It’s kind of a memorial thing. All I knew of baseball when I got married was that i was terrible at it. We had a lovely 7th and 8th grade teacher who gave her pupils treats, depending on the weather. In cold weather she staged spelling bees for restless, school-bound kids; in warm weather it was scrub (soft) baseball. I was always much in demand for spelling bees and the first chosen, the last for baseball.

iWe were married in 1952 before television came to Winnipeg. There had to be more games in the afternoon than there are now because my memory focuses on a small radio that I listened to alone while Bill was still at work. I didn’t have a job outside my new home. I was 21 years old and I had been going to school since I was 5, ending with a Double Honours B.A. in French and English and a Master’s degree in English, convocating 17 days before my wedding (from M.A. to Mrs., the joke was.). I knew I wanted to be a writer but I had never taken a course in “creative writing”. There weren’t any.

So I didn’t know a thing about baseball. The announcers taught me well, so well that in 1957 when Don Larsen pitched a perfect game, I knew enough to warn Bill not to say anything, which he started to do about the sixth inning, because a) I knew what was happening and b) I knew that you weren’t supposed to say anything. Now I’ll Google to see if I got the name and date right…

“On October 8, 1956, in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series, Don Larsen of the New York Yankees threw a perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Larsen's perfect game is the only perfect game in the history of the World Series; it was the first perfect game thrown in 34 years and is one of only 23 perfect games in MLB “y

Missed the year by one. We were still listening to radio then, as I recall. I don’t remember seeing it.

It was one of Bill’s ambitions to see a World Series, live. He never made it. Every year after he died I would watch the Series in memoriam, so to speak, not having followed the season’s progress and therefore not knowing the players. It was not until the Blue Jays won two World Series, back to back (1992 and 1993), that I started paying more attention. In the past couple of years I have even become a not-quite-rabid fan. I guess I’ll never get to the World Series live, but I’m there in spirit.

Anne Innis Dagg (born 1933, in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian zoologist, biologist, feminist, and author of numerous books - about giraffes. (Wikipedia)

Nov 14, 2017 - Waterloo Women's Studies affiliate Anne Innis Dagg has won the Lane Anderson Award for excellence in science writing - about giraffes.. (Google)

And last week a remarkable film opened the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto, about Anne Dagg - and about giraffes.

I was moved, touched, inspired and angered by her story. From the age of 3 she has had a life long passion for giraffes and made it to Africa to study them up close by the age of 23, against all odds, the contrary odds being that she was female. She wrote the for-a-long-time-definitive book about giraffes, earned a B.A. in Biology (1955) and an MA. in Genetics (1956), taught at Guelph University, fired when she married because her husband also taught there and married women couldn’t be on staff; and was denied tenure so many times she finally quit in despair (and had three children), passed over by men with far fewer credentials, because she was a woman. These roadblocks in her career anger me. You’ll note the date of the Award, cited above, for excellence in science writing - 1917 - when she was 84.

I can’t say enough here. You should see her film, opening in Toronto - next week, I think.