March is Mostly Mets Reading Month: Mizzou, Mary Lou and the most tolerant roommate.

Once in a while, one must expand his horizons and explore topics outside of baseball and politics. Today’s March is Mostly Mets Reading Month takes us back to the mid-1980s, Mizzou and America’s sweetheart!

March 6: Mary Lou, Creating an Olympic Champion by Mary Lou Retton and Bela Karolyi and John Powers

Published in 1986

I had, unquestionably, the kindest and most patient college roommate ever.

Tony was not only a good friend and spiritual mentor, but he was extremely tolerant.

I was not easy to live with. I realize this now. 

Other people in the University of Missouri’s Floyd Cramer Hall were able to bring proper furnishings from their homes in and around the Show Me State.

I, on the other hand, could contribute stuff that I could pack in a suitcase or arrive in a box in the mail. These included a Twisted Sister “Stay Hungry” mirror that was a gift form a girlfriend the prior year, a rather glorious collection of snap-back baseball caps, a modest boom box and posters.

The posters were, of course, images of the New York skyline, the Mets, a life-sized Tom Seaver, Twisted Sister and Rush. Oh, and Mary Lou Retton.

Yup, I had the classic Wheaties cover poster of Mary Lou in her star-spangled leotard, fists raised triumphantly in the air and megawatt smile. I ate a lot of Wheaties to get that.

It was the 1980s and we all were swept up in national pride after the 1984 Olympics. I’m sure every young guy in America had a secret crush on perky and victorious Mary Lou. They just weren’t willing to eat enough Wheaties.

Well, maybe not everyone.

The Mary Lou crush was the source of playful teasing, and we determined that it was probably healthier than Becky’s crush on James Dean – who had not won a single gold medal.

Tony tolerated this and many other things, including my dependence on the snooze button on the alarm clock each morning. Only years later did I realize that the snooze feature must have awakened Tony, too, over and over.

It’s amazing I didn’t come back from class one day and find my bed and Twisted Sister mirror in the hallway with a new lock on the door.

And I'm glad that didn't happen, because I would have been completely lost without Tony. We're still good friends today.

A couple years after graduating, I came across this cool book at a discount book store. Not yet 20, Mary Lou didn’t have much to say. But coach Bela Karolyi had an interesting story.

I know you are curious. Mary Lou retired from gymnastics but went on to have role in one of my favorite movies – “Scrooged” – and now is a motivational speaker and mother of four.

When I son was heading off to his first dorm room, unearthed the poster box and allowed him to take his pick. He liked the Rush “Permanent Waves” promo poster – which I believe still hangs in his apartment. He politely declined Mary Lou. Actually, he recoiled in horror. 

Maybe some things are better left in the 1980s.

Here's your reading list for the month so far:

March 5: "Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century" by Marc Okkenon
March 4: "Clemente! The Enduring Legacy" by Kal Wagenheim 
March 3: "Mets by the Numbers" by Jon Springer and Matthew Silverman
March 2: "Faith and Fear in Flushing" by Greg W. Prince

Baseball Place No. 47: Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum

Now that the Mets have won a game at their beautiful new home, we can head back on the road with Josh.

And once again, we find ourselves in the same place, and that would be the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum.

Technically we’re setting aside spot No. 46 in the “101 Baseball Places to See before You Strike Out” because I have to take some photos of an historic place here in Grand Rapids.

So we’ll go right to No. 47, which sadly, is closed for now.

The Cardinals had a wonderful Hall of Fame in the lower levels of the old Busch Stadium. It later moved it across the street into the National Bowling Hall of Fame.

I suspect this was because the bowling hall lacked visitors. In fact, the bowling hall packed up and headed to Texas in November. A new Cards museum is expected to be a part of a new development across from the new stadium, should the retail-office-residential complex get built.

But all was good back in 1993 when my wife and I caught up with Tony for a day of adventure.

We learned a lot, too. For instance, it used to get so hot on the Busch Stadium artificial turf that players would run off the field after each inning and jump — spikes and all — into tubs of ice water kept in the dugout.

I got this from a pretty good source: former Cardinals outfielder and future Met Bernard Gilkey.

