JOHNNY LEWIS AND THE HALL OF FAME

I am not a very good prognosticator! My skills in that area are just as effective as my typing and proof reading!

Not Willie Mays

Many years ago as a college student, I was watching a Mets game, and high on a young player by the name of Johnny Lewis. Johnny Lewis was traded by the Cardinals to the Mets and looked to me to be the next Willie Mays, the famous NY Giants and then San Francisco Giants centerfielder, who could hit, hit with power, run, throw and catch a baseball, a five tool man as they say.

As I watched this kid play one day, the Mets were facing one of baseball’s premier pitchers, Jim Maloney. Maloney pitched a no-hitter for 10 innings in a 0-0 game. In the 11^th inning, Johnny Lewis stepped up to the plate and smacked one over the fence winning the game and breaking up a no-hitter on Mr. Maloney! Watching the game with me was my brother-in-law John, and in my excitement, I predicted that Johnny Lewis was the next Willie Mays, and headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. To almost the day he died, my brother-in-law made fun of my prediction. The Johnny Lewis saga was over as soon as I predicted his rise.

Recently, as March Madness got underway, I decided to go t=o the charts the newspaper sport section provides every year so you can try your skills at prognostication, the art of being wrong, and embarrassingly so. The games hadn’t started and so I begun to ink in my predictions game by game. Looking over it I thought: Gee, this is really easy this year, I bet all the basketball fans will get them all right, including me,

 

OR

How revolting!

So what happens? I had to get up the next morning, that’s what happened. One of my easier predictions was Cincinnati over Harvard. A bunch of future lawyers going up against a basketball powerhouse, how ridiculous was that? Who made up this scheduled game, I thought. So what is the headline?

I’ve also found other scores, just as unbelievable and humiliating.

My next predictions will be based on how many I get wrong, not right, somehow that feels better to me.