When Baseball Created Rebels

In 1987,the last daytime World Series game was played.  That means now,there's a couple generations out there where night games for postseason baseball is very much the norm. The popularity of baseball has declined over the years,some people attribute the decline to its slower pastoral pace,especially in this day and age of video games. Others claim football is now America's sport.

I have my own theory.

America has long been an incubator for mavericks,iconoclasts,and rebels of various stripes,and daytime World Series games helped to develop them. When postseason baseball was played in the day,kids had to hope their teacher was a baseball fan,and hope that teacher would bring a television into the classroom. If the teacher was not a fan,then one had to resort to other means to keep up with the scores.

From the time I first became a baseball fan in third grade, (the 1963 Dodgers-Yankees World Series was the Series that got me hooked) till I was in eighth grade,catching the World Series games at school was standard fare. Then came ninth grade,Watkinson School,and Colonel Leiby. This was 1969,the final year of a tumultuous decade.
Watkinson School is a small prep school in Hartford Connecticut.Ninth grade was my first year at Watkinson,and Colonel Leiby was my Algebra teacher.
Colonel Leiby was a rather mild mannered,soft spoken teacher. He kinda looked like Peter O' Toole in the movie Goodbye Mr. Chips. At the same time,you didn't mess with Colonel Leiby. For one,should you call him MR. Leiby by mistake,he would immediately stop you and say my name is COLONEL LEIBY. Watkinson for discipline had a demerit system. Anything from failing to wear your tie to class,to long hair(or short skirts for the girls)or being late could get you a demerit. Five demerits,and you were at school on Saturday morning. Colonel Leiby never hesitated to hand out demerits when he deemed it necessary.On top of it,Colonel Leiby was a no nonsense Algebra teacher. As one who always struggled with math,I immediately knew I was in trouble from the moment I first stepped foot in Colonel Leiby's classroom.
I was in for even more trouble when,in 1969,my favorite team,the New York Mets defied 100-1 odds and went from the bottom of the league to its first ever World Series appearance. For me,as well as many others,this was more miraculous than men landing on the moon. If Neil Armstrong had made his small step for man during the school year,I doubt if anyone in Colonel Leiby's class would have been permitted to watch it. It was just my luck that Game 3 of the 1969 World Series between the New York Mets and the Baltimore Orioles would start while I'm in Colonel Leiby's classroom.

I may have been the only Mets fan in the class but luckily,there were a couple other students who loved baseball,and who were not going to stand for missing the game. One of them was Bruce Edwards. Bruce was a troublemaker from the moment he stepped foot on Watkinson's campus. Saturday detention was generally just another day at school for Bruce. I generally did not get along with Bruce,in fact he would sometimes bully me in 9th grade,but getting over on Colonel Leiby would create strange alliances. The day before the game,Bruce,another student Mike Morgan,and myself agreed to bring our transistor radios to class. The plan was for all three of us to listen to the game,relay the score to those students interested,and with three of us tuned in,should Colonel Leiby catch one of us,there would be the other two to carry on..

Each of us had our own way of concealing our transistors. I chose to hide my radio in my pocket with the earphone cord going underneath my shirt. It was also imperative that the volume be at a whisper. I also had to appear somewhat slumped on my desk,which actually wasn't too unusual because being a poor math student,I tried to avoid Colonel Leiby calling on me in class. Each of us sat in different locations in the classroom. I was closest to the door. Edwards was towards the middle of the class,and Morgan was in the back of the classroom. When the starting lineups were being introduced,I used my notebook to write it down..Agee..Garrett..Cleon Jones. It was not uncommon for Edwards to be writing notes and to get away with it. It was his job to pass on the Orioles' lineup..Frank Robinson,Boog Powell,Brooks Robinson... We created hand signals to inform the class what was going on. It was Edwards' job to let folks know who was up for the Orioles,my job was the Mets lineup,and Morgan was to supply the play by play.

The first inning went without a hitch,but then came trouble. Mike Morgan was the first to get caught. "That will be 5 demerits for you" said Colonel Leiby as he pulled Morgan's transistor from the desk.
This created immediate problems for me,because now it was up to me to relay the play by play. It was easier for Morgan and Edwards to pull that sort of thing off.They were generally talkative in the classroom. I tried to keep a low profile in the classroom,but now I was going to have to raise my hand to signify outs. The first time I raised my hand,Colonel Leiby was pleased that I actually participated in the classroom,but after that he got suspected something was wrong,and sure enough caught me and confiscated my transistor. Bruce Edwards was the only one who got away unscathed,but he had demerits from other classes,so the end result was all of us saw a Watkinson study hall on Saturday morning.

I don't know whatever happened to Mike Morgan. He left Watkinson before we graduated..Somehow I can imagine him being involved in some Wall Street insider trading scheme.
Bruce Edwards ended up following his own muse,after getting busted with marijuana in the trunk of his car,he found his calling as a golf caddy for Tom Watson and was the subject of a book Caddy for Life by John Feinstein. Edwards passed away a few years ago of Lou Gehrig's disease. Some say I still carry the spirit of 1969 onto this day.
Some people rue the fact that the rebellious and idealistic spirit of the time seemed to fade with the era..Others are concerned that the youth are losing interest in baseball. Perhaps we can take care of both by bringing back Daytime Postseason Baseball!