Sa-Winnngggg,
Battah Battah Battah...
Sa-Winnngggg - Gah!!!!!
So I teach at Alluvial Flood Plain State University...
During the spring of each year, I claim to hold office hours on the third base side of the diamond at the baseball field. We have a good team most years.
One of the reasons we have had such a great baseball program for a D-II school was because of our former coach... Dave "Boo" Ferriss...
He was from a small place just a few miles south of here... quite talented... he was the first baseball player to receive a full scholarship at Mississippi State... he was that good.
He could effectively throw with either hand. He would pitch right handed on pitching days... and then play first base left-handed on the off-pitching day.
He made it to the big leagues... and played for the Boston Red Sox.... My recollection is that he won his first 8 starts his rookie year... and won 21 games that season...and was named 'Rookie of the Year.'
He told me the story of a game he was pitching when he heard and felt something snap in his arm during one start. He said he continued throwing... but that he was never the same. This day and age, there is a surgical process for it... but not then.
Boston Red Sox... Dave "Boo" Ferriss, Tex Hughson,
Mickey Harris and Jim Bagby sitting on the tarp at
Fenway Park during the 1946 World Series.
One of his more well-known people that wanted to play here at Alluvial Flood Plain State was John Grisham (yes... that one... the author). As the story goes, it seems that Grisham couldn't hit curve balls... and Coach Ferriss told him that as soon as the opposing pitchers became aware of that fact... well things weren't going to be easy... and that maybe he should pursue some other endeavor. At a fund raiser several years ago, Grisham told this story... and Boo later commented that had he let this guy make the team... that we would have a domed stadium here today...
Boo always made the games... but didn't make as many this past season... he greeted everyone as a long lost friend. He was truly one of the nicest men I've ever known...
I guess it was Boo's turn to pitch this past Thursday... Thanksgiving Day... he died that morning. You can read his obituary HERE.
There is so much that can be said about his Life... who he was... and what he meant to this community... I will miss seeing him in the stands this spring.
One of my favorite baseball movies is 'Field of Dreams'... especially the part where Moonlight Graham has to 'go home'...
This is the way I like to think of his passing...
You were good...
~shoes~
