1961
1962 In the Shadow of the Dome – Linkwood Park 2 miles away I could bat, throw and field as well as any 9 year old and better than some. The only difference was….I was a girl. And girls did not play in Little League! They called me a Tomboy but I had no desire to be a boy. I just wanted to play. There was one place that I could play and that was at Linkwood Park after school. At the park we made our own rules.
I was tutored to the game of baseball when I was 9 by Gene Elston announcer for the Colt 45’s. In the evenings, the game floated to my room from my parents clock/radio in the next room. Now you chuckin’ ’em in there boy,” Elston said when the pitcher threw a fastball for a strike. Some kids listened to a transistor radio under the covers when they were supposed to be asleep. Several punishment meant the transistor radio would be put away. Nightly, I tried to stay awake to listen but the low rumble of the crowd lulled me to asleep. The radio would be the only way to experience the game or to see it person. If you missed it, the sports page of the morning newspaper filled in what we missed. Televised games would be years away.
THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE SPORTS PAGE It was in the newspaper that I read about a 9 year old boy from Arkansas named Bill Bradley who was struck by lightening and blinded. He was brought to Houston to have surgery. The boy’s only request was to meet his favorite player, 3rd baseman Bob Aspromonte #14. Wrapped in badges after surgery, Bill couldn’t see his hero but made a request. Hit me a homer. Bob was the clean up man and hadn’t hit but 5 all year.
Bob was my favorite player and everyone else in Houston. They called him a “ladies man” in the paper. I wasn’t sure if that was something like calling me a “Tomboy.”
I am nine years old from my parents clock/radio. Now you chuckin’ ’em in there boy. Some kids listened to a transistor radio under the covers to listen to the game. With my allowance money of $1.25 I bought a ball printed with the signature the starting line up of the Colt45’s soon to be Astros. I listened to the game holding the ball in my hands I flipped to each of their names…..Jim Wynn, Joe Morgan, and Bob Aspromonte’s name written between the laces. The ritual connected with the ballplayers that I as yet had never seen at a live game in the stadium. If fought sleep but was the drone of the radio was my lullaby
CLUTCH
Hitting in the game of Baseball is one of the most difficult task in the world of sports. “Unless the hit is a home run, no matter how well the batter hits the ball, fate determines whether it will go into a waiting glove, whistle past a fielder’s diving stab, or find a gap in the outfield.* The clutch hitter has an uncanny ability for tempting fate by handling the pressure and coming up with the “big” hit. Bob Aspromonte, 3rd baseman for the Colt 45’s/HoustonAstros was just such a clutch player. Yet, even Bob (Robert Thomas) Aspromonte could not have expected what CLUTCH ….coupled with destiny & fate would mean until July 26, 1963.
I am nine years old. from my parents clock/radio. Now you chuckin’ ’em in there boy. Some kids listened to a transistor radio under the covers to listen to the game. With my allowance money of $1.25 I bought a ball printed with the signature the starting line up of the Colt45’s soon to be Astros. I listened to the game holding the ball in my hands I flipped to each of their names…..Jim Wynn, Joe Morgan, and Bob Aspromonte’s name written between the laces. The ritual connected with the ballplayers that I as yet had never seen at a live game in the stadium. If fought sleep but was the drone of the radio was my lullaby and I unwillingly feel asleep
DESTINED FOR A DOME In 1956, 18 year old Bob Aspromonte made his major league debut with the Walter O’Malley’s Brooklyn Dodgers. O’Malley’s vision was in the works with famed innovator-architect R.Buckminster Fuller to design a 50,000-seat geodesic clear span dome with a retractable roof for Brooklyn. Due to a a subway issues, a cantankerous City Controller fought against it-shutting down the whole project.
Shortly after, O’Malley moved his Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles, with continued hopes of building the first Domed Stadium but this attempt met with the same fate. Bob moved from his hometown of Brooklyn with the Dodgers to…where else? Hollywood. While in LA, unconfirmed sources say the young 6’2″ raven haired, Italian with a winning smile and a glint in his eyes lived up to his reputation as the Errol Flynn of the National League. (more)
THREE TIME’S A CHARM-1961 A trade brought Bob Aspromonte to Houston, Texas, where a bodacious, “wild Texas showman” Mayor called “Judge Roy” Hofheinz made sure that a domed stadium would become a reality and already under construction. He pitched the new Stadium as the eight Wonder of the World and everyone anxiously awaited the completion of the mega structure modeled after the Roman Coliseum awning. Until that completion the harsh reality for the The Colt ’45’s expansion team is playing in a temporary open air Colt Stadium. Far from being the 8th wonder of the world, players and fans alike endured the brutal Texas sun in a very humid, subtropical climate that made Guam seem like Antarctica. The visiting teams groaned when bitten unmercifully by swarms of mosquitos. Scratching and complaining ensued. One player said it for all, “I don’t care what ballpark they ever talk about as being the hottest place on the face of the Earth, Colt Stadium was it.”*
SPACE RACE, HOUSTON, NASA & ASTRONAUTS President Kennedy’s 1961 speech calling for a U.S. moon landing before the decade’s end.
