October 28, 2016
I was only 2 years old the last time that the Chicago Cubs were in a World Series game. Tonight they will be trying to win game 3 in Chicago.
During the sixties my dad worked as a night desk clerk at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. I was attending high school in Upsala, so Ma would ship me down to spend some time with him once in a while. The first thing he would do is send me to the barber shop in the lower level of the hotel for a haircut and a shoe shine. He would put me up in a room at the hotel or at the YMCA.
Fifty-one years ago, the Twins were halfway to a World Series Championship on October 12th. “Mudcat” Grant was the ace pitcher of the 1965 Twins. The Twins beat the Dodgers in both home games but the road trip to LA was a bust. The Dodgers swept three games on October 9, 10 & 11. Back in Bloomington, Mudcat started game 6 in the Metropolitan Stadium and the Twins beat the Dodgers 5-1 to even the Series.
Dad was able to get me a press pass for game 7. I was worried about being challenged, so I stopped at a drug store and bought a note pad and a nice ball point pen. The press pass worked and they even gave me a box lunch. Sandy Koufax shut the Twins out in game 7, allowing only three hits and striking out 10. The final score was 2-0.
This week the APHC gang will complete the fall trifecta of live broadcasts from the famed Fitzgerald Theater, before heading off to Philadelphia on November 12. Bassist, singer, and composer Esperanza Spalding brings her unique gifts and versatile ensemble to the Fitz for music that will make your radio dance right off the shelf. Dawes will add their road-honed Southern California rock’n’roll to a Hallowe’en cauldron that’s bubbling over; and comedian and writer Aparna Nancherla joins Chris from the Biggest Apple. Plus: host Chris Thile will debut another original song of the week with The First-Call Radio Players (singer Gaby Moreno, Rich Dworsky on keys, bassist Alan Hampton, Alex Hargreaves on fiddle, guitarist Julian Lage, and Ted Poor on drums) and there’ll be comedy, drama, and assorted nonsense from the extra-Royal Academy of Radio Actors — Serena Brook, Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman. It’s two hours of live radio on an autumn Saturday evening, and a perfect warm-up for the World Series, if you like that kind of thing. Catch the show on your local public radio station or watch live (Saturday, 5pm – 7pm Central Time) at prairiehome.org.
“I believe we have two lives, the life that we learn with and the one that we live after that.” Glenn Close to Robert Redford in the movie “The Natural”