No One Better Than Ezra! (for a while anyway).

I can't remember a lot of things. Not that my memory is slipping yet but it is hard for me to recall things I don't care about. I don't care what I had for dinner last Tuesday. Not important to me, unless I got food poisoning from it which I didn't. I don't remember the phone number I had when I lived in New York. Means nothing. I have a tough time remembering technical things at the radio station because, and I hope my boss Kelly Michaels doesn't read this, I'm just not into it. I give it an honest effort but my heart isn't into meter readings or EAS tests.
However, I can remember stuff about baseball that I should have forgotten years ago. For example, something popped into my head over the weekend that I brought up on our Sunday night show.
I asked the Turf Crew, and it was a small crew since Caseman and Justin apparently had better things to do and didn't show up, Coach Cornell and Brett the Jet, "Who was Ezra Sutton?"
Neither had a clue. Ezra Sutton hit the first home run in Major League history when he went ya-ya for the Cleveland Forest Citys against the Chicago White Stockings in Chicago on May 8, 1871. I didn't remember the date or exact teams but I remember hearing or reading one time in the past that Ezra Sutton hit that first homer. How I can remember that but forget my sister's kids birthday's is probably some kind of character flaw.
Most home runs in those days were inside-the-parkers so there is a good chance that Sutton's clout was of that variety. Plus, he was just 5'8, 153 pounds. Probably not a slugger but likely could scamper pretty well. But I don't know for sure what type of homer it was and it bothers me. I simply want to know if the first big league home run was an over the fence job or an inside-the-park homer. I'm guessing here that most people, if not all the folks at that game are deceased. I also don't think the video us up on YouTube.
The Forest Citys that year went 10-19. As far as Andy Cornell is concerned, baseball seasons should be about 29-games. Al Pratt started 28 of the 29 games and threw 22 complete games before his arm fell off. Meanwhile, Sutton ended up with 3 homers on the season and 25 for his career. For a brief period though he was Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron even those guys weren't even born yet.
Maybe if I start up another blog I'll name it after Ezra Sutton.
For the time being though, Mysterious Walker is still my favorite old-timey baseball player.