Thursday, June 26, 2008

The essence of Brewerdom in the 1970s


For about a year and a half, Von Joshua was my favorite baseball player. He had a decent year for the Giants in 1975 and then came over to the Brewers in the middle of the 1976 season and manned center field for them through the rest of that year and 1977. He was a steady, unspectacular player who didn't do anything especially well. The stats show he hit about .260 for the Brewers and hit about 15 home runs over the course of about 1 1/2 seasons. In other words, he was the kind of guy you were looking to replace. And when Larry Hisle arrived in Milwaukee as a free agent in 1978, Von was gone.
Von Joshua became my favorite player because we all had to have one growing up. Unfortunately, the pickings were rather slim among the Brewers in that era. My best friend's favorite player was the aforementioned Bob Coluccio, who was traded to the White Sox in 1975 for some guy named Bill Sharp and then posed for that ridiculous porno star baseball card pose that I posted yesterday. Another good friend chose the immortal Pedro Garcia as his favorite player. Garcia was later traded to the Tigers for a package of Red Man and some of Al Kaline's pocket lint, I believe.
Last I heard Von Joshua was a coach in the Cubs minor league organization. I'm sure he does a fine job. Some 30 years ago, he provided the fans of Wisconsin with some intermittent excitement. Thanks Von, wherever you are.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mark,
Von Joshua bears a resemblance to a certain Presidential candidate. Don'cha think?

Rich

Anonymous said...

And I don't mean Bob Barr:)

Mr. D said...

Yeah, I can see the resemblance. But then again, a surprising number of people look like Dennis Kucinich.

Actually, for a 70s guy, Von Joshua was surprisingly normal looking.

Anonymous said...

Von Joshua ... wasn't he part of the "Loveable Lefties" sign we made back in the 1970s? I remember putting that sign up in the bleachers at County Stadium and the wind tearing it to shreds almost immediately after we put it up.

Von (Frickin) Joshua ... definitely a part of our lost innocence.

Mr. D said...

Yep, he was a "lovable lefty." I remember bringing that banner - it must have taken us 2-3 hours to draw that thing up and then it was torn to shreds in less than 15 minutes. Who knew that the back wall of County Stadium let the wind through?