Picture a slim, beardless ruddy-cheeked Swedish Santa Claus in a slate blue business suit and brightly striped bow tie with the rough, gnarled hands of a catcher. It's Al Erle, the benevolent czar of semi-pro…
Posts published by “Dick Meister”
It's a dramatic, shocking and violent film. Some 200 uniformed policemen armed with billy clubs, revolvers and tear gas angrily charge an unarmed crowd of several hundred striking steelworkers and their wives and children who…
Like every other fan of the National Pastime, I've looked forward with great anticipation to the new baseball season. But I know it won't possibly match my favorite season of all time. It was 1950…
I hope we can all pause and reflect on the extraordinary life of a true American hero on Tuesday (March 31). It's Cesar Chavez Day, proclaimed by President Obama and observed throughout the country on…
Finally, serious steps are being taken to curtail baseball's deadly chewing tobacco habit — proposed legislation that would ban its use throughout California beginning next year. The great need for a ban should be obvious.…
The Fourth of July, as we all know, is Independence Day. Hurray for George Washington and the revolutionaries, down with King George and the British. That sort of thing. But have you ever wondered what…
However the new baseball season turns out, it won't possibly match my favorite season of all time. That's the season of 1950, the year that I, a 17-year-old shortstop not yet out of high school…
Labor Day. Time again for politicians and union adherents to praise organized labor. Time again for others to pontificate about the supposed decline and growing irrelevance of unions as they continue to lose members and…
It's Black History Month, a good time to honor the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, one of the most important yet too often overlooked leaders in the long struggle for racial equality and union rights.…