I’m sure had I met Cyn Marsh before I was introduced to baseball, she would have been my first love.

But I didn’t. And although she is my ride or die today, she wasn’t my first love. I would not meet the future Mrs. Harvey until 22 years later.

My uncles Paul and John introduced me to the game of baseball one Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1956. The adults took the kids outside to work off a delicious after-church meal of fried free-range chicken, mashed potatoes, butter beans, corn bread, and fresh blackberry cobbler. We used an old broomstick for a bat and a red rubber ball. It was about the size of a baseball. read more