Baseball and Babies: My Life as a Catcher

by Ted Manos M.D.

Overview

This book was written thirty years ago, recounting an unbelievable journey, I had at that time, that can only happen in a dream. I was an obstetrician/gynecologist that saw an ad in The Sporting News that invited the reader to be "a Dodger for a week". I grew up in Brooklyn, New York and was just at the right age to follow the exploits of the Brooklyn Dodgers before they left for Los Angeles after the 1957 baseball season. I signed up for a week at Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Fl participating at a camp for adults following the spring training program the Brooklyn and, eventually the Los Angeles Dodgers held since 1948. I played baseball through college and was a catcher for my three varsity college years. I was good enough to dream of a career in baseball. I did well academically and eventually went to medical school and abandoned the dreams of baseball but continued "catching" babies as an obstetrician. The book, follows me from my thoughts before the week, to the experience of meeting men I idolized all my life. I also experience baseball without the doubts of youth. My performance was the things that dreams were made of. The former Brooklyn Dodgers I met, achieved magical results for their team and the borough of Brooklyn. Roger Kahn, a sports journalist, wrote a book in the early 1970's describing his coverage of the Brooklyn team in its prime and revisited the men he grew to love and respect over fifteen years after those days. The book was entitled "The Boys of Summer" and they became known as the title described. The book "Shoeless Joe" and the subsequent movie "Field of Dreams" captured the game of baseball and how it occurs to boys and men. The poignant lines are, "is this heaven, no it's Iowa" and "heaven is where dreams come true". My book allowed me to commune with the past and discover baseball, without the doubts that young minds create about their abilities. I even donned the catcher's gear for a few games. I couldn't have played better and the instructors were amazed. I found the freedom to experience the joy of the game and competition. It was also an opportunity for the "boys of summer" to relive their love of the game and the relationships they had lost touch of. Is this heaven? No, it's Dodgertown. Much like the "Field of Dreams" movie, where the ghosts of baseball players past, appear from a cornfield and start playing baseball, now the men I met have mostly passed on. My memories of the camp, and the "boys of summer", are like the characters in the movie coming out of the cornfield. They are the spirits of men, spending eternity playing baseball in a heaven. My life after the camp was transformed, as adult baseball leagues were born out of these "fantasy camps", and I played actively for the next twenty years. If the movie was true, the "boys of summer" are somewhere in heaven playing everyday.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781514403549
Publisher:	Xlibris US
Publication date:	09/15/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	180
File size:	216 KB

About the Author

Dr. Manos was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and his father Manuel (Big Mike) Manos served in the European Theater of U.S. Army from 1942 through the end of combat operations in late 1945 as a non-commissioned officer in Army Intelligence. Mr. Manos was born in Stanford, Connecticut in 1920 and is a surviving veteran of WWII. Mr. Manos was offered a professional baseball contract by the Chattanooga Lookouts but, instead, joined The New York City Police Department and remained there for twenty years as a patrolman from 1947-1967. Dr. Manos' mother, Frieda was a housekeeper and a seamstress in the garment industry. Born on the Greek island of Crete, she emigrated to the U.S. at the age of four and followed her coal miner father living in West Virginia and Utah. Dr. Manos first married in 1966 and adopted three children. After a divorce in 2001, he married to his wife, Rebecca and is stepfather to two adult children and stepgrandfather to three little girls. Dr Manos played high school baseball and basketball at New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn and was a member of the National Honor Society and received a BA degree from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut in 1964. He played baseball at Wesleyan for all four years and two years of basketball. He entered The Albany Medical College in 1966 and graduated with an MD degree in 1970. Interned at Hartford Hospital in 1970-71 then was in the U.S. Navy for five years doing an Obstetrics and Gynecologic residency after one year as a General Medical Officer. He was a medical officer at Naval Hospital Boston, Naval Regional Medical Center Portsmouth Virginia and Naval Regional Medical Center, Orlando Florida. Left the Navy in 1976 and was Board Certified in OB-GYN 1977 and had a solo private practice in Winter Park, Florida until 1999 then worked for Florida Hospital Waterman, in Tavares, Fl and the Lake County of Florida Health Department supervising midwives and doing obstetrical hospital services. Dr. Manos retired in May 2014. In October 1983 he attended the first Los Angeles Dodgers Adult Baseball Camp in Vero, Beach, Florida. He attended again in 1984 and 1986. Honored with Most Valuable Player Award in 1986 and a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers Adult Fantasy Camp Hall of Fame.