Friendly Encounters

This is a weekly feature highlighting friends who have met celebs.

When we last saw Todd Newville, he was pictured with Oscar Gamble, an excellent former major leaguer, made even more famous by his memorable afro.  Newville is the man behind Baseball Todd's Dugout, an excellent site with a tagline of "Welcome to my little corner of cyberspace devoted to baseball greats."  Newville's site delivers as promised.
Today, I am featuring Newville with Ron Blomberg, the first designated hitter in baseball history and a former teammate of Gamble.  In 1973, Blomberg drew a walk in his first appearance as a designated hitter for the New York Yankees.  That at bat propelled Blomberg into baseball history.
Unfortunately, Blomberg's career was slowed by injuries.  He eventually signed with the Chicago White Sox as a free agent, but he did very little in Chicago.
Recently, Blomberg released his autobiography entitled Designated Hebrew.  It's a good look at an interesting life.  I learned quite a bit more about Blomberg and gained a new perspective on him.  It is certainly worth a read, as is Baseball Todd's Dugout!

Todd Newville and Ron Blomberg in Duluth, GA-June 2003.

Friendly Encounters

This is a series dedicated to my friends meeting celebs.

I came across Todd Newville's site while following a hyperlink from another site. Both sites had a feature on former pitcher Fred Beene. Newville's site, Baseball Todd's Dugout, had a lot of other great baseball stories and is worth a look.
I contacted Newville and asked him if he would share any of them here. He responded positively, although he told me that site hasn't been updated in a while. Newville said he has been helping Chicagoan Tim Kiefer with his site, Baseball This Week (formerly MiLBRadio.com). Baseball This Week has interesting interviews with ex-players like Ryne Sandburg, Jim Sundberg and Wally Backman, along with a bunch of other interviews with minor leaguers from 2008 and 2009. It's another site certainly worth checking out.
During the course of Newville's work, he has met many players, including one of my favorites, Oscar Gamble. Gamble started out with the Cubs, had two stints with the White Sox, had some awesome baseball cards and wore one of the best afros ever!
As you can tell, Gamble no longer sports his signature 'fro. He hasn't lost his love of the game though. Gamble had a lot of interesting thoughts and I encourage you to go to Gamble's page on Todd's site to read the whole article.
Todd has a lot of other great pictures and he has agreed to let me share them here in the future. In the meantime, go to Baseball This Week and see other baseball goodness.

Todd Newville and Oscar Gamble in Duluth, GA-August 2003.