Tag: That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

The New York Yankees pay tribute to the victims of 911 at Yankee Stadium on their first home game back since the tragedy (file photo Society for American Baseball Research)

20 Year Memories of 911 – And Baseball

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

By Amaury Pi-González

Refreshing our collective memories: September 11, 2001 game #2 in New York the Oakland Athletics (wild card) were to play the Yankees who easily won their division. Games were canceled on this day because of the 911 attacks. The Yankees lost the first two games in New York, and then they took the next 2 games at Oakland to tie the series, as the series returned to New York where they eliminated the A’s.

That Yankee team later eliminated the Seattle Mariners in the American League Championship Series; Mariners that year won a record 116 games. A few weeks later the World Series took place and the Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the New York Yankees.

Prior to moving to the Bay Area, I lived in New York after my US Army Honorable discharge in 1969. I worked for a Stock Brokerage company on Wall Street, although I lived in Queens just a couple of stops on the Flushing blue line from Shea Stadium where the Mets used to call home, I often traveled to the Bronx to see the Yankees at the Stadium.

I cannot forget how many times I had lunch right outside Cortland Street where I used to work just across from where the second tower of the World Trade Center was been build. That area was always busy and very dusty, I could see (when I walked around the construction site) how much water was been pumped from the ground, all the time. Later that summer of 1969 I moved to Northern California.

Move the clock all the way to the year 2001, when terror stopped baseball and the country. A coordinated attack using commercial planes (4 planes) hijacked by suicide-terrorist on the World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and one more plane that crashed in an open field in Pennsylvania which was headed to Washington, D.C. Major League games were canceled and for the first time in history, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all civilian air travel in the United States.

We lived through one of the most evil planned attacks in history. No guns were used, not one shot was fired, but Islamic terrorists with box-cutters hijacked US commercial planes filled with gasoline used as suicide bombs.

Move the clock forward again to the year 2021, today, twenty years later. Who can forget? I was broadcasting Giants baseball back then. That early morning I watched on television (like most in the world) the horrific live scenes, as the second plane crashed in one of the towers of the WTC.

Later the third plane crashed in the Pentagon Building. The US was under attack at home, Wall Street (Financial), Pentagon (Military), and Washington D.C. (seat of government). This was (if anything) a declaration of war against the United States.

After and when the attacks happened, baseball, at that time, was the last thing on my mind. I thought like many others, this was the beginning of WWIII, just like when I was a teenager in Miami recently arrived from Cuba I thought it was going to happen during the Cuban missile crisis, the face-off between the US and the Soviet Union, over nuclear missiles in Cuba. These two events provided some of the scariest days I can remember in my life.

This Saturday, September 11, 2021, we remember the many who died (nearly 3,000) on that faithful day including those heroes, crew, and passengers who crashed the fourth plane in a Pennsylvania field, one that was headed with terrorist kidnappers to either the White House or the Capitol Building.

This Saturday many teams and fans will remember 911, for a while many teams (after the attacks) played God Bless America during their regular season games at home. 2021 the New York Yankees are the only remaining team in baseball to regularly play “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch of their home games.

September is always the ‘home stretch’ month in baseball for many teams still in contention, but on September 11, 2001, baseball took a back seat to one of the biggest events in history.

The Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame will be inducting on Sat Sep 11th at Progressive Field, Cleveland, Candido (Candy) Maldonado, Sandy Alomar and Carlos Baerga. On Sunday Sep 19th at Fenway Park in Boston Juan Santiago former Red Sox pitcher all players were born in Puerto Rico (logo image from hhbmhof.com)

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

The Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame: September Inductions

By Amaury Pi-González

September is Hispanic Heritage month as designated officially by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30 day period starting September 15 and ending October 15. Originally the observation started under President Lyndon Johnson and was later extended by Reagan. The Hispanic or Latino population, which includes people of any race, was 62.1 million in 2020.

The Hispanic or Latino population grew 23%, the largest ethnic minority in the country. Many publications have emphasized that there are at least 11 to 15 million Hispanics who are undocumented, today in the country. For obvious reasons, if those numbers are accurate, they were not included in the recent US Census.

The official US Government Census only uses Hispanic or Latino, not LATINX to classify the largest minority. The term LATINX, is used mostly by academia and activists.

The Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame, founded in 1999 as a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization in San Francisco, announces inductions in the month of September. The following players will be inducted this September.

Saturday, September 11 at Progressive Field, Cleveland. Candido (Candy) Maldonado, Sandy Alomar and Carlos Baerga

Sunday, September 19 at Fenway Park, Boston. José Santiago. All these inductees were born in Puerto Rico.

The Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame have 78 members which include the above inductees. http://www.hhbmhof.com

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the vice president of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Heritage Hall of Fame Museum and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Oakland A’s pitcher Chris Bassitt (40) took a line drive around the area of his eye by the Chicago White Sox hitter Brian Goodwin. Bassitt was taken to the hospital and is getting x-rayed on Tue Aug 17, 2021 in Chicago (photo from @BrodieNBCS)

On That’s Amaury’s podcast:

#1 Amaury, Oakland A’s starter Chris Bassitt who was hit on the area of his eye by a line drive hit by the Chicago White Sox Brian Goodwin. Bassitt was taken into the A’s clubhouse for observation and then to the hospital for x-rays. Players are praying for a good outcome. Bassitt is the winningest pitcher on the A’s pitching staff.

