Summer of 1991

The summer of 1991 was a very busy time for me at work and school. Baseball was my comfort food that summer and early fall. The Yankees, while far from the greatness they were to display in the late 1990s were better than they were the year before when the finished in the cellar of the American League East.

When I was not working or studying, I was watching baseball or hiking. Oh, yes and there were household chores and that dribble.

Baseball played a very important role as summer turned to fall. I was getting a little stressed out over a difficult project at work  Baseballwas about the only thing that would calm me down. It is hard to explain. There was the comfort of going to Yankee stadium on Saturdays, watching the game and keeping score. In addition to enjoying keeping score as I watch a game, I hoped to do so correctly where my card matched the one in the paper the next day. Keeping score requires paying attention. There are no announcers telling you what is going on, so if you are not paying attention you are going to miss how a baserunner gets on base. For the whole point is to keep track of every pitch to every hitter. The Saturday games helped to take me away from the rigours of my exam preparation.

As my project neared completion, I took great comfort in following the 1991 post season. Before I cheat and look at my Baseball Almanac, I’ll say that either the Oakland Athletics or the Minnesota Twins won the World Series that year. Now I’ll go and look, yes the Minnesota Twins took the series against the Atlanta Braves, 4 games to 3. In what the Baseball Almanac called one of the great ones.

One of the players on the Minnesota Twins that year was a third baseman named Mike Pagliarulo. Mike Pagliarulo or “Pags” played for the New York Yankees in the 1980s going to the San Diego Padres before ending up with the Twins in 1991. I enjoyed cheering him on as he got a World Series Ring.

That same year, the Braves had a 24-year–old left handed pitcher, Mike Stanton. Mike Stanton played with Yankees from 1997 through 2000, the lefty out of our bullpen winning three World Series rings with the Yankees.