There are many things in sports, I wish I could have seen, or could see again. Here are a few of them.
n I would like to have seen Jerry West play in high school or college. I was alive when he played at East Bank and WVU, but I don't remember seeing him play.
n I would love to have seen Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays play as youngsters in the 1950s I started following baseball in 1961 and I remember the '60s versions of Mantle and Mays. They were still special but they were aging and slower.
n I have attended many of the men's basketball Final Fours since 1984, but I was not going to the Final Four during the UCLA dynasty days. I would love to have sat along press row to see Lew Alcindor up close. He is widely considered as the greatest college player of all time.
n I would love to see the 1968 Charleston High Mountain Lions basketball team play again.
n I would love to see a Charleston High-Stonewall Jackson football game at old Laidley Field from back in the heyday of the rivalry. The same is true for a Huntington East-Huntington High game at old Fairfield Stadium.
n I would love to see another Gary-Welch football game and Veteran's Day parade back when the coalfields in McDowell County were booming.
n I would love to go to a game, any game, again with my father. There is nothing I enjoyed more than when my dad loaded me and my childhood friends into a car and took us to a game.
n I would love to see another Marshall basketball game in the Memorial Field House. Everything about the place was special, like Budd Dailey on the PA and Leo Imperi singing the national anthem. Even the popcorn smelled better in there.
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n Two former area athletes are having good freshman seasons at Campbell University in North Carolina. Former Hurricane High softball star Madison Casto has played in 37 games this spring for Campbell. She is hitting around .400 in her freshman season.
In baseball, former Logan star Zach Minnick is hitting and pitching for the Camels. In his freshman season, he is hitting .266 and has also pitched in nine games this spring.
n The death this week of former major league pitcher Milt Pappas, was a reminder of a painful memory for Cincinnati Reds fans. Older Reds fans will remember that in December of 1965, the Reds traded slugger Frank Robinson to Baltimore for Pappas. It has long been regarded as one of the worst trades in baseball history.
Robinson had a near-perfect season in 1966 with the Orioles, winning the Triple Crown and the World Series. The Orioles swept Koufax, Drysdale and the Dodgers in the Series. Robinson went on to lead the Orioles to the World Series in 1969, '70 and '71, and Baltimore beat the Reds in five games in the 1970 Series.
n On the final day of March, we lost one of the great high school baseball players in Kanawha Valley history as former DuPont slugger Steve Smoot died in Georgia.
Smoot led the KVC in batting in his senior year of 1970 while playing at DuPont for Joe Snodgrass. His teammate Leo Linsky finished second. I had the pleasure of playing with Smoot in the summer of 1970 for the Charleston Northeast Big League team. He was the best hitter in the county. (I was probably the worst.) He was a wonderful person and incredible teammate.
n Last week, I watched the Ripley at Hurricane high school baseball game, and the home plate umpire was former Charleston Daily Mail sports writer Tom Aluise. Aluise also played high school baseball at St Joseph in Huntington. Tom is a talented guy and good at everything he does.