Another Trip To The Institute For Baseball Studies

Aloha everybody,

Laker Dave and I met up with Terry at the Institute for Baseball Studies recently, and we had a blast!  

 I mentioned in my previous post about visiting the Institute that it's currently housed in a small space, and they only have enough room to display just a fraction of the goodies and memorabilia in the archives. 

Terry Cannon, Executive Director, took us behind the scenes and showed us the storage room. I would sure love to be there and help Terry when he cracks those boxes open and sorts through all that fun baseball stuff.

By far the best part of visiting the Institute is talking with Terry, who is a walking baseball encyclopedia of facts, trivia, and stories from old time baseball, as well as many of the baseball names that you and I grew up with.

We took seats around the table and had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon talking with Terry about a multitude of subjects from the Dodgers' TV blackout fiasco, to the windfall of Negro Baseball League paraphernalia coming to the Institute, to the junk wax era of baseball cards, to fascinating behind the scenes stories of Tommy Lasorda and Sparky Anderson.
 

Terry brought out a great piece of baseball history that I think ol' Matt from Bob Walk The Plank will appreciate.

Terry is showing us one of the baseballs from Pirate Rennie Stennett's record-setting 7-hit night back in September, 1975. That night Stennett became the only player in the 20th century to get seven hits in seven at bats in a nine inning game.

The seventh baseball that Stennett hit went to the Hall of Fame. Terry is holding in his hands the sixth ball hit that night.

The ball had been autographed, but unfortunately time has almost erased the signature...
 

Nevertheless, it was an awesome feeling to be so up close and personal with an artifact from a Hall of Fame worthy accomplishment...

Of course, not only is Terry generous with his baseball knowledge and personal warmth - he's also been very, very giving with goodies for us when we've visited, and this time was no exception. 

Coming up in the next post we'll see some of the awesome items that Terry gifted to us. 

Aloha!