Bucky & Orenthal
On 10/02/78, I remember exactly where I was.
I’d played in an afternoon soccer game at North Collins High School...played is a loose term...I ran up and down the field with a radio playing in my ear...
...Coach Loretto took the radio away and was listening to it instead (he’s a Yankees fan too) and I was running down the field, but stopped dead when he said:
“Bucky just hit a three-run homer.”
I arrived home in time to watch Reggie go yard, and Goose close it out.
Dad, who never missed a day of work...never...was there.
“Why are you home?” I asked.
“I have a cold coming on,” he said.
Yankees 5 Red Sox 4.
I know where I was on 10/03/95:
“The verdict is coming,” my friend Ron said (may he RIP).
Orenthal stood up.
“Not guilty.”
We had all listened to and discussed every second of that trial (and that case led to every single story being...breaking news).
There were moments when I wished Orenthal was not guilty...
...I wanted there to be someone else who murdered those two young people...
“Son of a bitch. He got away with it,” Ron said.
Ron saying it out loud cemented it for me:
He did it.
He got away with it.
Bucky and Orenthal.
Linked in my mind every early October.
I was 13 when Bucky hit that homer.
I was 30 when they let the Juice loose.
Now I’m 53...
...the news makes me kinda’ sick every day...
...Yankees still make me feel better...
...no matter what.
I’d played in an afternoon soccer game at North Collins High School...played is a loose term...I ran up and down the field with a radio playing in my ear...
...Coach Loretto took the radio away and was listening to it instead (he’s a Yankees fan too) and I was running down the field, but stopped dead when he said:
“Bucky just hit a three-run homer.”
I arrived home in time to watch Reggie go yard, and Goose close it out.
Dad, who never missed a day of work...never...was there.
“Why are you home?” I asked.
“I have a cold coming on,” he said.
Yankees 5 Red Sox 4.
I know where I was on 10/03/95:
“The verdict is coming,” my friend Ron said (may he RIP).
Orenthal stood up.
“Not guilty.”
We had all listened to and discussed every second of that trial (and that case led to every single story being...breaking news).
There were moments when I wished Orenthal was not guilty...
...I wanted there to be someone else who murdered those two young people...
“Son of a bitch. He got away with it,” Ron said.
Ron saying it out loud cemented it for me:
He did it.
He got away with it.
Bucky and Orenthal.
Linked in my mind every early October.
I was 13 when Bucky hit that homer.
I was 30 when they let the Juice loose.
Now I’m 53...
...the news makes me kinda’ sick every day...
...Yankees still make me feel better...
...no matter what.
Comments