Lohmann: Richmond writer remembers the first Beatle in America's quiet visit
On the last weekend of September in 1963, 10-year-old Alan Crawford wasn’t really clued into what not-yet-famous-but-soon-to-be rock star was visiting his rural stomping grounds of southern Illinois.
Why should he have been?
The big news for him that Sunday –- Sept. 29 – was the final game of the Major League baseball season and, more significantly, the final game in the career of the great Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals. That region of the country is Cardinals territory, and Crawford, who lived on a farm near Eldorado (pronounced “el-do-RAY-doh”) at the time, was a big Redbirds fan.
So big that going on six decades later, when we spoke on the phone the other day, he recounted how he would have been listening to the game on the radio that afternoon: “Cardinals won, 3-2, in the bottom of the 14th when Dal Maxvill, who was like a .200 lifetime hitter, hit a double to knock in Ernie Broglio.”
Source: BILL LOHMANN Richmond Times-Dispatch
