Bat Quotes - page 8
Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the rose is blown. For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves On a bed of daffodil sky.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
On the last Sunday in September in smoggy Los Angeles, announcer Vin Scully riffed through some notes as Willie McCovey came to bat for the last time that season before the Chavez Ravine folks. "Let's see," said Scully, "no home runs since September 11. . . .Well, it's been a long season. McCovey's got to be tired. Big as he is, he's probably worn out." So Scully was looking down at his papers when he heard the familiar crack. Worn-out Willie had just driven the ball over the right field fence, over the bullpen, and into Glendale. Scully did not see the pitch McCovey hit. It had been a palm ball lobbed up by Pete Mikkelson, the kind of pitch that floats up like a dead flounder, and usually goes about as far as dead flounders fly when you hit one. If you hit one. This one traveled a couple of miles or more, and Willie McCovey had home run number 45, to break his tie with Hank Aaron and win for McCovey his second consecutive National League home-run title.
Arnold Hano