Bats, Balls … and Nostalgia

SETON HALL vs. PROVIDENCE COLLEGE

Anything it seems can trip a bout of nostalgia.

The other night I stopped multi-tasking (only joking, dear Reader, I usually take one thing at a time) to sit still and watch a hoops game on ESPN 2.

I love watching basketball especially from now until “March madness” - the common name for the big college tournament. I missed out on about 28 seasons when living overseas so I’m trying to catch up by watching a few games each week.

While ESPN 1 usually features the more significant games, ESPN junior televises the lesser mortals of college basketball. However, lesser is a dangerous description as all Division 1 NCAA basketball is great – especially when two old and established, Catholic, small college teams are playing.

So there I was watching SETON HALL vs. PROVIDENCE COLLEGE - the original Big East Conference teams by the way.

Ding! This is the same match-up I would have listened to on the radio 45 years ago as a boy growing up in suburban Boston - so the nostalgia noddle in my brain announced.

Providence College, the Friars - such a great name! - was a formidable team in those years winning the NIT Tournament twice. In 1961, one of their championship seasons, I was all of 12 years old.

With both my mother and father working, bed-time would have come early. The only sound in our house would have been the low rumble of the oil burner down in the basement trying to keep up with a cold New England night.

The dial on my little transistor radio, one of my prize possessions at the time, was easy to jiggle and sometimes the game would fade out. Finding the station signal in the dark was not easy. Most nights I would simply fall asleep waking in the morning to find the radio on the floor next to my socks.

Perhaps only my father, turning out the lights, would hear the announcer:

The game is tied at 52 with ten seconds remaining... Providence brings the ball up over half court... the home crowd is going wild...hold on!... Seton Hall changes to its 2-3 zone defense... three seconds on the clock. The Friars take one last shot....