and through the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo flights, culminating in Apollo 11’s landing on July 20, 1969. television, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the Beatles-led British invasion. Mercury Seven “It will define our time,”
1963PF FLYERS
Nostalgia
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-birkenhead/nostalgia-memories_b_921692.html
Bay of Pigs
FAITH
THE ASTRODOME THRU BINOCULARS 1965
MEETING A HERO
When Bob retired and stayed in Houston, I had many opportunities to meet him. For an extrovert I was really quite shy about coming face to face with my hero. Once my father company worked on the New Aspromonte Coors Distributorship and Astronauts Alan Shepherd’s Coors company as well. He told Bob about my scrapbook and my devotion. I wanted to die.
My Dad took me to my first game at the dome with Tickets behind third base.
My father took me to a game and we sat behind third base.
Brooklyn Dodgers Dome The Legend
tHE LEGEND
the best hitters has one hit in every four trips to the plate, while the very best hitters average only one hit every three trips.”
*excerpted from Baseball Mag
HOUSTON
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum
The big hit is typically a game-deciding hit, sometimes a home run, often coming with two outs, although it can be any hit or play with a significant impact late in a game.
clutch hitter is known for handling the pressure and getting that game tying/go ahead/ or winning hit. Bob Aspromonte of the Houston Astros was just such a player.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Rome_%2829096723%29.jpgcoleseum photo
THE LEGEND BLIND FAITH
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/28505856/
Billy Bradley was 9 years old when he was struck by lighting during a Little League game. Billy managed to escape death, but the lightning burned his eyes. He was going to need six surgeries – three on each eye – to correct his vision. Billy traveled from his home in small town Arkansas to Houston for the surgery. When Bob Aspromonte – Billy’s favorite player – heard that one of his biggest fans was in town at the hospital, he paid Billy a visit.
Bob asked Billy if there was anything he could do to help, and Billy said yes – that Bob could hit a homerun for him. Bob had previously averaged five home runs per year, so this was no easy task. Against the odds, though, Bob stepped up to the plate that night, and hit a home run. Billy had his surgery and returned home only to return to Houston the following year for his second set of surgeries.
Again, he asked Bob to hit a homerun for him – this time one he could see. Bob hit the homerun, and as Billy stood atop the dugout and cheered for his hero, Bob’s eyes welled up with tears as he was mobbed by his teammates. Billy returned six weeks later for his final set of surgeries – this one was to fully restore Billy’s sight. Billy again requested Bob hit a home run for him – this time it was the game winning home run.
With his vision fully restored, Billy returned home to El Dorado, Arkansas and resumed his Little League career. Billy’s talent increased exponentially, until finally he threw a perfect game. He sent a clipping to Bob saying that he did it for him. In a strange twist of fate, three years after retiring from baseball, Bob was nearly blinded when a car battery exploded in his face. Bob underwent surgery to correct his vision – and it was almost the same surgery that Billy had to restore his vision. It was even performed by the very same doctor. Billy phoned Bob in the hospital and told him to have faith, that he would get his vision back just like Billy did. And he practically did – Dr Girard was able to restore 40% of Bob’s vision.
The uncertainty is compounded by the low success rate of hitting: the average hitter gets only one hit in every four trips to the plate, while the very best hitters average only one hit every three trips”
In Astronomy and Astrology, syzygy is a kind of unity, especially through coordination or alignment of stars and planets.
Which is what makes this legend.
he roots of the word syzygy come from the Late Latin, syzygia, and from the Greek wordsyzygos meaning “conjunction.” Syzygy literally means to be “yoked together.” Another example from the Turanic-Altaic languages would be the Turkish word “sezgi” that means “sense,” implying that one needs more than one idea/image/process linked together before one can achieve sense. This one word has come to syzygistically take on many various yoked although differing meanings
In Psychology, C.G. Jung used the term to denote “an archetypal pairing of contrasexual opposites, which symbolized the communication of the conscious and unconscious minds, the conjunction of two organisms without the loss of identity.” He used syzygy to liken the alchemical termalbedo with unconscious contrasexual soul images; the anima in men andanimus in women. Dioynosius and his alter ego and sister Athena. Anthen and he opposite Medusa.
In Gnosticism, syzygy is a divine active-passive, male-female pair ofaeons, complementary to one another rather than oppositional; they comprise the divine realm of the Pleroma (the totality of God’s powers), and in themselves chracterize aspects of the unknowable Gnostic God. The term is most common in Valentianism. (Valentinus (c. 100 – c. 153) was an early Christian Gnostic theologian who founded a school in Rome. He was a candidate for bishop, (presumably of Rome) c. 143. When the election fell instead to a candidate who had been a confessor for the faith, Valentinus broke with the Catholic church and developed his Gnostic doctrine.)
