Weren’t questions about baseball players sometimes used during WWII to determine if an English speaking military officer was in fact an undercover agent for the Axis? Or was that just a Hollywood screenwriter’s device?
I haven’t followed baseball since I was a kid, but as a Dodgers fan I sure loved watching Steve Garvey and Ron Cey play, and I hated the Cincinnati Reds. It would seem if this President were raised in America, he would have favorite players, even if he didn’t pay any attention to the sport now.
I had a funny experience one time as a kid. I lived in Yokosuka, Japan, and my dad was the Security Officer on the base at the time. I think I was maybe 9 years old at the time, so I didn’t have an ID card yet and as such, I couldn’t go off base.
But that didn’t stop me. I used to walk to the part of the base on the water where the fence went right down to the water. It was right near the memorial of the Japanese battleship Mikasa (which Chester Nimitz helped raise funds for it to be restored as a memorial after WWII). I used to crawl under the fence there.
When I went back on the base, I would just walk in through the main gate, because the US Marines guarding the gate figured if you were an American kid and were reentering, you must have had an ID to get out.
Well, one day they grabbed me coming back on the base and asked to see my ID card. I didn’t have one, so the Marines brought me in the guard shack, sat me in a chair, and stood around me with their hands on their holstered .45 caliber model 1911’s.
They asked me who I was, and who my dad was, but I wouldn’t tell them because I thought I would get in trouble. So one of them said “How do we know you aren’t a spy? Who plays Left Field for the St. Louis Cardinals?”
Heh, they asked me about my favorite player, and I could answer that one! So the guy said, “Well, I guess you’re not a spy then...” and they let me go through.
It makes me smile to think of it. Many of those Marines, out of Vietnam and having cushy shore duty guarding the gate and the brig at Yokosuka, stood out there. I am certain now, they knew JUST who I was, since they worked for my dad. Heh, I knew they were just messing with me (or I did, once the guy said “How do we know you aren’t a spy” and they knew I knew, but we all played along...:)