Rocky Colavito at Ten Mile River

"I need a Yodel."

"I need a Yankee Doodle"

"I need a rock to throw at your head. Shut up, I'm trying to listen to the Yankee game." I said to Dennis & Artie, while holding the transistor to my ear, desperately moving the radio around to pick up Phil Rizzuto's voice on an AM station far away.

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We were in Ten Mile River Scout Camp in Narrowsburg, New York. Troop 654, from Yorkville, Manhattan. After two weeks, we were all sick of the camp's steamed food. When we cooked, we screwed it up. We craved Hostess and Drakes Cakes. One kid said, "I Want a Funny Bone!" The cake with the peanut butter vomit in it. Someone threw something at him. Good.

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I thought the guy who invented Funny Bones was the same guy who invented the soda called Wink with the grapefruit pulp in it. Yeah, he must have said, "kids love fruit pulp in their sodas, and I'm going to shove a load of pulp in there."

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Remarkably, one of my childhood heroes, Rocky Colavito, the smooth slugger who resembled my Dad was pitching for the Yankees. "The Rock," four home runs in one game, was on the mound, it was August 25, 1968. Less than three months to the Beatles While Album release. In eleven months, we'd be on the moon, Woodstock, and the first Giant & Jet exhibition game at Yale Bowl.

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With my free hand, I scratched the countless mosquito bites on my legs and butt, then I heard, "Dobson lines a one bouncer to Horace "No Double Play" Clarke, Clarke handles the ball cleanly and fires a strike to Mickey Mantle on first. Heeeee's Out!" Naaaa, the radio voice was fuzzy but I did hear Clarke throw the ball to Mantle and that Colavito was out of the inning with no runs, leaving two men on base.

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Yankees were down 5-1, going into the bottom of the sixth, Artie, Dennis and I were supposed to be policing the camp site and working on some kind of Scout merit badge. I had already achieved my badge limit, Cooking, Hiking, Whatever its called for using a map properly, and the One Mile Swim. Four were plenty. I earned a significant goof off period and planned on taking these two guys to hell with me.

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More TMR and Colavito tomorrow.

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photo courtesy of Gerard Murphy

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