1. A program daily comes on WUOL at six PST called "Exploring Music", hosted by Bill McGaughlin. It has theme music that helps open most shows, not all of them, and it reminds me of the music that played while "This Week in Baseball" came to an end.
I teared up when I found the "This Week in Baseball" theme songs on YouTube. The opening music was jazzy, kind of urban, and set the mood perfectly for Mel Allen to come on the air and narrate highlights, some baseball history, and funny things that had happened over the previous week.
The closing music featured, among other instruments, strings and confirmed for me that similarity does exist between "Exploring Music" and "This Week in Baseball".
I glanced over at the right hand side of my screen at the videos YouTube recommended and clicked on an entire episode of "This Week in Baseball" from March 31, 1977.
My insides shook with pleasure and I got teary again.
I loved those days in baseball and seeing highlights of the Yankees playing the Red Sox, the Pirates playing the Cubs at Wrigley, and other highlights rekindled the deep affection I had for teams like the Reds and the Dodgers I never rooted for, but deeply admired, as well as the teams I pulled for.
I also really enjoyed seeing the style of play: lots of action created by hits that stayed in the ballpark, sacrifice bunts making highlights, and seeing pitchers like Ken Holtzman, Luis Tiant, and Rudy May getting hitters out with guile, creativity, and intelligence. None them served up blistering fastballs or put devastating spin on their pitches.
I realize everything changes and I understand that executives, managers, coaches, and players have a different understanding of the game in 2026 than the players who moved me today had in 1977.
I wasn't assessing, while being transported back nearly fifty years, what was better.
I was just enjoying and letting myself be moved by baseball back then and the great music that made baseball come alive for me weekly on "This Week in Baseball".
2. I was seeking out these videos on YouTube while working the always challenging Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle.
Suddenly, for no sane or rational reason, I began to fantasize about singing karaoke.
In my fantasy, I was a top-notch singer. I could do anything with my unlimited vocal range and impeccable sense of rhythm.
For my two performances, I clicked on two songs I loved imagining myself performing, but at some risk, not knowing if anyone in my imaginary audience knew these songs.
I've been crazy for over thirty years about the Celtic folk rock/folk punk group called Oysterband who have also called themselves The Oyster Band.
I blew my fantasized audience away taking over the lead vocals on their song, "Take Me Down".
(By the way, when I regained consciousness after a couple days or so of unconsciousness thanks to a 1999 bout with bacterial meningitis, Debbie brought a cd player and some discs to the hospital and she just knew that it would help me heal and boost my spirits to listen to the great album, Freedom and Rain recorded by June Tabor and The Oyster Band. And she was right. That album, along with others, helped transport me slowly and surely out of my post-ICU weakness and confusion into strength and a clearer understanding of what had happened to me.)
The other song I performed required the audience to accept me singing a woman's song and to accept me singing the words "smell my perfume".
Over forty years ago, I became enamored with Joan Armatrading, especially her bold and assertive song, "Drop the Pilot". Singing that song during daydream karaoke gave me a way to sing words I would never say, devise a plan to take a lover away from another person that I would never think of to do, and to pretend my roots are Caribbean.
On this fantasy island of karaoke, it worked!
3. So what on earth set me off to go down baseball nostalgia boulevard and sing my guts out at imagine that! karaoke night.
Must have been the Bud Zeros at The Lounge.
Ed and I met up at The Lounge around 3:30 for a relaxing hour of yakking, story telling, and looking ahead to major events, like the Elks Crab Feed, awaiting us in the future.
Or maybe cooking up that last small chunk of salmon and eating it with the last of the couscous set me off, inspired me to check out the theme music from "This Week in Baseball" instead of listening to Mozart on "Exploring Music".
I don't know what sent me away, but spending some time in 1977 baseball land and singing like a boss at karaoke was sure fun.
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