one of my favorite annual pasadena events took place yesterday afternoon at the public library - the annual shrine of the eternals election day, hosted by the baseball reliquary. this year's class of inductees was sports writer roger angell, former player pete rose, and former player and manager casey stengel. unfortunately none of these esteemed gentlemen were there to accept their award in person (angell and rose with prior commitments, while stengel passed away several years ago), however that did not stop the gathered crowd from having a wonderful time.
among my personal highlights...
- the star spangled banner and take me out to the ballgame were performed by award winning whistler, carole anne kaufman
- hearing baseball stories of a cleveland indians fan from sister mary assumpta (photo on right) and tasting her "nun better" cookies
- witnessing writer ron rapoport hold up an actual hall of fame ballot to explain how he writes in pete rose's name every year (photo on left)
- seeing stengel's neice, toni mollett, hold up the former manager's shoes and place them on the stage to symbolize that he was here with us (photo at top of page)
- hearing stories of life as a major leaguer from pete rose's friend, greg goossen including a humorous moment about breaking curfew and meeting his manager (casey stengel!) on the elevator
not sure why blogger didn't publish this at my normal 12:01am time. for some reason, recent posts have been saving as drafts instead of scheduled posts. sorry faithful followers for the late state of this blog!