My Bat Boy Days
Lessons I Learned from the Boys of Summer
ON THE BUSIt was the spring of 1956. Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of the United States, a new fast-food franchise called McDonald's sold twenty-five-cent hamburgers, Milton Berle and Red Skelton dominated the airwaves, black-and-white television was America's new form of must-have technology, and most important, the Brooklyn Dodgers were the World Champions of baseball, having beaten the New York Yankees in the 1955 World Series.
I was a young boy in a transplanted family from Long Island, New York, developing roots in the Tampa, Florida, area, with two hardworking parents. The evening of March 28, 1956, was typical for the Garvey family. My father and mother would try to be home most evenings at five for family dinners, and this evening was no different. As we sat down to fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and peas, a meal I will never forget, my dad asked me the usual question:
"Steve, how was your day, son, did you learn anything new?"
As usual, I answered, good, no, and can I get up and go out and play? Then the unusual, life-changing, dream-beginning question:
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