My editors at The Flint Journal knew of my love for all things St. Louis and sent me to write a travel story about the city. Armed with an expense account, we enjoyed all St. Louis had to offer, all in the name of research, of course.

Naturally, a game at Busch Stadium was on our list of things to see, and the Rockies, in their inaugural year, were in town.

Even more exciting, we found out that the Cardinals offered stadium tours.
Check out all the dents in the dugout wall from foul balls.

This was too good to pass up. We were not allowed in the clubhouse – there was a game that night, after all -- but we got some behind-the-scenes peeks of the press box and other areas.

Tony, a would-be base-stealer.

The highlight, by far, was going out on the field and hanging out in the dugout. The artificial turf was indeed like fuzzy concrete with very little bounce. That didn’t stop us from doing sweet Ozzie Smith flips.

Well, more like Tony holding my feet while I did something resembling a handstand for a photo. But properly cropped, me and Ozzie are one and the same!

After exploring the field, the tour took us into the Cardinals museum. The Cards have a pretty rich history, and it was all displayed well.

There was much to see, with jerseys, equipment, championship pennants, stadium models and other artifacts. The Cards have a pretty impressive history, and they present it without the in-you-face-bow-before-the- Yankee-gods another team adopts.

Much to our glee, we found that on some Saturday afternoons, a Cardinals player is in the museum to meet fans.

And there, as if he was one of the exhibits, was Bernard Gilkey.

There wasn’t a big crowd that day, so we had plenty of time to chat.This was a surprise, so I wasn’t prepared with a ball for Bernard to sign. I offered the bill of my Cards home cap as he gave us the inside scoop about the turf, and that the temperature on the field sometimes reached 110 degrees, hence the ice water.


We also popped into the bowling museum, which brought back flashbacks of my high school years when I was the show and score sheet kid at 300 Bowl in Massapequa Park.

It was clear that the people running the place took bowling very seriously. We did not, but had fun playing on the old fashioned lanes in the lower level.

I was in St. Louis again in October, and saw the signs that the museum was closing and popped in to squish some pennies for my daughter and grab some very discounted souvenirs.

I didn’t have time to walk through the Cardinals museum one more time, but I expect to take another tour when the new version opens. Maybe Bernard Gilkey will be there again.

Baseball Place No. 39: Ozzie's Restaurant and Sports Bar

I’m not sure a restaurant counts as a baseball place. I suspect there are a lot of them where the athlete is paid by some folks to throw his name on the sign as a lure.

But Josh Pahigian seems to like them, and we’re going to start hitting some food spots as we continue our tour through his “101 Baseball Places to Strike Out.”

Josh picks “Ozzie’s Restaurant and Sports Bar” in St. Louis as spot No. 39, and, for the second post in a row, I can happily report there is no alternative.

And the occasion for our visit was indeed a happy one, and had nothing to do with the Cardinals’ Hall-of-Fame shortstop.

Ozzie’s is located in Westport Plaza, a sprawling shopping, dining and hotel area

Ozzie keeps his Gold Glove Awards on display at his restaurant.

Tony, my long-suffering, exceedingly patient college roommate, was getting married in a hotel in the complex. I had the honor of being in the wedding party.

How special is Tony? There is a slight chance I was a high-maintenance roomie.

I fully recognize that had I been paired with a lesser person, I would have come home to the dorm one day and found my Mets jerseys, New York posters, Twisted Sister tapes and bike out in the hall with a note saying “scram.” No one would have blamed him.

I think God puts people into our lives at certain points for a reason. Tony was and is a quiet role model and spiritual adviser. Which is not to say that there was not mischief coming out of Floyd Cramer Hall Room 4.

When my son was born in 1992, I could think of no better person to be his Godfather.

So that weekend in January, 2000 was a special one.

And an unusual one, too. Missouri is not really a snowy place, at least not in the time I went to college there.

But that weekend it was positively dumped on. And unlike Michiganders, St, Louisians don't deal with it well.

It was also the week that the Rams were to appear in the Super Bowl for the first time.

St. Louis is every bit the baseball town you’ve heard it is. The football Cardinals left after the 1987 season, and I think it was two seasons before anyone noticed.

