Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the Opening Day.
– “O God Our Help In Ages Past”
This dispatch came from the style gurus at the Associated Press today:
Editor’s Note: An entry on knuckleball has been added to the Sports section to note that it is one word.
knuckleball
One word is an exception to Webster’s New World College Dictionary.
Knuckleball does seem to be the prevailing spelling these days, though it appears to have started out as “knuckle ball.” The Dickson Baseball Dictionary gives both spellings, and notes that its earliest recorded usage came in a 1906 Baseball Magazine story, just as Eddie Chicotte popularized it.
But what’s most interesting about the Associated Press’s change of style, 102 years later, is the story that seems to have prompted it — this dispatch from Tokyo by Eric Talmadge Wednesday about a 16-year-old Japanese girl who hopes to play professional baseball on the strength of her knuckleball:
TOKYO (AP) — Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield was the inspiration for a 16-year-old girl who has been drafted to play for a Japanese pro baseball team. …
Eri Yoshida was chosen this week by the Kobe 9 Cruise in the low-budget, four-team western Japanese league, which is due to start its first season in April. She would be Japan’s first female professional baseball player.
Yoshida says she was inspired to learn how to throw the knuckleball after seeing a video of Wakefield.
“It’s funny that I’ve reached that point in my career that people want to emulate me,” Wakefield said. “I’m glad I had people like the Niekros, Charlie Hough and Tom Candiotti that I could look up to. I am deeply humbled that it is me this time.”
I’ve been caught up in some other projects and haven’t devoted much time to keeping this site updated.
But it just so happens that I’ve heard from three people this week — all with stories about, or an interest in, Johnny Hodapp. One particularly encouraging e-mail came today, on what would have been Hoddy’s 103rd birthday.
Coincidence? Serendipity? Divine Intervention? I’m not ruling out any of them.
So I’m inspired to get on a more regular regimen of updating this site. Last week, I finished copying and preserving my grandmother’s scrapbook of old newspaper clippings that’s a wonderful trove of information about Hodapp’s career and the era in which he played.
I also got a very nice e-mail from someone who was a 10-year-old boy when he met Hoddy in the 1960s and heard stories about his career. More on that later.
And sometimes, little scraps of information seem to come out-of-the-blue, almost as whispers from long-dead contemporaries.
Here’s one: An obituary in the Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum on Wednesday recaps the life of Jane F. Smith — who had an intriguing connection to Hodapp:
Jane’s late husband, Hugh, who preceded her in death in 1980, was a roommate of two Cleveland Indians, Johnny Hodapp and Clint Brown. He became close friends with many of the Cleveland Indians who won the 1948 World Series, including Kenny Keltner, Mel Harder, Bob Lemon, Al Lopez, and Lou Boudreau.
There’s got to be some fascinating stories behind that one. I’d love to hear from Hugh Smith’s family about how that came to be.
Makes you wonder how many other stories might still be out there.
I can’t remember what I was looking for, but I came across this cartoon in an old Enquirer (or maybe it was the Post or Times-Star) a while back while doing some research in the newspaper morgue:
Though it appeared 20 years before I was born, I think it sums up the feeling Cincinnatians have long held about the first game of the baseball season: Opening at home isn’t just a tradition — it’s our birthright as fans of baseball’s first professional team. As John Erardi and Greg Rhodes wrote in Opening Day: Celebrating Cincinnati’s Baseball Holiday:
No other major league baseball team is granted the privilege of opening at home except the Cincinnati Reds. This is a custom of scheduling that Reds fans believe is probably found somewhere in he U.S. Constitution, or at the very least, in the hallowed rules of Major League Baseball.
Unfortunately, Erardi and Rhodes then go about debunking all of the myths surrounding the Reds’ entitlement to the home opener.
It was even widely believed that the Reds were somehow guaranteed to play the first game of the year — hence the first pitch of the Reds home opener would also be the first pitch of the baseball season.
That tradition — if it ever really was one — came crashing down on Opening Day 1985, when two American League games started before the Reds could get off a first pitch. Reds fans were outraged.
This year, the Reds didn’t open on the same day or the same week — or even the same continent — as the major league opener. (The Red Sox and Athletics played a two-game set in Japan last week.) And the North American opener took place Sunday night in Washington, where the Nationals hosted the Braves. On ESPN, Jon Miller and Joe Morgan made a super-big deal about that game being the “Presidential Opener” because George W. Bush threw out the first pitch. (The Reds had Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune.)
But there’s still something special about Opening Day in Cincinnati: The parade, the pageantry, the sellout crowds, the unofficial city holiday.
Roll out the Red carpet!
Welcome to the future online home of Cleveland Indians great Johnny Hodapp.
This site is under construction. Please check back later.
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