Pat Venditte's story has intrigued me ever since the Yankees drafted him last year. In case you didn't know, Pat is the only ambidextrous (switch) pitcher in professional baseball today.

When he began his career with the Class A-Short Season Staten Island Yankees almost a year ago, I entertained thoughts about interviewing him on the internet radio show I was co-hosting at the time. I sent email after email to the SI Yanks PR guy and even called him several times, requesting an interview with Pat. I never got a response. When I went out to Staten Island late in the season to see a game, I sat close to the Yankee dugout and waved to Pat after he'd closed out the game against the Vermont Lake Monsters (Nationals). He nodded and smiled politely, acknowledging my presence. I left the ballpark thinking that was as close as I'd come to having any contact with him.

But then, this year Pat was promoted to the South Atlantic League's Charleston Riverdogs, and, voila! I had better luck with Charleston's PR guy. I got to interview Pat last night before the team's game against Lexington. You'll be able to listen to it during the next episode of LATB Radio on Sunday, May 31st.

Timing is everything. But, as I've been learning lately, it's not necessarily my timing that matters. Things happen when they are supposed to happen.

The three walk-off wins the Yankees had this past weekend against the  Twins were so great that I'm still walking on air, so-to-speak. They were a rare occurence. The last time something like this happened it was 1972.

When I think of 1972 and the Yankees at the same time, one player comes to mind: Roy White:

 

Roy White played on those really bad Yankee teams of the mid-to-late '60s to the early-to-mid '70s. When I first became a baseball fan in the late '70s the first player I called my favorite was Roy White. I knew all his stats by heart, I cut his picture out of the paper, I stood on line for hours to get his autograph.

I was devastated when he left the team after the 1979 season to play in Japan.

A switch-hitting, hardworking outfielder, Roy was a very classy guy. I recently heard a radio interview he did and got a chance to replay that interview on my show last night. What a treat. Listen to it when you get a chance. I think you'll agree that he still is a very classy guy.

What better way to celebrate Melky Cabrera's second walk-off hit this season? Thanks, Jane.

Last night the season finale of LOST aired while the Yankees were playing Toronto. I'm not a Tivo or DVR person, so I flipped back and forth between the two. Bad idea.

I've been watching LOST since its beginning but since this season's episodes began I've been "lost" when it comes to understanding the plot. After last night I'm not sure I'll ever be found.

Why was Ben so upset about Jacob not paying attention to him? ("What about me?")  What's the difference between him and Widmark?

Why were there two groups of people looking for Jacob?

Who is Ilana?

Is the ship Jacob was looking at at the beginning of the episode the same one found shiprecked in the jungle seasons ago?

Why is Horace so annoying? 

Why can't Hurley get more air time?

Will I ever get the answers to these questions? Something tells me I won't, just as I'll never find out why the Yankees Retired Numbers are a recurring theme on the show or why Jack and his father trash the Red Sox from time to time. Actually, I read that a few of the LOST writers are big Yankee fans, so perhaps there are no deep, underlying meanings there. Which leads me back to my other questions: perhaps they have no deep, underlying meanings either, which means viewers of LOST will be forever just that. 

I have one person to thank for my undying love for baseball: My "mother."

In 1969 when I was 7 years old I was living in Washington, DC with my parents. In March of that year my mother passed away, and my father, a native New Yorker, decided that the best thing for me at that point was to go to New York to live with his sister, Lillian. I did not know Lillian at all. I met her for the first time when she came down to Washington shortly before my mother died. A few weeks later I was in a strange city, about to spend the rest of my formative years with a complete stranger.

Over time, I came to see my aunt as the only true mother I've ever had. In fact, I have always called her Ma. But things were very difficult for both of us while she was raising me. Ours was a tenuous relationship to say the least. I won't go into details. Let's just say we gave each other hell from the time I moved in until well after I'd moved out as an adult.

There were a few moments when hell disappeared and heaven was a place on earth. One of those moments was when my aunt introduced me to baseball. My aunt grew up in Brooklyn, and when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier she became a Brooklyn Dodgers fan.

She began following baseball in earnest and paid close attention to what Jackie was doing. When he passed away in the early '70s, I recall her talking about how much of a fan of his she was, saying she followed everything he did, and everything his family did. She spent a lot of time at Ebbets Field, cheering him (and the rest of "dem Bums") on.

 

My aunt is a woman of faith, and when she felt that she'd replaced God with the Dodgers, she "put away childish things" and stopped following baseball. I'm sure it was a hard thing for her to do, but I suppose it became easier when the the team left Brooklyn for Los Angeles.

So, she stopped following baseball, but it never left her blood. When Willie Mays tried to keep his career alive by playing with the Mets in the early 70s, she turned on a Mets game briefly one day to catch of glimpse of him, perhaps to re-live, for a few moments, the golden age of New York baseball. Then, when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's home run record, she again turned on the TV, but turned it off after Aaron had broken the record.

She didn't turn the TV on again until October 1978, when the Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers were the two teams in the World Series. I don't really know why, but she was captivated by the series. Suddenly I found myself feeling the same way, and then, "that was all she wrote," as they say. I became a fan for life.

My aunt didn't stay captivated. In fact, she rued the day she introduced me to baseball. But I am glad she did. She passed both her love of the game and, more importantly, her faith in God onto me. These two things have sustained me, kept me going during this, the toughest time of my life.

Now my aunt is about to start a new chapter in her life. Her declining health has made it no longer possible for her to live on her own. She will be leaving New York early tomorrow morning to go down south to live with her daughter. This morning she reminded me that God will make a way. Somehow. 

Thank you, Ma, and Happy Mother's Day.  

 

Joba Chamberlain will start tonight's game against the Red Sox (weather permitting) and I'm guessing his Mom will be on his mind. You know why. She was arrested recently on suspicion of selling meth to an undercover agent. According to an article, this is what he said when he found out about the arrest:

"You've only got one mom, man, and you've got to be thankful for her," he said. "I still love her."

I don't know if Joba really believes this or not, but it's a great thing to say about his mother. Times can be hard on families these days, as I'm finding out personally, and the best thing a person can do when crises occur is just that: be thankful and still love them.