In Philosophy, the Russian theologian/philosopher Vladimir Solovyovused the word “syuzygy” as either an adjective or a noun to signify “unity-friendship-community.”
In Astronomy and Astrology, syzygy is a kind of unity, especially through coordination or alignment of stars and planets.
In Poetry, it is the combination of two metrical feet into a single unity, similar to elision (the omission of a vowel at the end of one word when the next word begins with a vowel, asth’orient.) Consonantal or phonetc syzygy is similar to the effect of alliteration, where one consonant is repeated throughout a passage, but not necessarily at the beginning of each word. According to Richard Hovey in “The Technique of Rhyme,” syzygy employs the use of “repetitions that fall indiscriminately on accented and unaccented places in sufficient number to give unity to a passage by subtly filling the ear with the insistence of a dominant tone color.” For poetic examples of syzygy, read the works of Australian poet, novelist and journal editor John Kinsella. We’ve also included an interesting discussion on syzygy by Arthur Szes.
So…syzygy represents a pair of connected or correlative things, a couple, or pair of opposites. And for Scrabble™ players, syzygy is the shortest English word with three ys for a total of 25 points. Yoke this word together with Bonus Squares and clean up!
Carl Jung: Syzygy as the paired opposites
“It is a psychological fact that as soon as we touch on these identifications we enter the realm of the syzygies, the paired opposites, where the One is
Excepted millie in the matrix
CLUTCH -when fate happens destiny
Hitting in the game of Baseball is one of the most difficult task in the world of sports. “Unless the hit is a home run, no matter how well the batter hits the ball, fate determines whether it will go into a waiting glove, whistle past a fielder’s diving stab, or find a gap in the outfield.*
The clutch hitter has an uncanny ability for tempting fate by handling the pressure and coming up with the “big” hit. Bob Aspromonte 3rd baseman for the Colt45’s/Houston Astros was just such a clutch player. Yet, even he could not have expected what exactly CLUTCH meant until July 26, 1963.
THE LEGEND
the best hitters has one hit in every four trips to the plate, while the very best hitters average only one hit every three trips.”
*excerpted from Baseball Magic
HOUSTON
The big hit is typically a game-deciding hit, sometimes a home run, often coming with two outs, although it can be any hit or play with a significant impact late in a game.
clutch hitter is known for handling the pressure and getting that game tying/go ahead/ or winning hit. Bob Aspromonte of the Houston Astros was just such a player.
WHen sysngy sizigy
THE LEGEND BLIND FAITH
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/28505856/
Billy Bradley was 9 years old when he was struck by lighting during a Little League game. Billy managed to escape death, but the lightning burned his eyes. He was going to need six surgeries – three on each eye – to correct his vision. Billy traveled from his home in small town Arkansas to Houston for the surgery. When Bob Aspromonte – Billy’s favorite player – heard that one of his biggest fans was in town at the hospital, he paid Billy a visit.
Bob asked Billy if there was anything he could do to help, and Billy said yes – that Bob could hit a homerun for him. Bob had previously averaged five home runs per year, so this was no easy task. Against the odds, though, Bob stepped up to the plate that night, and hit a home run. Billy had his surgery and returned home only to return to Houston the following year for his second set of surgeries.
Again, he asked Bob to hit a homerun for him – this time one he could see. Bob hit the homerun, and as Billy stood atop the dugout and cheered for his hero, Bob’s eyes welled up with tears as he was mobbed by his teammates. Billy returned six weeks later for his final set of surgeries – this one was to fully restore Billy’s sight. Billy again requested Bob hit a home run for him – this time it was the game winning home run.
With his vision fully restored, Billy returned home to El Dorado, Arkansas and resumed his Little League career. Billy’s talent increased exponentially, until finally he threw a perfect game. He sent a clipping to Bob saying that he did it for him. In a strange twist of fate, three years after retiring from baseball, Bob was nearly blinded when a car battery exploded in his face. Bob underwent surgery to correct his vision – and it was almost the same surgery that Billy had to restore his vision. It was even performed by the very same doctor. Billy phoned Bob in the hospital and told him to have faith, that he would get his vision back just like Billy did. And he practically did – Dr Girard was able to restore 40% of Bob’s vision.
August 13, 2011 by Leigh Wilk http://www.womenscareerchannel.com feature writer. 
After trip with my ancestral plant to Cornelius Nurseries, I was encouraged to reach in a remove the bulbs just as my mother Sandra and great-grandmother Sarah before me. Three new plants grew anew once more. For Aunt Suzy’a 95th birthday, my family drove her Mother’s plant back to San Antonio sporting a bloom bobbing in the back seat atop a long slender stem. Not exactly, a covered wagon but a caravan of adoring family none the less. Our pilgrimage had to wait a while for Aunt Suzy to return from her world birthday tour celebration in New York and London with daughter Lynn, family, friends, Mayors, dignitaries and future Kings.
Leigh Files 