But having a football team head to the Super Bowl got people semi-excited, and I remember one of the hotel ballrooms was converted into a Super Bowl store.

There is always a little down time before a wedding, and the snow prevented my usual pilgrimage to the glorious Arch. So my wife and I walked around Westport Plaza, and there was Ozzie’s.

I don’t recall much about it, other than seeing the massive display case with his 13 Gold Glove Awards. That sight alone makes for a worthwhile visit.

I didn’t see any of Ozzie’s World Series rings, but we did get to see some other rings exchanged that day, which was much more exciting.

Tony and Cathy, his beautiful bride.

Mets and Mary Lou rejected, but Dad's Rush memories makes the grade

The 16-year-old announced he wanted some classic rock posters for his room. Since I saved almost everything from my youth – or at least I thought I did -- I offered to pull the poster box up from the basement.

I had some pretty sweet posters as a kid. The record store in downtown Massapequa Park was a hangout, and Neil, owner of “The Wax Museum” frequently offered me the promotional posters from my favorite groups.

And I had concert shots of Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith, and a whole assortment of Kiss classics.

Plus, there was a tremendous collection of Mets posters, too. None of which interested him.

But there was much to enjoy as we unrolled memory after memory.


One of the first was one of the oldest, from the Evel Knievel phase. My poster has this photo, but with a horrid poem. Oh, the joys of screaming down the block in my blue Evel cape, getting enough steam for the bike to clear a ramp for what then seemed like a death-defying stunt. Alas, Evel was rejected by the son.

Then we found the oldest, and most classic, of the Kiss posters, the “Spirit of ’76.” Mine is similar to this one, with another shot from this photo session. Kiss and patriotism, a combination that can’t be beat. It, too, was rejected.

I did not find the amazing Susan Anton Golden Girl poster that I promised him. I never saw the movie. Unlike the infamous Farrah Fawcett swimsuit poster, this one featured Ms. Anton with lots of hair posing in running shorts and a tank top.

Therefore, I could claim a tenuous sports link. This wasn't a tacky cheesecake poster. I did in fact appear on the spring track team, and was showing support for my sport. Actually, I went for the team because A) It was a coed team, and B) It was a no-cut sport, and C) It was a coed team. Which was important. I now realize that my parents were probably not fooled.

I offered my son my Mary Lou Retton Wheaties poster instead. He recoiled in horror, as did my wife and daughter.

He also rejected the Alive II-era poster of Ace Frehley, complete with Gibson Les Paul belching smoke. I was stunned by this, because it really is a great poster. The foil "Love Gun" poster was shot down, too.

Finally, we found one that captured my son’s interest. It was the promo poster for Rush’s “Moving Pictures,” with shots from several previous albums along the bottom. This is probably my favorite album cover of all time, largely because it contains my favorite album of all time. This poster moved from Massapequa Park to the Missouri dorm room to our apartment and back. And sadly, there was significant wear and tear, mostly tear.

The son was bummed, and I promised a restoration project would be in the works with a framing to preserve what is left of it for the ages. But that will have to wait until after the holidays.

We did uncover two sweet Twisted Sister posters, one a collection of concert shots, the other a promo piece for “Come Out and Play” with Dee Snider peeing out from under a manhole cover. Both of these were proudly displayed in the dorm room, along with Mary Lou. My family is contemplating sending a letter to the Pope asking that my roommate Tony be considered for sainthood.

The rejections came fast and furious. New York skylines, St. Louis Arches, Mookie and Buckner, the 1969 champions, Islanders with the Stanley Cup, final game at Comiskey – all of them carefully rolled back up.

He scoffed at the life-sized versions of Harold Baines, Frank Thomas, Kelly Gruber and even Darryl Strawberry.

“Dude, you did want posters? Right?”

We never did find Zep or Aerosmith.

Finally, one met his approval. It was a oversized promo poster for Rush’s Permanent Waves album, again with smaller versions of previous albums along the bottom. It’s a darned good cover for an excellent album and was in reasonably good condition considering I was in junior high when I acquired it. Off it went, upstairs and on the wall.

I have to admit, he’s got pretty good taste.

The Flood, the Sandwich Queen, and the Burlington Bees

John O'Donnell Stadium in the Quad Cities was flooded in 1993.