#2 Amaury, the price now for a Honus Wagner T-206 baseball card from 1909 is now worth more than some masterpiece paintings, the Wagner is valued at $6.6 million. In 1991 former NHL star Wayne Gretzky at one time owned the rare card with Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce Knoll for $451,000.

#3 Fernando being Fernando as the San Diego Padres Fernando Tatis Jr ripped home runs 32 and 33 against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday. Tatis in his first at bat hit a double and later the two home runs. It looked like Tatis never missed a step upon his return on Sunday.

#4 Amaury, how important is it for the New York Yankees to get pitcher Gerrit Cole back in the rotation after coming off the Injured List from Covid-19. Cole had been gone since August 3rd and is 10-6 ERA 3.11 and started on Monday night against the LA Angels.

#5 Amaury, just to get your comment on the comment former MLB pitcher Brandon McCarthy had said about Fox broadcaster Alex Rodriguez saying, “A-Rod doesn’t speak like a person who’s ever had a normal conversation. Tonally, inflection, the points he’s making, and how he makes them…all of it pushes you away as opposed to drawing you in,” McCarthy tweeted.

#6 Frustrations are boiling over at the New York first the Mets lost on Sunday night as Met’s pitcher Carlos Carrasco melted down in his outing and Mets starter Noah Syndergaard was besides himself because ESPN and MLB rescheduled Sunday’s game to a night game for prime time purposes against the LA Dodgers. Syndergaard said “whose dumb f–king idea was it to change Sunday’s game to a night game?” The Mets would get in the wee hours of Monday morning and have to play a 9:45 pm EDT first pitch Monday night at Oracle Park in San Francisco after flying all night cross country from New York to San Francisco.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish play by play lead announcer for the Oakland A’s on flagship station 1010 KIQI LeGrande San Francisco and does News and Commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

The Field of Dreams in Dyersville Iowa on Thu Aug 12, 2021 hosted by Major League Baseball featuring the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox. The most watch game in 16 years. (photo from Fox Sports TV)

Field of Dreams game. Most Watched game in 16 years.

That’s Amaury News and Commentary.

By Amaury Pi-González

Fox’s Field of Dreams game that aired last night (Aug 12th) on the FOX network was the most watched regular season baseball game in the US in 16 years.

Years past Major League Baseball games were played in different countries. MLB has played regular season games in: England, Japan, México, Puerto Rico, Australia. The game has become more international than ever, and there is nothing wrong with that. We live in a smaller world with social media and instant communications; everybody is more “tuned-in” than ever before. In some of these games outside the US, the game was the season opener.

It is worthwhile to remember that this great game of baseball that we love was originally invented here in the United States of America. There was nothing wrong, but a touch of genius by The Commissioner of Baseball and the powers-to-be, to come up with the idea of a Field of Dreams game, at the same location where the popular 1989 movie of the same name took place.

In the small country town of Dyersville, Iowa, in the middle of the country. The #1 corn producer in the country, Iowa was the scene for the game this Thursday, a total Home Run by all involved.

Baseball is the ultimate team sport, but at the same time, it emphasizes individualism, like no other sport. When a hitter stands alone at the plate, he stands there, trying to hit the ball and help his team into victory, which is exactly what Tim Anderson did in the ninth inning.

The Field of Dreams game was a total success and shows how great baseball can be. The romanticism and escapism of the location (a field build next to the original field and house, where the movie was filmed) was an awesome thing to see. FOX TV carried the game and spectacular shots, specially doing the sunset with a sky that could have been painted by sports painter-artist LeRoy Neiman.

“It was a small movie” said star of the film Kevin Costner, who is the first to say, it has become a film that forever will be a reminder of what baseball can do. He said: “A movie where there was no car chase, no love scene, but the final scene was a man playing catch with his father.”

Any of us who had played baseball from little league to high school or beyond, understand the love involved of playing catch with your father. That connection that is forever connects us all. One of the most poignant scenes was prior to the game, when Kevin Costner came out of the corn field followed 30 seconds later by players from both teams, New York and Chicago, walking slowly and shaking hands with Mr. Costner.

The television production was supreme, in a surreal setting in the middle of a corn field, where an 8,000 seat baseball park and diamond was build. Two Major League teams, contending to go deep in October, the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox, played an exciting game, a “traditional” nine innings game like it would had taken place in the 1920’s with uniforms of that time. Then a Hollywood ending when the lead changed twice in the ninth, culminating with the dramatic home run to right field by Tim Anderson, the leader of this White Sox team, their shortstop and leadoff hitter.

The main reason this was a total success? The players loved it, and let’s face it; the players are the key part of the game, which is what people come to see. The players were truly enjoying this game, they were smiling, they were talking, they seemed to be part of ‘taking it all in’ the whole experience. Most of these players where little boys, some not even born, when Field of Dreams first came to the screen 32 years ago.

Commissioner of Baseball Fred Manfred told everybody, “This will not be the only time”. This was a great idea by MLB, to marry the nostalgia and romanticism of a great baseball film-story to a real baseball game, not an exhibition, but a game between two contending teams in a typical American setting, a small town in the Midwest. Norman Rockwell would have loved this. Burt Lancaster was there in spirit.

This Field of Dreams game sends us all back to the days when baseball was the National Pastime.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the vice president of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Hall of Fame Museum and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com