Newsletter #40 — Jack Graney Day in St. Thomas
August 1, 2022
Newsletter #40 — Jack Graney Day in St. Thomas
Cooperstown and Canada — The visit to Cooperstown and Canada was even more awesome and fulfilling than I had thought it would be. In Cooperstown Perry Mudd Smith, Jack Graney's granddaughter, gave a wonderful acceptance speech for Jack posthumously receiving the Ford Frick Broadcasting Award. I teared up listening. Later that day Phil and I, along with thousands of others, watched the parade of Hall of Fame Inductees. Perry was on the first truck, along with Tim Kurkjian, who received the Baseball Writers of America award for career excellence. After that came the Hall-of-Famers, in chronological order, led by Billy Williams of the Cubs, inducted in 1983.
From there we drove to Buffalo to spend a day with my editor and publisher at City of Light. Marti gave Phil and me a fantastic tour of Buffalo architecture as well as the waterfront, with Buffalo history thrown in at every stop. Totally awesome!
And from there we went to St. Thomas, Ontario, where Jack Graney was born and grew up, and where Larry spent his winters and the occasional "off" week when Jack sent him home to recuperate from Big League stress. On Tuesday July 26 Perry and Ernie Smith and Phil Passen and I were given a personal tour of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame by Director Scott Crawford. Much of the CBHOF is as I remember it from 2013, but there's a new wing which houses the archives. The whole thing was very impressive and I was especially fond of the bat collection: over 200 bats from the 1800s to today.
Wednesday, July 27 was declared "Jack Graney Day" in St. Thomas, and the city went all-out to honor Jack. At 11:00 we all met at the roundabout where the statues of Jack, Larry, and a female pitcher was dedicated. The photo above shows me standing by the plaque, and if you look closely you can see, in the bottom left, that the plaque contains a quote from Jack and Larry.
In the early afternoon I participated in a book autographing along with St. Thomas native William Rayner, who had just published a book, Three and Two Jack. Bill and I autographed for almost two hours and gave interviews and spoke to many people.
Then, at 8:00 that evening, we were all invited to a 14U game between the St. Thomas team and the visitors from Sarnia. Fittingly, St. Thomas won. Each of the participating players was given a copy of Jack and Larry, thank to the Economic Development Council of St. Thomas. It was fun for me to see all the players opening their copies of the book and talking to each other about it.
After the game we watched the first-ever drone show in St. Thomas (at the ball field). Spectacular! So much more fun than fireworks. Unbeknownst to any of us attending, we had a very emotional surprise in store: as the drone show was winding to a conclusion the PA system broadcast the voice of Jack Graney — from his last broadcast in 1953. Very, very emotional.
Also, the broadcasting booth at the ballpark was named the Jack Graney Broadcasting Booth, with a beautiful metal sign honoring Jack.
What an incredible experience this all was.
August 20 Book Fair — On Saturday, August 20, I will be one of twenty-some authors participating in a Local Author Book Fair, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Elmhurst Public Library, Elmhurst, IL. I will be autographing copies of The F Words and talking with teens and adults who want to know more about the book. (I thought of requesting a drone show and broadcasting booth, but decided that might be too pushy.)
August 1 Blog — My Writing Life: 4 continues the story of my writing adventures, with particular attention to refrigeration manuals.