You’re no doubt hearing a lot about the work of Red Cross volunteers in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

These people are angels of mercy. I know this from having spent some time with them in 1993, when floods devastated big chunks of Missouri, Iowa and Illinois.

I was finishing a travel story in St. Louis when I got a call from the editors to send my wife home, rent a car and catch up with a team of Red Cross volunteers from Flint who were headed to Iowa.

The flooding was national news, and there was plenty of evidence in St. Louis, where the Mississippi was climbing the steps to the Arch.

Julie, a Mizzou friend and Tony on the steps to the Arch. Look at the flagpoles to see how high the water was in St. Louis.

But I was amazed by the size of the devastation on the outlying farmlands I saw while driving north on U.S. 61 through Quincy and Alton and Keokuk. Take away an occasional tree top, power line or silo, and I would have thought I was passing Lake Michigan instead of miles of crops.

The water level had already started to slip back by the time I reached southeastern Iowa. I’ll never forget the stench of the water, which smelled like rotting garbage. And there were flies everywhere.

Just touching the water was considered dangerous, and tetanus shots were dispensed like breakfast.

It was in this kind of environment that I caught up with the volunteers from the Flint area. Some were based in high schools, helping people get their lives back in order and providing a shoulder to cry on.

I was amazed at how much the Red Cross provided — clothes, food, cleaning supplies, mattresses and hotel space until homes were livable again. All of which is provided through donations from folks like you and me. Two of the Flint volunteers preparing meals.

The goal is to get people out of the shelters as quickly as possible, because there is nothing dignified about sleeping on cots in a high school gym with your possessions stacked around you.

Others volunteers hit the road, bringing meals to National Guard members and ordinary folks stuffing sandbags along the swelling Des Moines and Mississippi rivers.

Two volunteers I helped deliver meals to a fire hall near sand-bagging operations.

Volunteers are asked to stay about three weeks, which is about as long as a person can last before enthusiasm and energy dissolve into depression and exhaustion. And they were largely the kind of people who can take three weeks off from work, a lot of good-hearted retirees, teachers in the summer and people with home businesses.

A helper named Norma was dubbed "The Sandwich Queen" for her ability to quickly turn 80-pound stacks of turkey and seven racks of bread into meals.

Others are kind of colorful. One volunteer from Colorado was teamed with the Flintites, and wanted to talk about writing. He said he made good money writing for a particular kind of magazine — the kind with a lot of pictures and very little writing, if you know what I mean.

The impact on these close-knit small towns is hard to describe. One of them, Wapello, was so small that people not only don’t lock their house, but they leave their keys in their cars. It was so small that my arrival was news, and it was known that I had touched water and not yet had a tetanus shot. A nurse from the local public health department tracked me down and gave me the shot.

Wapello, Iowa. A big chunk of downtown was underwater.

The scariest thing happened when I was driving back to St. Louis, crossing a two-lane metal bridge somewhere near Keokuk. It was one of those bridges with the metal grates for a road, and if your car is stopped you can look straight down into the water.

And I was stopped for a while because a backhoe was stretched over the guard rail to dislodge fallen tree trunks and utility poles that had washed downriver and were stuck against a support pillar.

The was rushing quickly, and was so high that it seemed to be only about five feet under the bridge. And at one point I looked upriver and saw something dark bobbing in the water. As it got closer, I realized it was a tree — not a branch, but a full tree. As it got closer I realized there was nowhere I could go, with traffic stopped in both direction.

It finally struck the bridge with a large KLANG, and it seemed to shake for a second, but that was it, and I could exhale.

Naturally, I attempted to work some baseball into the trip. O’Donnell Stadium in the Quad Cities — not too far north of Wapello — was famously under water.

The home of the Burlington Bees had reopened by the time I was leaving Iowa.

But the Burlington Bees yard was on high ground and not affected. It was locked up tight on the day I had some time to explore. I already had a cool Bees cap anyway. But as I was headed out of town I saw the stadium lights on, a sign that life for these poor folks was slowly returning to normal. As long as there is baseball, things were looking a little better.

Busch Stadium Memories (Part One): Doc Gooden and Lots of Ice Water

Julie, Tony and me at Busch Stadium in 1993.

