the latter are for hanging, in some cases, really big, on walls for all to see.
as you know, our annual dinner, which is our last friendly get-together before we club each other over the heads on the fields in two months, as well as, ta! da! bugles here!, our 25th anniversary celebration, is saturday march 15th at the blanchard american legion post in delmar.
because it is our silver anniversary dinner, we're hoping to break all kinds of gate records, that we have a virtual mash pit at the door. there'll be food, drinks, music and don ball's stand-up comedy routine, which, if the past is any measure, it'll make us laugh so hard we'll have trouble keeping our beer in.
and like last year, we're fixing to hang some pictures, of various sizes, on the walls, images of the men who've played in the league and of the women who've supported those men, and who, fortunately, have had a few good laughs in the process.
but, because this dinner is a once-in-a-lifetime silver anniversary, we're asking for your help.
so, if you have old baseball photos of yourself, fading black and whites from the '50s, historic shots of you mimicking seaver or strawberry in the '80s when you were 12, or pictures of you and goose gossage at the hall of fame induction ceremony in cooperstown, or better, of you and your dad playing catch anywhere, or, don't forget, too, shots of your mom or older sister or cousin playing, perhaps, in the all american girls' professional baseball league, or, simply, one of them playing catch with you in the back yard, showing you how to throw a drop pitch, in short, old shots that'll help us celebrate an historic night, then the dinner's organizers are asking you to email them to me.
we're also looking for, as we did last year, pictures you might have taken from last year's games.
last year is history, too, now.
sorry, but space won't allow us to blow up every photo. but, hopefully, you'll find that the ones we choose will capture something of who we are and have been.
but all of the photos we get will be put on a continuous playing disc to be shown on the big tv sets by the bar in the back of the room.
that was quite a congregating site last year, as people stood, beers in hand, and laughed mercilessly at the impossibly tight pants some former players wore, at flat bellies that are no more, and hair, alas long gone, that once actually flew wild from under too-small caps.
it's best if you scan in your old photos and email them to me. my email address is mhart44@me.com.
if you don't have access to a scanner, feel free to put the photos on a drive, and mail that to me at 11 Ver Planck St., Albany 12206. in both cases, you'll still own the originals.
you can also mail the photos themselves. but that can be worrisome because photos can be bent or lost. if you do that, please insert them with cardboard inside the mailer with a self-addressed, stamped envelope for return.
if you mail me either the drive or the originals, please include your phone number and email address.
also, this is crucial: please identify the people in the photos and, if you have it, the name of the photographer.
i'm hoping i can get the photos in about 12 days, by friday, march 7.
last year, we got some really nice images from various folks. after the dinner, they got to take the enlarged photos home with them. we'll do that again this year.
so, come to the dinner (see tommy smith's posting here on how to get tickets), celebrate the fact that in 25 years john reel and many others have expanded this league tenfold, from about four teams with 60 players to about 40 with 600, a growth that puts us among the top leagues in all of msbl.
and see yourselves, or your friends, in all their glory on the walls or the tv.
as tim kurkijan would say, "OK! Thanks!"
-mike
(questions? email me at mhart44@me.com)
-- Edited by mikehart on Monday 24th of February 2014 05:23:49 PM
