Man on the Moon

A series of funny anecdotes about how the anniversary of the moon landing intersected with baseball. I’m a little dubious of the Gaylord Perry story — the home run was legit, but I’m guessing Alvin Dark’s comments wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny. This one was pretty good though:

It was 10:56 p.m. when Armstrong walked on the moon. Most games were over. But on the East Coast, the Mets watched it together as a team.

Their charter flight had broken down at the Montreal airport. While they waited for repairs, players watched on TV at a bar as Armstrong made his “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” recalled retired outfielder Ron Swoboda.

“The irony was not lost on us,” Swoboda said with a laugh. “We’re stuck in Montreal because of engine problems but they could put a man on the moon.”

Funny, eh? Not the irony, I mean, but the fact that Swoboda is one of those sheeple who thinks we actually sent human beings to the moon.

Wake up, folks.


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lar
14 years ago

Craig,

I came across that same quote from Alvin Dark yesterday when I was looking at old newspapers for this. I’m sure it made it into that newspaper article because he saw the same kind of thing.

I don’t particularly believe that Dark actually said that, but it is at least kind of possible. He supposedly said it in 1962, and that was a time when people were actually talking about man possibly going to the moon (Shepard, Glenn, Kennedy’s challenge, etc). So, if he was someone who was interested in that, he might have made that quip. Still, I don’t 100% believe it.

Alex Poterack
14 years ago

Snopes is all over the Gaylord Perry story: http://www.snopes.com/sports/baseball/perry.asp

Of course, they’re about as equivocal as we are about it, but still.

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

Thanks, Alex.  Though I wish they’d check out the Marilu Henner moon landing story.  That’s the sort of thing people want to know about.

Connecticut Mike
14 years ago

Newsradio was great until Phil Hartman died.  One of the truly underrated shows of the last 20 years or so.

lar
14 years ago

I completely agree with CT Mike. I loved that show (and it’s available on Hulu!). What’s funny is that Stephen Root, who was Jimmy James in Newsradio, actually played Chris Kraft, NASA’s Flight Director during Apollo, in HBO’s “From the Earth to the Moon”. So he’s got another good space connection.

(oh, and in case it wasn’t clear above, I ran into this Alvin Dark quote in a newspaper from 1969, so the story is at least as old as the moon landing…)

Brandon Isleib
14 years ago

Over the weekend, my bar review course had a big ol’ MBE practice exam.  One of the questions involved a Gaylord Perry getting operated on by a Dr. Dark and a Dr. Slaughter.  Kid you not.  Timing couldn’t be stranger.

Richard in Dallas
14 years ago

Craig – You got my interest then left me hanging. What is the Marilu Henner moonshot story?

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

I know I’ve written about this one before, but maybe it was a while back:

Henner was on the Bob Costas show, maybe in the late 80s. The topic of her memory came up, and she said (or had written in her book or something) that she can tell you what she was doing on any given date in her lifetime.  So Costas starts throwing out dates. Things like July 4, 1976, or the day Nixon resigned or something, and she nails them.  Then he throws out July 20, 1969, and she gets rather shocked and doesn’t say anything.

Costas responds with something like “how can you not know what you were doing the day Armstrong walked on the moon.”  Henner responds by saying that that was the night she lost her virginity, in a shower, with some dude.

Mark Armour
14 years ago

By the time Dark would have made this comment, the idea of man walking on the moon no longer seemed impossible.  He would likely would picked a different unlikely event, I think.

David
14 years ago

Just to be sure, that “Wake up, folks” line and the notion that the moon landing was a hoax were some sort of inside joke for ‘News Radio’ fans rather than an actual statement, right? 

Right?

I really don’t want to foster another ruckus, so please let this just have been a joke.

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

No worries, David. It was just a joke.  For some reason I have found the conceit of pretending that I believe the moon landing to have been staged to be quite funny.  Maybe it’s not, but I’ve been telling everyone for days that I think the whole thing was filmed near the Utah-Nevada border using special cameras.

Michael
14 years ago

You know who doesn’t stand with the sheeple?

Carl Everett.

Dude doesn’t believe in either dinosaurs or astronauts. And any man who can convince umps to let him stand with his foot almost on home plate must know something.

David: just read the book, “Jimmy James, Macho Business Donkey Wrestler.” It has the real truth you won’t hear on CNN.

Richard in Dallas
14 years ago

Michael – WHY would you make that suggestion to David?  That’s like telling De Niro that you ARE, in fact, talking to him…

David
14 years ago

Ah, the footage of the moon landing was fake.  But the question is, which of the six moon landings
was filmed there? 

Even though it was just a joke, I figured I’d just get out one big rant.  (Partially as an excuse to give myself a break from my work.)

Ya know, I honestly suspect that this movie, ‘Capricorn One’, was the genesis of the hoax moon landing notion.  Which, first off, shows the power that Hollywood has over the zeitgeist (for instance, most idiots believe ‘Saving Private Ryan’ was realistic, when it was actually preposterous in a billion different ways – not the least of which was its depiction of the Normandy Beach invasion, which was more ludicrously exaggerated than scenes Michael Bay cuts out of his movies because they’re too over-the-top).  Secondly, it shows that people are willing to believe “conspiracy theories” as long as it’s hip to do so (the TV shows ‘Friends’ and ‘Family Guy’ – and many others, I’m sure – have all advocated the hoax moon landing idiocy).  It’s like the mainstream media has decreed that the moon landing hoax notion is the one safe “conspiracy theory” that even Arab-hating neo-cons can subscribe to.  (Of course neo-cons hate exploration: They’re weak men who seek dominate the status quo rather than to push outward and create and explore the new.)

The moon landing hoax notion is so stupid, so easy to disprove, and the evidence so flimsy, that you know the only reason people would ever believe it is because they were instructed to do so by the mainstream media.  The flip side of that coin is that that same mainstream media can successfully instruct retard Americans that evil Arabs are plotting world domination from a cave in Afghanistan, and they’ll actually believe that lunacy.  It just makes no sense.

Furthermore, it’s a tremendous insult to the incredible amount of work, ingenuity, courage, and, yes, lives, that were lost in the quest to out into space, orbit, and, finally, the moon.  (But, then again, most American man can’t even remotely conceptualize creating and exploring anymore, so perhaps it makes sense that making a perilous exploration in pursuit of knowledge and adventure would seem preposterous, in their drug-addled, military-worshiping heads.)

(Incidentally, that movie ‘Capricorn One’ – which you can watch in full at that link – is really very cool.  I simply don’t like that many people have apparently applied its fictional Mars landing tale to America’s real and glorious moon landing adventures.  But whatever.)

tadthebad
14 years ago

David, do you even realize how stereotypes fill your comments?  What is it with you and neo-cons and/or impotent men?  Seems like you protest a bit too much.  Incidentally, I’m conservative, and think the idea of space exploration is fantastic.  George W. Bush endorsed further and farther space exploration while in office.  You might actually be intelligent, but that’s impossible to see given your weak reliance on stereotypes to further an obvious hate-filled agenda.  And don’t stereotype me – I don’t fit into your extremely narrow view of the world.  Step away from the desk and try to get outside once in a while, mmm-kay?