* The death of Yogi Berra was well chronicled. The Hall of Fame Yankee catcher was that good, that colorful and that popular. Among the chronicles was an AP photo from 1950 that ran in the Tampa Bay Times. It showed Berra tagging out a sliding Granny Hamner of the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1950 World Series.
It transported me.
I grew up in Philly–a row house neighborhood, not the suburbs–and one of our neighbors was the very same Granny Hamner. (He was from Richmond, Va., where they had names like “Granville.”) It was cool, but we took it for granted that the Phillies starting shortstop lived on Magee Street, one block over from the 3100 block of Gilham Street, where the O’Neills lived in the Mayfair section of Northeast Philadelphia.
The O’Neill patriarch was a World War II vet and city bus driver. The head of the Hamner house was a vet and professional baseball player–and a good one. He made the All Star team one season. The year of the World Series, he hit .275, drove in 87 runs and had 17 home runs. I have the baseball card with the stats. What the Rays wouldn’t do for a good-fielding shortstop with those numbers.
But that was then–and this is not.
No longer will you see professional athletes, let alone prominent ones, living in middle-class neighborhoods. For openers, they make too much money–the MLB minimum ($507,500) is more than President Barack Obama makes ($400,000). So they live in gated communities, high rises and waterfront mansions. And too many people in a sports-crazed, vicarious-life culture want access to their celebrities.
Joe Maddon biking along Bayshore Boulevard is about as close as it gets to being in the hood.
*Jonathan Papelbon, the Washington Nationals closer, may be MLB’s biggest punk. However, he went well beyond dismissive arrogance when he recently attacked and applied a choke hold to his teammate–and Nationals’ superstar–Bryce Harper in the dugout. He was suspended for the remainder of the season.
Wherever he’s been, he’s had attitude issues. Just a theory: Maybe it’s a lifelong overreaction to being named “Jonathan Papelbon.” No wonder he was never offered a Grey Poupon commercial.
* No major surprise that opening-week NFL rosters showed that there are more players (204) from Florida than any other state. Moreover, 15 of them were graduates of St. Thomas Aquinas High in Fort Lauderdale. No other high school is even close.