Mickey Lolich, Sparky Marvin, and Me

Occasionally life presents you with a unique opportunity.   This blog is one of mine.  This is the 100th post of my blogging career.  I’ve written approximately 80,000 words (including typos and misspellings).  That’s the equivalent of a 320 page thesis, a typical romance novel or personal memoire.  However, it’s far short of the 587,287 words in War and Peace.

I plan to keep on writing until I run out of memories or opinions. (So probably forever.)  I hope you keep on reading.  Please feel free to share my blog with others that may have an interest in the thoughts of a 71 year old retiree.

Mickey Lolich has always been Mickey Lolich.  He’s a former major league baseball pitcher who was the hero of the 1968 World Series fifty years ago.

Sparky Marvin was  Jim Marvin until I gave him a nickname.  He was known as Sparky to a select few.  By default his wife, Diane, became known as Mrs. Sparky Marvin but I may be the only person to identify her by that name.

As for me, I’ve always been just me.

Mickey Lolich pitched three complete games in the 1968 World Series.  It was a seven game series and he won his three outings.   By comparison, there were only fourteen complete games pitched in all of baseball during the 2018 regular season.  That’s three  out of seven vs. fourteen out of two-thousand three hundred and forty.  Mickey helped his own cause by hitting the only home run of his career during game two of the series.

Several years ago Jim Marvin and I went to Las Vegas with a group of guys that played poker together.  As with all such trips we never stayed in one place for an entire day.   We jumped  from place to place, trying our luck in a variety of locations.  We were staying at the Riviera (This hotel/casino was torn down a few years ago.)

As we entered the last few hours of our trip I was several hundred dollars down.  Jim was “ahead”  and decided that he had wagered enough.  He joined me as I walked across the street and down a few hundred yards to the Stardust.  (That’s gone now too.)  I settled in at a table to play double-deck blackjack.  Nothing much happened during the first couple of times through the deck.  (In double deck you get through all of the cards much faster then you do when playing a six or eight deck shoe.)

A few hands into the third time through the deck, Jim bent down and whispered into my ear, “Bet it all.”   I looked over my shoulder and asked, “All?”  “All”, he replied.

I didn’t bet it all.  I did increase my bet and I won the hand.  “Bet it all”, came into my ear once again.  Once again, I didn’t, but won the hand.

As the dealer shuffled the cards I got up from the table and spoke briefly to Jim.  He had been keeping track of the cards in play and determined that the remaining deck  was rich with face cards.  “I’ll keep track of the cards and let you know when you should increase your bet.”  “OK”, I agreed.

Over the next hour or so I won all of the money I had lost and found myself fourteen hundred dollars “up” instead of hundreds “down”.  I got up from the table, hugged Jim, and said, “Sparky, you did a great job coach.”  (Sparky Anderson was the manager of the Detroit Tigers at the time and was revered by some as one of the best managers in baseball.)

Sparky Marvin was born that day at a blackjack table in the Stardust Casino.

A few years ago, Mickey, Sparky and I all found ourselves in the same location.  Sparky and I had gone to the Detroit Tigers fantasy camp in Lakeland, Florida to watch another friend, Ted, play baseball.  Ted was a fantasy camper and Mickey was one of the coaches.

We spoke briefly of the 1968 World Series and Mickey’s heroics.  Mickey was humble but proud.  What he accomplished was a “first” in the history of baseball and it hasn’t been repeated.  I don’t expect that it ever will.

We took the opportunity to document our encounter with the following picture.  I’m the husky guy, Mickey is wearing glasses and Sparky Marvin is wearing a blue striped  shirt.

I hope you enjoy this piece of history.