Today being Super Bowl Sunday, there's a great deal of attention on The Big Game (TM), although my team hasn't been within striking distance of a championship since the first Clinton administration. No matter; this has been a good week to think about my personal history with the sport of baseball, and with the relationship between baseball and history as well.
The first bit of personal history is that I made a card painting of Jeff Heathcock, who pitched 158
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| Jeff Heathcock, Fleer 1986. |
innings over four seasons for the Houston Astros, when they wore tequilla sunrise uniforms and had a pitching staff with Mike Scott, Charlie Kerfeld, and Nolan Ryan. This painting was especially meaningful, because a few years ago when I worked in marketing and communications research for Fannie Mae, I found out that there was a former major league pitcher who was working for the company in the part of the business that manages foreclosed houses that are being prepared for sale.
Heathcock had gotten into the construction business during the offseasons (because players often still needed to do that back in the mid-1980s), and one thing led to another which brought him to Fannie after his baseball career ended. I interviewed him for one of Fannie's online publications, which was fun and painted an interesting picture of what it was like to move from professional sports to a different kind of professional life. We talked about the up-and-coming Nationals team, and how Nolan Arenado, then in his first few years with the Colorado Rockies, had played in the same Little League as one of Heathcock's kids.
On another uniform- and history-related note, there was an interesting followup to the announcement recently that the Cleveland major league baseball team was changing its nickname. A local group has proposed the name "Cleveland Municipals" to honor the city's history, with the team having played in Municipal Stadium for so many years. The "C" in the logo is in the shape of the old stadium, and the logo with a red "M" inside a red "C" recalls the Negro League's Cleveland Buckeyes. It's too early to tell what the name will be, but it's interesting that the Municipals are part of the conversation. (I'm not sure how I feel about an adjectival name for a sports team, but "Nationals" has worked well for our local nine here in the Washington, DC area.)
Enjoy the game tonight, and take heart that pitchers and catchers report tantalizingly soon!
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