The American Spectator

br> — W. Picou /p> p> BACK, BACK, BACK br> Re: Peter Hannaford’s Strike Out : /p>

Mr. Hannaford’s column re baseball takes me way back to 1947. I remember a baseball reporter’s column about Joe DiMaggio in which he told how he came upon Joe sitting at his locker after a hard fought game. He asked Joe why he looked “down” and the Clipper said he was thinking about his failure to help win the game. The reporter pointed to some younger players who appeared contented as they avidly read the stock reports of the Wall Street Journal and remarked that they did not show his concern. And Joe ruefully noted their activity with a sad concern for baseball’s future if the players forgot what the game was about. — at least the game Joe so proudly played. I remember sitting in the $1.25 center field bleachers of Yankee Stadium and watching a hurting Joe DiMaggio wincing from pain as he played his position. He felt that if he could throw one powerful ball back to the infield at the beginning of the game, he could fake out the opposition from trying to run on him during the rest of the game.

p>In my 72nd year, I have come to the sad conclusion that br> baseball has forgotten the game it once was. br> — Ken Wyman br> Huntsville, AL