A Crowded Life in Comics –

A Price-Less Baseball Fan.

By Rick Marschall

I have shared my memories, here, of George Price, the great New Yorker cartoonist whom I knew in high school, who lived a couple towns away from me in New Jersey. Tenafly NJ, for the curious.

This is an appropriate season to revisit George. He was an obsessive curmudgeon, almost trying too hard to be the dictionary definition of one. He hated Nixon, he hated Bob Hope (“a glib wise guy”), and he wrote many choleric letters to the editors of local newspapers. As a return for that particular investment of time and creativity, he received piles of angry letters and post cards. In those days, papers would print the writers’ addresses, and George relished the vituperation. “Look!” he showed me stacks of cards and letters sorted by the same phrases used, or the same patriotic slogans underlined in red or blue. “The morons meet somewhere and plan to write them all together!”

George was nice enough to me, and loved talking about cartoons, but enjoyed putting on a show, I think.

There was one subject, however, that made his eyes light up, and turn him into a joyful, enthusiastic conversationalist: Baseball. In particular, the New York Mets, if you could call the team “baseball” in those days.

No, in fact, I used to see him between the Miracle Mets World Series year when they broke their “horrible” streak as a new team, and the excruciating World Series they lost to the Athletics four years later when Yogi was their manager.

It was the best of baseball; it was the worst of baseball, and baseball always ignites discussions, what-ifs, dreams, and disappointments.

I thought of George Price and those conversations recently, as the baseball “season” has “opened up,” or not. No fans; short season; canned cheers; new rules; no popcorn, peanuts, or Cracker Jacks. Sheesh.

I always wondered what it would be like to have gone to a game with George Price. Would he have enjoyed it, or reverted to type in the stands?

This year? Sitting at home, watching a Bizarro-world version of baseball, he would probably wonder how they’re going to make those thousands of cardboard cut-outs of fans in the seats do the wave, those stupid bastards.

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