Goodbye Hall of Famer

Years ago I taught a Speech and Presentation class at Cass High School. The class was made up of mostly freshmen, so I only knew a couple of the kids when the class began in August. After providing some preliminary instructions and going over some basics, I gave them their first assignment. They were to present a five minute speech on either of these topics: "The best day of your summer break." -- OR -- "The worst day of your summer break."

The kids prepared for a class period or two, organized and rehearsed for homework and then had to make their first-ever presentations for the course. It would be a good way for me to learn something about them, let them do some speaking without having to research a topic, and allow me opportunity to begin putting names with faces, etc.

Among these presentations was a cute little girl who started telling the story of "The worst day of her summer vacation." She began by describing this long journey to New York in a car with her family, but really caught my attention when she said the trip was to Cooperstown. Now I'm a baseball fan, so Cooperstown, NY and the Hall of Fame had me paying closer attention. Girls like baseball too! How could she have been so miserable visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame?

She went into a description of having to go to a reception for her grandfather who was being inducted into the Hall of Fame the next day and how boring all of it was for her. She was trapped in a hotel room and there just wasn't enough to do. Keep in mind, she never used her grandfather's name in the speech. She just kept referring to him as 'my grandfather.'

At this point, my mind is spinning. I'm on the edge of my seat. I'm looking at her last name on my class roll, but it doesn't immediately come to mind who her grandfather could be. . . . besides, it could be her maternal grandfather and the last names wouldn't be the same. I'm momentarily at a loss. I could not figure this out and her speech was continuing, so I kept listening for clues.

She was very descriptive. She talked about how boring Cooperstown was for a 14 year old girl. She talked about how hot and humid it was on the induction ceremony day. She complained about having to dress up for this occasion and sit in a folding chair for such a long period. She had to listen to long presentations and lengthy speeches from people she had never even heard of before.

She had been truly miserable.

Meanwhile, I'm the baseball fan still racking my brain to figure out possibilities of who her grandfather could be. I still had not figured it out as the summary of her first-ever speech was winding down. I was going to have to ask her who her grandfather was. Was he a player? a manager? a front office executive? a writer or announcer? Then it hit me.

Her last name was Weaver, so as she finished I asked: "Was your grandfather. . ." . and she interjected. "Earl Weaver."

My mouth probably dropped open and I looked around the room of 14 and 15 year old kids to see if they were just as astonished.  Of course they weren't. It was 1996. They had all been born in the 1980s and most didn't care one bit about baseball even though the hometown Braves had recently won a World Championship. One kid even asked: "Who was Earl Weaver? What did he ever do?"

So I received a quick lesson in generational gaps, but it gave me a chance to share a little baseball fan experience from my younger days.

For my memories, Weaver was the fiery manager of the Baltimore Orioles in the 1970s. His teams won over 100 games five times. They won the American League East six times and they were in the World Series four times, winning one. He was always feuding with his superstar pitcher, Jim Palmer. He was ejected from games almost as often as Bobby Cox in recent times and was well known for kicking dirt on the umpires during arguments. He was feisty, to say the least, but I loved his competitive -- almost combative -- managerial personality.

Over the years I've told versions of this experience many times, so it saddened me this morning to read of Earl Weaver's passing at the age of 82. He was vacationing on a cruise according to team reports. My prayers are with his, now adult, granddaughter from my speech class.  May peace and comfort be with her and her family. Rest in Peace, Earl of Baltimore. Rest in Peace.