Six Degrees of Blogging Separation - ATBATT Style

Aloha, everybody,

Last week Fuji-san from The Chronicles of Fuji laid out a very intriguing post referencing the Six Degrees of Separation game. In it, he connected Jackie Robinson to Tony Gwynn, and then challenged the rest of us to have a go at the six degrees angle ourselves. 

Ok, I'll bite, but my approach will be a little different. You see, Fuji ran a masters class in using baseball-reference.org in order to establish his connections. 

I won't be sleuthing through the baseball archives quite as deeply as Fuji, but I hope you'll still enjoy this six degree journey to connect the patron saint of ATBATT, Jackie Robinson ...

...with little ol' me...

As you all know, I'm located in LA, so I'm going to use Hollywood to make our connections. And away we go...

1. Jackie was brought from Chicago to Brooklyn to sign with the Dodgers by Clyde Sukeforth, who was a coach with the Brooklyn Dodgers at the time. Sukeforth was the only other person present in the room when Branch Rickey signed Jackie to the big club. 

Sukeforth and Robinson

2. Clyde Sukeforth was played in the movie "42" by
actor Toby Huss. 

That's Huss on the right, and Han Solo is playing Branch Rickey. 

 3. Earlier in his career, a young Toby Huss played Kenny in the movie The Basketball Diaries.

Left to right: Huss, young Mark Wahlberg and young Leonardo DeCaprio

4. The Basketball Diaries is a film biography of N.Y. junkie-athlete-poet, Jim Carroll. It was based on his book of poems with the same title. DiCrapio played Jim Carroll. 

5. Jim Carroll eventually kicked heroin and started a most excellent rock n roll band named - the Jim Carroll Band. 

1980: Jim Carroll with my all-time favorite rocker, Keith Richards

5. Back in the early 80's my crew and I used to frequent the rock clubs on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. The music was electric and new, exciting bands were popping up in LA and rocking Hollywood and downtown LA, as well as coming over from the equally vibrant San Francisco, London and New York scenes. 

The Whiskey a GoGo was one of my regular spots. I dropped by to see bands I was hearing on punk and new wave radio shows, as well as just to see who was playing. That was how I came across the Jim Carroll band. They were touring behind their inaugural album, Catholic Boy. 

There are only a few moments in life when we experience a musical epiphany. We can usually count those moments on one hand. 

That happened the night I witnessed Jim Carroll sing at the Whiskey. His poetic lyrics blew my mind, and his band was spot on, rocking the house in a way that connected everyone through the music. 

6. Watching Jim Carroll from the front of the Whiskey's stage I had no idea that 20 some-odd years later I would be writing a blog. I chose my nom de blog - Stealing Home - with a nod to Jackie Robinson, and thus completed the sixth degree of connection. 

Aloha!