Happy Baseball Birthday! Robert Redford

Today we send out Happy Baseball Birthday! greetings to actor Robert Redford, who played famed big league slugger Roy Hobbs in the baseball movie The Natural.

80 years ago today Charles Robert Redford, Jr., was born in Santa Monica, California, right around the time Roy Hobbs was signed by New York Knights scout Scotty Carson to play baseball for Pop Fisher.



The Natural is the greatest baseball movie ever made, and obviously leads my top 5 Redford movies list...


⚾ #1...The Natural

📰  #2... All the President's Men

 🐝 #3... The Sting

  🎬 #4... A Bridge too Far

💰  #5... Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid



Robert Redford was an actor in 76 TV and movie productions in his career, produced 43 others and directed 10 more, and is the creator of the famed Sundance Film Festival.


  Happy Baseball Birthday! ⚾🎁 Mr. Redford... Play Ball!⚾

Happy Baseball Birthday! Duffy Dyer

It's no secret that I have a baseball love affair with 1960s and 1970s big league catchers...men like Ed Ott, Randy Hundley, Jerry Grote, John Boccabella, and, of course, my hero, Detroit Tigers Gold Glove winning catcher, Bill Freehan.




I'm giving these old catchers a shout out because I saw on baseballreference.com that it's a Happy Baseball Birthday! of one of those great old backstops, former New York Mets catcher Duffy Dyer.

What a fantastic name... Duffy Dyer... how can a old guy like me not remember him...of course I do!



I mostly remember Duffy as a catcher for the Mets, but he also caught for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Montreal Expos, and for the last two years, 1980 and 1981, for my Tigers.



⚾ Don Robert Dyer was born 71 years ago today in Dayton, Ohio.

Duffy played college baseball at Arizona State, and in 1966 was the Mets 1st round draft pick, 9th overall.

Duffy made his big league debut on September 21, 1968, at the age of 23, and was part of the Miracle Mets of 1969, getting a base hit in his only Wold Series at bat.


Duffy played his final game in the big leagues on April 15, 1981, at the age of 35.

Duffy Dyer SABR Page...



Happy Baseball Birthday! Duffy Dyer!


Play Ball! ⚾

Back in Kalamazoo

Been awhile since I posted about baseball, and I apologize to you all for that...


I have moved from Jacksonville, Florida, where I lived for 36 years, to come back home to Kalamazoo, Michigan, we're I was born.

I've always knew that someday I'd come back here to live, and I've finally made it back.



I hope to be posting much more about our great game of baseball, my Detroit Tigers, and some posts about the Kalamazoo Growlers, a local Northoods League team.

Right now I'm listening to the Tigers and the Mets, Justin Verlander and Noah Syndergaard battling at Comerica Park... I absolutely love listening to Dan Dickerson call the games on my tablet and on WKZO Radio 590...the station I listened to as a boy to Ernie Harwell call the games of the 1968 World Series Champions.




I come up to the office of the place we're living now, as well as any McDonald's we can find to get wifi until my cable gets installed in a couple of weeks.




When I feel OK, and can get to the Internet, I hope to be able to write more.




Well, gotta head back home...we're outside...sitting in the dark.. as Miguel Cabrera singles to lead off the bottom of the 8th inning vs Mets.




Have a marvelous weekend of watching baseball, and we'll talk again tomorrow... PLAY BALL!

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