickball bat (a broomstick) at me like a javelin. It missed. I may have said something about that, but I don’t remember. If I did it probably was, “Ha, ya missed!”

The 12-year old kid, after misfiring on his javelin throw, then took off after me.

Diplomacy would not work here, I quickly reasoned. I started running. The goal was now very clear and simple. Survival. I needed to get to Grandpa’s apartment on 235th Street before the helmetless maniac beat the stuffing out of me. The chase was on.

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