Morning Thoughts: October 27, 2017

It was beer-induced cruelty, beer-induced fame, beer-induced fun, beer-induced insanity, or maybe a combination of all of them. I dunno. Beer does funny things to a person.

Walter "Hook-slide" Bradshaw—I couldn’t help thinking about him last evening. In an odd evolution of marital harmony, Brenda and I have taken to watching the World Series of baseball. I’ve long loved what were once known as the hapless Chicago Cubs, so we watched them win last year. Brenda now considers herself an honorary Texan after multiple trips to Houston for fun times with her cousin and best friend Phyliss Cole. On a recent trip down, B enjoyed a trip to the ballpark to see a Houston Astros game. At that time the team was wrapping up a successful season. They won that night.

Now she’s a fan. So, we are watching the World Series again.

But back to Hook-slide. I counted 17 commercials per inning, or something like, that last night, so there was ample time for mind-wandering, the only thing I’ve ever been really good at. Mine wandered, somewhere about the seventh inning, back to a character who became a local hero to Little Rock area baseball fans in the late 1970s.

It was odd the way it happened. See, we had this baseball stadium in the city for years: Ray Winder Field. It served a Class AA farm team of the St. Louis Cardinals, and was a great place to spend a lazy summer afternoon or evening. It was also a great place for making memories. If I close my eyes when I’m alone and it is dark, I can still conjure up a deep bass voice yelling “Cold beer …cold beer.” Those of you who were ever there know what I’m talking about.

Enter Hook-slide Bradshaw. I don’t know how old he was, maybe in his 50s at the time. He was one of those men of indeterminate age who probably invented the phrase “Hold my beer and watch this.”

And the fans did. They formed the rowdy bunch who congregated in the third-base bleachers and raised hell, not a fit setting for anyone with a shred of adult tendencies. As the game would wear on, someone would flatten a popcorn box, place it at one end of the concrete walkway in front of the bleachers, and start the chant of “Hook-slide, Hook-slide, Hook-slide.” By then the crowd would have de-inhibited its hero with free beer.

If he sensed a worthy level of enthusiasm, the great man would step to the end of the walkway away from the popcorn box positioned to serve as home plate. An “umpire” would suddenly appear behind the base, probably the second-most alcohol-directed person in the crowd.

Hook-slide would then begin his long run and terminate it with a slide over the concrete with one foot expertly hooking “home plate.” The umpire would signal “safe” or “out” and the crowd would go berserk. I’ll swear I think I’ve seen the play on the field halt for a second or two over the commotion and the sheer grandeur of it all.

The concrete never seemed to bother Hook-Slide. He would acknowledge his fans and start “freshening up” for the next time. They say that, in his prime, he might perform his act over ten times a game.

Cruel? One might say so, but I hope that person is not from Spain, where they torture and murder innocent animals in arenas full of drooling fans. (I’m sorry, Ernest Hemingway but you should have known better). And don’t get me started on boxing matches, or those “beauty contests” for four-year-old girls.

But back to Hook-slide, he died in the mid-1980s. Ray Winder Field died a few years later as did something much larger. The team moved to another city and now serves as a farm team for someplace known only in Arkansas as, “It ain’t St. Louis, so who cares?” They play in in a fancy new stadium designed for planned fun. There’s plenty of it, I’m told.

You can’t, though, plan fun like that provided by Hook-Slide Bradshaw.

The only tribute left to Hook-Slide is a beer stand
at the new stadium, and, in the style of modern
"fans," they have him sliding in the wrong direction.

I couldn't find a photo of Hook-Slide. If anyone has one, send it to me and I'll post tomorrow.