Creating memories.
No doubt numerous significant events occurred on this date. Even if those events
weren't necessarily earth-shattering, I trust that many of them were more significant
than The Catch
by Willie Mays - the classic, over the shoulder, on the run, beautiful catch Mays
made in the 1954 World Series that took place on this day. That catch, however,
has become a part of collective memory. It seems to have become so much a part
of collective memory that I "remember" it, even though this is obviously
only a second-hand memory. I wasn't there. I was only
three years old when Mays made the catch. Though the game was probably televised
(the 1947 World Series was the first to be televised, and I doubt that there was
any reason why it wasn't in 1954) my family didn't have a television at the time.
If, before the internet era, I ever actually saw that catch, I doubt that it was
before I was a teenager.
Though I was certainly aware of it, I wasn't enough of a sports fan to make the
effort to seek out a video of The Catch before the internet. (Today, of course,
it's accessible via a
simple YouTube search.) But, impressive as it certainly is, my interest in it isn't really as an athletic achievement,
but instead as a cultural artifact. That catch
shows up in almost all reviews of all-time greatest sports moments, offering me the opportunity
to tell my sons about it, and in that way convince myself that I remember it.
Go to: The shoebox advantage.