Today I took the train up to Connecticut to meet with a
group of New York Mets for our annual preseason lunch, craft beer, and trivia.
The warmup
to trivia was a heated discussion about who on the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame
ballot should be in voted in. Personally, I cannot get excited about these
arguments, but at a table full of those who are, I will have opinions. Barry
Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire all raise the question of whether players who
took steroids should be in the Hall, and opinions were mixed. I suggested the
Hall of Fame have a separate Steroid Wing. And no Hall for players who were
designated hitters most of their careers; they were playing only half of the
game.
The trivia
contest has always been created by D.G., our group’s convenor for the past 33
years — I’ve only been a member since 1991. Today’s was fiendish. Set up like a
Jeopardy game, the categories were minor league teams from 1949, 1955, 1965,
1975, and 1985, with a softball category called Batting Practice for those 90
years old (one of us), and women (that would be me). We were assured that every
answer was a Major Leaguer we would all know, but no one liked this game. The
clues were too obscure, and starting with the name of the player’s minor league
appearances was disorienting.
If
you’re not a baseball fan, this probably sounds pretty silly, but we had a
great time — and hope to see a Mets game together sometime in the summer.
