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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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The Fourth is always infused with summer’s magic

A GRIP ON SPORTS • The best part of summer when you are under, I don’t know, 14? The endless possibilities. And nothing epitomizes that more than the Fourth of July. Read on.

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• Growing up in Southern California, summer sometimes started in late April. Not the real summer, the out-of-school-and-there’s-no-thinking-necessary summer, but the summer of bare feet and playing baseball every day. Heck, if you didn’t start acclimating the soles of your feet to the hot asphalt in April, by May you couldn’t walk to the park after school unless you wore tennis shoes. Your feet would burn. Who wanted that? So weekends in April and early May were devoted to training the soles of you feet. A little heat here and there and the callouses would build up so that, by June when the temperature hit triple digits, you could pretend to be Tom Sawyer, though you still worked your way home sprinting from shady spot to shady spot. (It wasn’t until I went off to college that I discovered what we today call flip-flops, though they were known as thongs back then, long before that term was stolen by Frederick’s of Hollywood.) The other aspect of Southern California I loved was the ability to play baseball all-year round if you wanted. Oh sure, it rained a lot in January and February, but it was almost always warm enough to limber up the arm or swing the bat outside. Though we probably didn’t as much as I think I remember. There was football and basketball – outdoors, of course, only the high schools had gyms – and golf and tennis and whatever. If I had my way baseball would have been part of every week all year, but I had a tendency to be so maniacal about it I burnt out any friends who had even a passing interest. One year Ted Bohler and I developed a one-on-one, over-the-line game we called the Willie Mays/Ollie Brown Game. Ted was a Giants fan and, to keep him happy, I ceded the naming right to him. He was Willie, of course, then the best player in baseball. I was Ollie Brown because, well, he was the only other Giant I cared about thanks to his cannon of an arm. He had 12 assists in 1966, about when our game was in its heyday. After that, no one ran on him. Either that, or he didn’t get to play much because he had a lifetime average that would fit right in with today’s M’s: .265. Actually Ollie, who died in April at age 71, had a few good years with San Diego in the early 1970s, hitting .292 with 23 home runs and 89 RBIs in 1970. He also had 14 assists in 1969, 12 in 1970 and nine in 1971. Yes, he had a rocket. (For perspective, Ichiro had 12 assists in his best season and he did it once, 2003.) Anyhow, back then I had a pretty decent arm, so I adopted Ollie as my guy. We played the game after school that year and all through summer, either at the local playground (if it wasn’t crowded) or on my street (though if the ball got by, it could roll all the way to Long Beach, 40 miles away, via the end-of-the-street storm drain). I don’t remember the particulars of the game, though I do know it was fun, challenging and it made us tired. What more could you want? We took our bats, gloves and a ball everywhere and played when we could. It was a once-in-a-lifetime summer experience and, while we were playing, we were Willie Mays or Ollie Brown. We were major leaguers. After all, it was summer and the possibilities were endless.

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• WSU: Who will fill the gaps for the Cougars this football season? ESPN.com’s Pac-12 blog has some ideas. ... Ted Miller also has a mailbag. ... Utah is still trying to fit in to the Pac-12 after five tough years. ... Cal’s basketball recruiting class isn’t as strong as originally hoped.

• Indians: The Indians are on a bit of a roll. They routed Vancouver 17-2 last night.

• Preps: The East/West football game is tonight at Central Valley. Greg Lee has an advance focused upon versatile Lewis and Clark graduate Taylor Duncan (pictured carrying the ball).

• Seahawks: So is Russell Wilson destroying his reputation in Seattle with the contract negotiations? OK, is he just tarnishing it a bit? ... Wilson was on with Jimmy Kimmel the other night. ... The Packers are now the Super Bowl favorites. ... Bob Condotta has some notes.

• Mariners: Willie Bloomquist wasn’t the best player the Seattle-area ever produced, but he was among the most popular. The Port Orchard-raised utilityman’s career with the M’s, a career that had a couple of incarnations, came to an end yesterday when he was designated for assignment. ... The good news? Franklin Gutierrez had two hits. The bad? Those were the only two hits the M’s had in a 4-0 loss at Oakland last night. ... Mike Montgomery is kind of a surprise, isn’t he? ... Bloomquist was let go to create room for Chris Taylor again. ... Local baseball historian Jim Price has a story on a long-forgotten Spokane-area pitcher who pitched in the major leagues in the 19th Century.

• Sounders: The offensive-challenged Sounders will try to put a rough June behind them tonight when they host the MLS’ top team, D.C. United at CenturyLink. The Sounders don’t have any of their top five players available due to national duty or injury, so good luck. ... Clint Dempsey's outburst has cost him once again.

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• Speaking of triple digits, here comes another scorcher today. Heck, we could have a hot dog cookout on the sidewalk if we need to. Until later ...



Vince Grippi
Vince Grippi is a freelance local sports blogger for spokesman.com. He also contributes to the SportsLink Blog.

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