The newspaper clippings, carefully pasted into the scrapbook, are yellowed and fragile as you might expect after more than a half century.
“Unbelievable Sox Open Series Today,” reads the headline from The Springfield Union of Oct. 4, 1967.
In my family’s home in Northampton growing up in the 1960s, we got both morning and afternoon newspapers. The Union was there at the breakfast table, and the Daily Hampshire Gazette arrived soon after my brother and I got home from school.
I was the only Boston Red Sox fan in the household. My dad and brother were New York Yankees fans, while my mother fancied the Baltimore Orioles. “They’re such pretty birds,” she would say.
It was during that magical season of 1967 that my love of the Red Sox hit a childhood crescendo. It was also during that season that I became a fan of Garry Brown.
His story that was published Oct. 4, 1967, begins: “The impossible dream continues today as the World Series opens at Fenway Park. The World Series at Fenway? It’s a reality, but the world finds it hard to believe.”
My 1960s-vintage scrapbook documents the birth of my love affair with Mr. Brown, or GB, as he now signs each email to me. I daresay he might be at least partially responsible for the birth of my dream to one day be a sportswriter, maybe even the first woman to cover the Boston Red Sox.
Garry Brown’s career in sports journalism is the stuff of which legends are made. His first byline made the Springfield Union in 1950. It was for a story about the championship game of Springfield’s Pee Wee Baseball League. In a column he wrote about the occasion in 2020, Garry said it was “an unforgettable day for me – and for all the 8- to 10-year-old boys who played in that game. One of them, Forest Park’s rangy shortstop, Mike Ashe, would go on to an illustrious career as sheriff of Hampden County.”
Two years later, he became the Union’s high-school sports beat writer in 1952. He was 21 years old. Today, though retired in 2009 from writing fulltime, Garry still pens at least two columns each week and, on occasion and when the topic excites him, he’ll write feature stories, tribute pieces and columns about things other than sports.
In early September, Garry Brown will turn 90. He’s still going strong with no plans to stop any time soon.
The ups and downs of aging now guide the frequency but not the quality of Garry’s writing. I’ve promised him that for as long as I am here at The Republican, there will be a place for his words. His fans are unrelenting in their love for the man.
Wrote one of them, NicK Athas, of West Springfield, this spring in an email to me, “Most guys I know eagerly await his ‘Hitting to All Fields’ column in Wednesday’s paper. We love his little comments such as ‘honk if you ever went to blank’ or ‘if you remember blank,’ and his comments about local amateurs and pros alike are priceless.”
Over the years, Garry’s work has earned many an honor, including the 2004 Dave O’Hara Award for long and meritorious service from the Boston chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America. So humble was he that Garry suggested to the board members that he wasn’t eligible because he hadn’t yet retired.
Said one of the association’s leaders, Sean McAdam, then of the Providence Journal, “Too often, people who do not work at the Boston newspapers get overlooked. Garry’s contributions are well-known in the industry and throughout baseball.”
In this photo from Jan. 31, 2014, The Republican sports writer Garry Brown holds his Western Massachusetts Baseball Hall of Fame trophy. He was inducted into the hall of fame at the LaQuinta Inn in Springfield. (DAVE ROBACK / THE REPUBLICAN FILE PHOTO)Staff-Shot
In 2014, Garry Brown’s name was introduced into the Congressional Record by a fan (and friend), U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, on the occasion of his induction into the Western Massachusetts Baseball Hall of Fame. In those remarks, Neal said, “Garry has been a well-known and beloved sportswriter in Western Massachusetts for over 60 years. Even after retiring, he still offers features and his famed column ‘Hitting on All Fields,’ which he has written for the Springfield Republican for over 40 years. Garry’s passion and dedication to all sports in Western Massachusetts has earned him the admiration of his readers as well as his peers.”
Garry’s life in sports writing pretty much mirrors his life at home, having been married to wife Mary since the year he joined the Union’s staff. If you know or ever get to meet the two of them together, the affection and love they have for each other is as deep and abiding as it must have been when they first married. They will mark 70 years together on March 20.
If you ask Garry about the secret to his longevity, he’s likely to tell you, as he has remarked before, that he doesn’t know when to quit. I’m glad he doesn’t.
I was one lucky little girl to latch on to him as a fan in childhood and an even more fortunate adult for having worked by his side at Fenway Park in 2002 for the 35th anniversary of our “Impossible Dream” team and again during the 2004 World Series. Today, I consider myself one of the luckiest people on the face of the Earth to call him a friend.
Happy birthday, dear friend.
Cynthia G. Simison is executive editor of The Republican. She may be reached by email to csimison@repub.com.
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