RIP, Monster

I read with some sadness about the death of Dick Radatz, the legendary Red Sox relief pitcher, in the Boston Globe this morning.

I already knew that he was called "the Monster," but I didn't know that the nickname came from Mickey Mantle, who Radatz apparently dominated. The Globe quotes newspaper reports as saying that Radatz faced Mantle 63 times, and struck him out 47 times.

That's awesome.

My father and I met Radatz at a baseball card show in Massachusetts about 15 or so years ago, and he seemed like a heck of nice guy. Much nicer than Wade Boggs -- I waited about three hours in line to meet Boggs at a department store in Boston around the same time and he was a total jerk. And Mantle was a jerk to my dad's father when my Papa Sam approached Mantle at a New York City restaurant one night to get an autograph for his son.

I stopped on my way home from work to return some DVDs at the library, which is right next to a baseball diamond. It was about 6:30p.m. when I pulled out of the library's parking lot, and the field was lit up...for some reason, it's one of my favorite sites.

I hope there's a nice field like that up in heaven where the Monster can keep on whiffing Mantle.