BASEBALL, MUSIC, RADIO & MORE

My grandfather and I must have gone to 100 games over the course of a few summers. It wasn’t long before I understood that the Senators were almost always going to lose; so with my grandfather’s help, I learned to appreciate the simple beauty of the game.

Windsor Lake, the glorious new CD by The Flying Garbanzos, is the result of the kind of offhanded collaboration that can only thrive in a rich and diverse music scene. In the last decade, that scene has been quietly cultivated in North Berkshire.

Larry Doby passed away in June at the age of 79. Casual baseball fans may not recognize the name. I met him at Williams College last year when he participated in a panel discussion about baseball. It was a thrill for me, because he was one of my heroes.

Despite eleven #1 singles in the 1980s, and three critically acclaimed albums in the 1990s, Rosanne Cash didn’t think of herself as a singer. From the age of nine, she just wanted to be a writer. Afraid of the downside of fame that she saw her father Johnny Cash experience, she toured infrequently, preferring the quiet anonymity of raising a family, and the solitary life of creative exploration.

Legendary radio personality Eddie Gallaher died recently at the age of 89. For nearly 60 years, he practically owned the morning airwaves in the Washington, DC area. My mother told me about Gallaher’s death during my visit with her in Easton, Maryland over the Christmas holidays.

"I had the most wonderful childhood. I thought we were the luckiest people in the world. I was never envious, because we all had about the same things. We all had Chevys and Plymouths and Fords. All the dads went to work early and came home at dinnertime. All the moms were home. We lived in a bubble. It was just not real."

Many years ago, I saw a small article in my local newspaper. It was just one of those "filler" articles, but it struck me. I asked myself: "How can this possibly be true, and will any readers question its validity? Or will everyone just take its absurd claim for granted? So I sent off a letter to the editor. Recently, while going through a box of mementos in my basement, I discovered a copy of it, so now you can see it, too.

Many newspapers carry movie reviews that are published especially for parents who want to know if films rated from "G" to "PG-13" have content that might be offensive or disturbing to children. Some of the reviewers, perhaps bored by the task, fashion rather colorful and graphic warnings.

"It's usually the simplest things that we forget to look at, the ones I like to call attention to. It's not the sparkling new mansion or the dancer who can kick her leg the highest, but the house with some life and history and the dancer with some character that I am interested in showing."

The CBS affiliate in Washington, WTOP, was the most popular radio station in my home, both during the war, and after my father came home. One of my fondest memories was listening to my mother sing along with...

The level of anticipation grows for each film, in our case, leading to almost endless conversations about what will be in store for them next time around. It's been a fascinating...

Young @ Heart is a miracle - a beautiful movie about beautiful people. It shows us the struggles of old age that chorus members encounter as they perform and tour, and as they go about their daily lives.

I am playing, for the umpteenth time, a CD that I bought several weeks ago. The singer opens track nine with a charming line from a classic Gershwin song written for a 1937 movie. With an unobtrusive jazz combo behind him, he swings impeccably, crooning every word lovingly and...

Previn has always been an underrated jazz pianist. Because of his astonishing versatility and the fact that he has never lived the "jazz life," he has always been eyed suspiciously by the jazz community. In fact, his Tatum-like virtuosity...

On a late summer evening in 1958, at Radio Recorders, a legendary recording studio in Santa Monica, California, a mild-mannered 34-year old conductor, pipe in mouth, gives the downbeat, and a guitarist, also 34 years old, starts grinding out a heavy, rolling ostinato.

There are few empty chairs at Bill’s Milton Hall shows. His faithful following usually fills all 100 seats. If he does two shows that night, some folks go to both of them.

On the evening of Valentine's Day 1963, Calvert High School lost to La Plata High School by the score of 4-1. The two Southern Maryland schools weren't playing soccer, baseball or hockey; they were playing basketball. I know, because my brother, then called Bobby Manning, was a starting guard for...

Last November (2009), serendipitously exactly 50 years since the record became a hit, I decided I wanted to find out why and how the record was made, hoping against hope that I could track down at least a few of the people who had a hand in creating it. Within weeks, I had interviewed Glenn Osser, the arranger; Frank Laico, the sound engineer; Andrew Ackers, the son of the late Andy Ackers, the piano player on the session; Mary Burke Kramer, the widow of lyricist Johnny Burke; and the great Mr. Mathis himself.

Going into the bottom of the eighth, we were still behind by three runs. I was poised for a rally. The first two batters got on, and Plews came up. Amazingly, the fans gave him a huge ovation, and my heart skipped. Then another improbable thing happened. Plews smacked...