Driving back from Santa Monica to South Pasadena last night, stewing over the end of the Red Sox season and listening to Talking Heads Remain In Light, I remembered we were out of grapefruit juice.
My kids drink about 90 gallons of Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice a day... don't ask me why.
I stopped by a Ralph's in Pasadena and while in the check out line, strike up a conversation with the guy at the register about the ball game.
When the topic turned to the World Series, the guy said "Who's even on the Phillies? Is Pete Rose still there?"
I responded "Yeah. Steve Carlton is throwing game 1."
Just then an old guy... I'm talking a REALLY old guy... a guy who probably voted for Teddy Roosevelt... leaned over and said "Are they still the Whiz Kids?"
The cashier guy just assumed he was a crazy old man talking nonsense.
But I knew he was referring to the 1950s NL Champion Phillies.
So I responded "Yeah, Robin Roberts is throwing game 1."
His face lit up.
He responded "Richie Ashburn is playing?"
I countered "Yeah. They won on Dick Sisler's home run!"
Now he was positively beaming. He saw I knew that the Phillies won the pennant on Dick Sisler's 10th inning homer against the Dodgers on the last day of the season.
The guy behind the cash register had no idea what was going on but he was laughing.
I kept going.
"I hear Sawyer is going to START Konstanty."
A reference to the fact that the Phillies started their top reliever in game 1 of the World Series and it almost worked.
The old timer laughed and made a Jim Bunning reference.
I decided not to correct him by telling him that Bunning wasn't on the 1950 team.
But I threw a Dick Allen reference for good measure.
Finally the guy's wife, who looked even older, started dragging him away.
As he was leaving, the old timer pointed at me and said "Now THAT is a real Phillies fan!"
I didn't have the heart to tell him I wasn't a Phillies fan... that I was just a Red Sox fan with a sponge like memory for baseball facts.
He probably went home beaming that he finally was able to talk a little baseball.
If his wife didn't drag him, we'd still be there talking.
Glad I could help.
I did something very similar with an old man over the West Coast Avengers at a Safeway in West Covina in late 2006.
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