The 1970s memories surface fast for the man who has spent his entire adult life in baseball, as player and manager. Bob Watson, whom he first met while serving as a batboy for the Class A Cocoa Astros. Claudell Washington: "We used to just laugh." Bob Gibson, as nice off the field as he was menacing on it. Lindy McDaniel's big windup. The distinctive way Joe Morgan pumped his elbow at bat: "I watched him as a kid. I used to try to re-create the chicken wing for hitting."
All are members of a list disquieting in its length — those from the ranks of 1970s baseball rosters who have died in the past year alone.
The list: Perhaps it's no longer than any other list of those who were dying at other moments in baseball's history. But against the past year's backdrop — of pandemic-inflected grief, of baseball withering and coming back smaller, of a truncated season and crowdless stands — it feels unremitting. Just part of it:
Watson.
Gibson.
Morgan.
Al Kaline.
Lou Brock.
Don Sutton.
Hank Aaron.
Dick Allen.
Jay Johnstone.
Phil Niekro.
Tom Seaver.
Biff Pocoroba.
Billy Conigliaro.
Tommy Lasorda. And now, three weeks ago, from COVID-19 complications: Grant Jackson, who won the final Major League Baseball game of the decade as the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates took the World Series.
Theirs were the names etched on the Topps cards. The names that crackled from plastic, fruit-colored transistor radios. The names that shouted from the pages of Baseball Digest and hometown newspapers at a moment in the game's history that can seem like yesterday but, propelled by the past year's losses, is starting its inexorable fade.
"Every one of these guys, there's a memory," said Hurdle, now 63. "We all learn lessons different ways. And the one I keep learning — it seems like every week now — is take nothing for granted."
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