[RchW]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

Steve, this is a great idea.

I wish my teachers had done this when I was 11.

My 8th and 9th grade teachers let the class listen to the World Series each afternoon.

Actually I give comic books and sports pages much credit for my reading, writing, spelling and grammar skills.

Baseball also greatly helped my arithmetic skills.

Figuring ERA and Batting Average made my school work easy.

I also had an easy time with fractions and percentages...1-4, 1-3, 1-7, 2-7, 3-9 were easy for me to convert to percentages, too. I soon memorized all of them.

It is strange how something can effect your life so profoundly.

I give credit to my cousin, who was 10 years older than me, for getting me interested in sports. He was 18 and I was 8 at the time. He and I were the only family members who played sports. None of my other cousins played them.

He was a fine semi-pro pitcher. He would pick me up every Sunday afternoon and I would go to his games. They played in the Lauderdale County League in Florence, Alabama. I watched a doubleheader every week and kept track of his strikeouts. I remember one game he struck out 18 batters. He was really good. I have often wondered why he didn't play pro baseball. He liked girls better...went into the Navy in the Korean War...got out and never played baseball anymore. He was good, too.

Nice story Eugene. When I was a kid, I bought The Sporting News batting average calculator. Seems quaint now, but before calculators, a book of averages was very valuable to me. Sheesh now I feel old.