In the summer of 1977, I was as removed from baseball as I've ever been. The summer that was portrayed in "The Bronx is Burning" found me living in Vienna, Austria, and traveling around Europe on a EurailPass.

Meanwhile, New York was being terrorized by the Son of Sam killer and George Steinbrenner's Yankees were in turmoil during Reggie Jackson's first season in New York.

[caption id="attachment_1222" align="alignright" width="217" caption="The Bronx was burning."]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/john-turturro-daniel-sunjata-autographed-signed-the-bronx-is-burning-dvd_838c137c28083abbd0dc9ebf9c749f27.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1222" title="john-turturro-daniel-sunjata-autographed-signed-the-bronx-is-burning-dvd_838c137c28083abbd0dc9ebf9c749f27" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/john-turturro-daniel-sunjata-autographed-signed-the-bronx-is-burning-dvd_838c137c28083abbd0dc9ebf9c749f27-217x300.jpg" alt="" width="217" height="300" /></a>[/caption]

I didn't watch the eight-part miniseries about that summer on ESPN -- I really don't watch television anymore -- but when I saw the DVD in the $5 bin at Walmart, I couldn't resist the chance to check it out. I won't be able to watch all eight parts between now and the time we leave for Europe, but I expect to get halfway through it.

From what I've seen of the series so far, it's pretty obvious that the unsung hero of the story was Yankee catcher Thurman Munson. One of the saddest moments I remember came two summers later. We were driving from Washington, D.C., to Montreal on the first leg of our vacation when we heard on the radio that Munson had been killed when his private plane crashed near Canton, Ohio.

I was just 29 that summer, and I'm not sure I ever felt so old when I was actually so young. That was the summer my marriage was falling apart, and two weeks in Montreal, Boston and New York didn't help a bit. The worst part of it was, we didn't see a single baseball game.
<p style="text-align: center;">***</p>
I don't think I'll be writing for this site for the rest of the month. We'll be in Europe and I'm not sure what my computer access will be like.

See you in July.

&nbsp;