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I am guessing...from the uniforms and the way they are wearing their stirrup socks...that this picture of Vada Pinson and Frank Robinson was taken circa 1963-65. Frank was gone during the winter of 65-66, traded to Baltimore. I had a feeling for major league baseball as a kid that I don't have today and much of that, I am sure, is because of being an older adult. I have also lost any enchantment or fascination with modern movie stars or members of rock bands. Once you reach a certain age you don't 'look up' to people the way you used to. Being a kid it is easy to admire someone who is older and whose athletic skills seem to be so far above your own and the rest of the fans. Each of the Reds in this picture played for that franchise for ten years. We rarely see that anymore. These two men did it for considerably less money than those playing today. It is hard to imagine what salaries they could and would command in this era. From 1959-1965 Pinson and Robinson formed one of the best defense duos in any outfield in baseball except for a brief time when Robinson played first base. The photo reminds me that there was a time when I was thrilled to creep through blocks of traffic and finally see the tall, gleaming light stanchions of Crosley Field illuminating a dreary afternoon or an early evening in spring like lighthouses guiding the baseball faithful to her cozy, clean shore. This picture takes me to a time when I got excited watching either of these men make a terrific catch, double off of the big scoreboard in left-center or just be one of eight lucky men in brilliant red and white with gleaming black cleats climbing the dugout steps and heading out across Crosley's emerald field of dreams. (The pitcher was warming up.) The feeling isn't there for me anymore. I attend big league games and enjoy them but that long ago thrill is no more. Much like that Gordon Lightfoot song from 1971, If You Could Read My Mind. ".....the feelings gone and I just can't get it back." I admit to being a nostalgic man. I enjoy the past. I guess that's why I teach history. But I am firmly rooted in and enjoy the present. Often we refer to cetain things in the past as The Golden Age of ___. You can fill in the blank as to what it was, movies, sports, literature. My Golden Age Of Baseball was when I was a kid. That is my choice, my own golden age of something or another. For yours truly it was professional baseball from 1955 to about 1970. For that brief fifteen year period in my life I had sports heroes and they were the Cincinnati Reds. They were my gods who would never grow old. Armed with weapons with respected names like Spalding, Wilson, McGreagor, and Hillerich & Bradsby they did battle with other warriors. Whether it was Crosley Field or Forbes Field or County Stadium my heroes crowded the plate and swung from their heels. They threw at people and were thrown at....and rarely if ever...charged the mound. When they made the great catch, threw out the runner at home, slid safely into third base....I rejoiced with and for them. When they struck out, dropped the ball, or made a rotten throw, or gave up a home run I was angry with and for them as well. In my young mind they were supposed to win. Why? Because in my young mind...they were supposed to. That's pretty simple reasoning isn't it? Crosley, Forbes, and County Stadium....they are all gone. But the great fun that occurred on those diamonds is with me yet. Sometimes I go down some long passages in my brain, like walking down steps that take me deeper and deeper until I come to a door that I can barely see. I force the handle, the door creaks open and once again I am looking down from the upper deck at Crosley or Sportsmans Park and they are playing baseball. In the three or four pounds of grey matter that sit under the bald skull of a fifty three year old man, Pinson and Robinson still patrol the terrace at Crosley Field. Thomas Pierett 2001
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