Ezra's Essays

Category: Baseball

  • EUPHEMISMS

    In the last four years of my career with AT&T, I was a Director of Correspondent Relations. The word “correspondent” is an anachronism. It goes back to the days when people wrote to each other and before the use of the telephone. Nonetheless this job required that I should visit other telephone companies around the…

  • A FEW FOND MEMORIES OF BLONDIE

    When Harry Livermore has something to say, it is usually worth listening to. Harry is older than I am and he has a degree from Grinnell College in Iowa. He is a consummate mid-Westerner whom I met on Mother’s Day, 1952. Harry was my boss in Kansas City as well as in Chicago. But more…

  • THAT ONE SO HIGH SHOULD FALL SO LOW

    This humble essay has spent a longer time in gestation than normal. The longer pregnancy is brought about by the fact that it deals with human failures. And secondly, some of the characters in the essay are less than glorious. No one likes to read about failures; they like to read about cuddly dogs and…

  • WHISKERS

    During the 2004 and 2005 major league baseball seasons, center field on the Boston Red Sox was patrolled by a fellow named John Damon. During those two seasons, Damon declined to cut his hair and he also declined to shave. When he batted, the batting helmet would often squirt upwards because of the pressure exerted…

  • THE HOT STOVE LEAGUE BLUES

    Hundreds of years before I became an essayist, there was a grand summit meeting held on the grounds of what would eventually become the Buckingham Palace in London. It was attended by all of the reigning gods, kings, archangels, head rabbis and prophets, as well as by the leading preachers and politicians of the day.…

  • FOUL TIPS

    In a recent essay entitled “Passed Balls and Wild Pitches,” I recorded three incidents that were really gaffs that have marked my life in recent years. In this essay I will continue the baseball metaphors by using the title of “Foul Tips.” Passed balls and wild pitches ordinarily have an impact on the outcome of…

  • BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

    When the calendar gives a reading of November 1, a sense of hopeless gloom settles over many Americans. In these days, that gloom also includes Cubans, Venezuelans, Canadians, Dominicans, and all of those who pursue the wonderful game of baseball. As a diagnostician of many years’ standing, I can tell you that the hopeless gloom…

  • PROSE AND POETRY IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

    During all the years of my long life, the English language has informed and entertained me endlessly. It must be a good language in that it has now become the lingua franca of the world. Perhaps one of the reasons for it becoming spoken so widely is that it is a living language. In this…

  • A FEW MORE COMPLETELY RANDOM THOUGHTS

    Perhaps I should stay out of my water closet because random thoughts often occur to me there. As the lawyers would say, in the instant case these thoughts include such diverse characters as George Steinbrenner and the Roman Catholic Pope who visited here recently. These are not monumentally important thoughts, but they will not go…

  • SEGREGATED RECOLLECTIONS ON A COLD FEBRUARY AFTERNOON

    This afternoon the temperature is hanging below the freezing mark. Somewhere between six and eight inches of snow are on the ground. The forecasters assure us that the snow will be followed by a freezing rain. Perhaps all of this proves that when I elected to stay in the great state of New Jersey, I…