Darkhalf...	Male 51 years old REVERE, MA
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Tony C. the man the myth the legend ,

Most importantly the real deal , Tony C hailed from Revere and lived in Nahant I was lucky enough to go to school with his nephews Matthew and Mark we loved baseball and we loved the sox and having friends who actually had an uncle on the Red Sox was fantastic, that summer was special we all played ball in the spring with little league and such and when school let out we would play pick up games and up against or stickball and listen to the sox on the radio or in those days on tv the games were on early so we would watch or listen and then hang out , unless it was a night game ,

I remember being at the softball park watching my friend Stevens big brother Ron playing centerfield for the Elks , damn I remember all of them A.J. played first and hit the long ball Scotty pitched and he came from Scotland and we loved his accent , Steves dad managed the team and also pitched occasionally , I felt like a big shot being the bat boy and helping steve keep score, well the first game ended and steves dad treated us to Ice cream from the truck parked across the street from hill park , then he and Ron left and Steve and I met up with some friends and we hung out to watch the next game,

It was a magical summer for me the sox were in second at the time and Yaz was tearing up the league and when we gassed up the car at bay state we got sox posters which I put up immediately when I got home I had Mike Andrews and Mike Ryan , Yaz , Reggie Smith , Rico, the boomer and of course Tony C,

Yaz was my favorite and Tony a close second, well on this night we decided to walk over to the basketball courts where there was less light , it was right next to the ball park,  we were going to look for flying saucers , yeah, they were big that year too, remember now I was only ten lol .

We soon got bored and headed back to the park,  when we got there we met up with Matt and Mark and they didn’t look right and when  we asked what they were doing, they asked if we had seen the game , having told them we hadn’t,  they told us Tony C got beaned by Jack Hamilton,  and it didn’t look good. The ice cream no longer held my interest and I felt my stomach clench at the news , yeah I remember where I was,  and what I was doing on that night , the only childhood memory which made a stronger and more lasting impression , was the assasination of president Kennedy.

Part of the magic had left me right then and there , The sox went on to have a great,  in fact an impossible dream year , but something was lost that night , childhood innocence ? faith that everything always worked out for the best ?  I don’t know ,

I do know this , summer was never the same , not saying they weren’t great,  just not the same , something had left me and I never got it back , we never looked for flying saucers again after that summer,  and we never were innocent enough to believe that things would always work out.  Tony Came back,  and I hoped and prayed he would play here forever , but it was not to be,  he was traded to the angels , and was gone,

He tried a comeback with the sox in 75,  but with the goldust twins in the outfield there was no spot for him ,

Sometimes things are never the same,  1967 was the best summer of my life,  but also the last magical summer of my childhood.  Don’t know where I was going with this, but I was talking about it with my friend Wayne last night and the memories came flooding back so I thought I would share

God bless you Tony C, thank you for one hell of a summer ,

Dark half ~RSM~

Keeper of the Red Sox Faith