Rant #3,193: It Was a Very Good Year (?)

Good morning!

Get up out of bed!

It is time to begin the day!

I finally had a decent sleep of about eight hours or so, so I can’t complain this morning saying “last night, I didn’t get to sleep at all … no, no.”

It is Friday, August 18, the 230th day of the year, and we have just 135 days left before we kiss 2023 goodbye and move right into 2024.

But to me, it might just actually be 1966 …

Let me explain.

I was nine years old in 1966, as bushy tailed and wide-eyed as anybody of that age was way back when.

My family had been living in our new housing development, Rochdale Village in South Jamaica, Queens, New York, for two years, and quite frankly, the place was the perfect community to grow up and for young families to live in.

The tears to that core hadn’t really turned up yet, and the world appeared to be our oyster.

Right now, back 57 years ago, I was in Rochdale Village Day Camp with all of my friends, and nothing could be more fun.

In 1964 and 1965, I discovered baseball, and once I discovered it, I was hooked for life.

I rooted for the New York Yankees, as my father did, and I knew that I was rooting for the most storied franchise in professional sports even all those years ago.

The problem was that while Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and many of the other great players that they won so many World Series with were still around in pinstripes, they had seemingly all turned old at the same time, and the 1966 club was terrible.

In 1966, the New York Yankees ended up in last place in the American League, the last time up to the present time that they ended up at the bottom of the standings.

Flash forward to 2023, and yes, the Yankees still have Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole, and a contingent of fine players, but many of those players have seemingly gotten old at the same time, and the Yankees find themselves hopelessly in last place in the American League East.

As of right now, they are the only team in the division with a losing record.

I can still root for Judge and Cole and Gleybar Torres and Anthony Volpe and the team as a whole, but the reality is that the 2023 team is terrible, and unless things change quickly, they will follow the 1966 team as cellar dwellers.

And let’s be honest about it, rooting for your favorite team when you are nine years old is way different than rooting for your favorite team when you are 66 years of age.

I lived and died with the Yankees when I was a kid of this age, so I mainly suffered with them and the exploits of that era’s Roy White, Mel Stottlemyre, Bobby Murcer and Fritz Peterson, that generation’s “Core Four” of players.

And then there was Jerry Kenney, Steve Whittaker, and Ross Mosschito …

Today, I follow the team, but not with the laser focus that I had way back when, when I really looked up to these guys as my heroes.

Today … eh … let’s move on … the team being in last place simply doesn’t affect me as it did way back when. I have so many other more important problems to deal with, to be honest with you.

But let’s still look at 1966 for a while.

According to a couple of web sites I visited, here are the prices that our parents paid for certain items:

Fresh eggs (1 dozen): $0.60 ($4.82 in today’s dollars)
White bread (1 pound): $0.22 ($1.77 in today’s dollars)
Sliced bacon (1 pound): $0.95 ($7.63 in today’s dollars)
Round steak (1 pound): $1.11 ($8.92 in today’s dollars)
Potatoes (10 pounds): $0.75 ($6.03 in today’s dollars)
Fresh delivered milk (1/2 gallon): $0.56 ($4.50 in today’s dollars)

And gas was 32 cents a gallon, which would be about $3.03 in today’s dollars.

And on my end, I had a full head of hair then, and it used to cost me $1 to get it cut each month.

And for $1, I could get two slices of pizza and a drink—with garlic knots for free—and have 25 cents left over to buy two comic books or five packs of baseball cards.

It was a different world back then, for sure, but when I look at the baseball standings, it just all brings me back to 1966, when I was nine years old and just discovering my world.

It is great to be nine years old once, but somehow, 2023 does not seem like 1966 to me, no way, no how.

Have a great weekend, and this 66 year old old fogey will speak to you again on Monday ... as I party like it's 1966!