I sat and watched about an hour's worth of the World Series last night. It had a calming effect.

The World Series isn't really as big a deal today as it was when I was a kid. Could it be that baseball, a relatively sedate sport, saw its best days in quieter, slower-paced times?

Here are a couple of memories about baseball:

(1) Watching Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates on our black and white TV with rabbit ears. He'd stand there at the plate like someone with a perpetual crick in his neck, craning and stretching between pitches, until he'd swat a bad pitch (say high and outside) for a base hit. If the pitch was better he might swat it right over the outfield fence.

Sometimes as I watched the Pirates I'd be joined by my father, which was something I found intriguing. My shy and scholarly dad liked baseball!

(2) Seeing Mr. Springer, our chain-smoking music teacher, rise from his chair in exultation over a Pirate who'd just laid down a perfect bunt in the 1960 World Series with the Yankees. (We kids had been allowed to join the teachers to watch one of the games.)

So if nothing else, baseball back then served as a means of connection between the generations. Not a bad legacy for a sport.