It used to get so hot on the Busch Stadium artificial turf that players would run off the field after each inning and jump — spikes and all — into tubs of ice water kept in the dugout.

I got this from a pretty good source: former Cardinals outfielder Bernard Gilkey.

Busch, despite the apparent discomfort for players in the humid Missouri summers, is one of my favorite places to see a game. I was sad when I realized this was the final year for the yard.

It’s certainly true that Busch is a multi-purpose ash tray along the lines of Three Rivers, Riverfront and the Vet, all of whom have preceded it in being demolished. But the little arches along the top made it a little different, and adding natural grass a few years back was a tremendous step forward — and I presume a step cooler, too for the players. Plus, Cardinal fans are among the best in all of baseball and you can’t help but get swept up in the group hug that is a game at Busch.

I’ve been able to attend six games at Busch over the years. Here are some of my favorite memories:

April 24, 1985: Cardinals 5, Mets 1

I was getting pretty homesick toward the end of my first year at University of Missouri, and my passion for the Mets was not a well-concealed secret.

So when a friend from the dorm suggested I join him for a sprint to St. Louis to see the Cards play the Mets, I jumped at the chance even though it meant skipping out on my News 105 class -- the boot camp of journalism school. It was the first time I’d seen the Mets as a visiting team.

This was at the height of the Cardinals-Mets rivalry, and the pitching match-up couldn’t beat. Dwight Gooden was early in his Cy Young Award season, and Jaoquin Andujar was the Cards’ ace.

Gooden lost just four games all season, and I saw two of them in person. This was one. He didn’t pitch poorly, giving up two runs on four hits in seven innings. But the Mets couldn’t manage more than a run off Andujar.

The Cards, of course, went on to choke away the World Series to the cross-state rival Royals that season, with Vince Coleman getting run over by the Busch Stadium tarp machine and Andujar melting down in Game Seven.

Andujar – who was never the same after that season – didn’t fully grasp English, as indicated in his famous baseball quote. “There's one word in America that says it all and that one word is ‘You never know.’”

The News 105 professor also happened to the School of Journalism’s assistant dean, and he was curious why I missed class.

“Mets were playing the Cardinals, Gooden vs. Andujar,” I pleaded. Of course he'd understand.

His stone-faced response: “Interesting. Not a valid excuse, but interesting.”

July 10, 1993: Cardinals 9, Rockies 3

My editors at The Flint Journal knew of my love for all things St. Louis and sent me to write a travel story about the city. Armed with an expense account, my wife and I caught up with my buddy Tony and his wife for a weekend of fun – all in the name of research, of course.

Tony, a man of remarkable patience, survived being my roommate at Missouri, and we’ve been close since.

Naturally, a game at Busch Stadium was on our list of things to see, and the Rockies, in their inaugural year, were in town. Even more exciting, we found out that the Cardinals offered stadium tours.

This was too good to pass up. We were not allowed in the clubhouse – there was a game that night, after all -- but we got some behind-the-scenes peeks of the press box and other areas.

The highlight, by far, was going out on the field and hanging out in the dugout. The artificial turf was indeed like fuzzy concrete with very little bounce. That didn’t stop us from doing sweet Ozzie Smith flips. Well, more like Tony holding my feet while I did something resembling a handstand for a photo. But properly cropped, me and Ozzie are one and the same!

After exploring the field, the tour took us into the Cardinals museum, which has since moved across the street. The Cards have a pretty rich history, and it was all displayed well. Much to our glee, we found that on some Saturday afternoons, a Cardinals player is in the museum to meet fans.

And there, as if he was one of the exhibits, was outfielder Bernard Gilkey. There wasn’t a big crowd that day, so we had plenty of time to chat.

This was a surprise, so I wasn’t prepared with a ball for Bernard to sign. I offered the bill of my Cards home cap as he gave us the inside scoop about the turf, and that the temperature on the field sometimes reached 110 degrees, hence the ice water.

We returned later for the game, a Cardinals rout over the expansion Rockies. Mark Whiten and Brian Jordan supplied much of the damage, hitting three- and two-run jacks.

I've had some other adventures in Busch, but we'll save those for later.