Yogi Berra's childhood pal has joined him up above. The former Game of the Week broadcaster passed on at age 90. I spent 5 or so hours caddying for Joe at a charity golf event back in the early-to-mid 1970s. Was a thrill to be assigned his bag. He was as nice a guy to a young man as could be. Thanks for that memory Joe.

He was a mediocre (though certainly good for a catcher) hitter in the majors and featured that in his self-deprecating humor. He once told this story on himself: He knew that it was time to retire, when he was catching and his ex-teammate Stan Musial stepped into the batter's box, turned to Joe, and said, "When are you gonna quit?"

Looking back at his career in 1970, Garagiola observed, "It's not a record, but being traded four times when there are only eight teams in the league tells you something. I thought I was modeling uniforms for the National League.

His work with Vin Scully on the NBC Game of the Week in the 80s is a big part of why I became such a fan of the game. We'll miss ya, Joe.

Posted by italyprof on 3/23/2016 5:49:00 PM (view original):
He testified on behalf the owners in the Curt Flood case. I can't forgive that.

he was part of the old guard. I over look his testimony given his overall body of work and my personal experience with him "way back when".

I lived in St. Louis in 1961 and 1962. Summer evenings were the ice cream man, playing catch, cork ball, Wiffle ball or Indian ball, and Cardinal games broadcast on KMOX radio by Harry Caray, Jack Buck, and Joe Garagiola, who said of Stan Musial, "He could have hit .300 with a fountain pen."

I still mourn Ernie Harwell, who I met once at a baseball card show. He told baseball stories you can't find in books.

Posted by rob_frazer on 3/25/2016 9:39:00 AM (view original):
I lived in St. Louis in 1961 and 1962. Summer evenings were the ice cream man, playing catch, cork ball, Wiffle ball or Indian ball, and Cardinal games broadcast on KMOX radio by Harry Caray, Jack Buck, and Joe Garagiola, who said of Stan Musial, "He could have hit .300 with a fountain pen."

how did you play Indian ball?

It was, to the best of my memory, such as it is, a variation of work up that involved adjusting the size of the play area according to the number of players. If you had four on a side, e. g., you played between 1st and 2nd or between 2nd and third. No idea why it was called Indian ball.

thanks, we played that too, just never called it Indian ball.

In the Philadelphia area when the numbers weren't there, we simply played HalfBall. After a couple of summers of halfball, Striking out in 'hardball' became next to impossible with the hand eye coordination we developed.

Joe guest-hosted the Tonight Show in 1968 with guests John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and an inebriated Tallulah Bankhead. Oh my.