Talk Back

What is it about baseball? You write about baseball memories and fans come out of the woodwork. Does any other sport have such allure?

Read the column last week about baseball park memories. Mine were all at Griffith Stadium with my dad. First game was Opening Day, 1953, I believe. Mickey Vernon hit a walk-off homer to win it. But my memory of the smell of the place was not so much the Bond Bakery next door but the sweet smell of cigar smoke.

Don Wilkins, Arlington

My cigar memory: the fights at Miami Beach Auditorium in the 1950s.

I'm a Washingtonian, born in 1953, and remember the Wonder Bread at Griffith Stadium and John F. Kennedy's Opening Day at D.C. Stadium in 1961. But the story I keep telling my friends is getting a call from my grandfather one Sunday morning in September of 1961 and him asking me, as he often did, "Do you want to go to the Redskins game today at D.C. Stadium?"

Of course, I said yes. We went downtown from my Silver Spring home, parked and went up to the ticket window and said "two tickets please" and saw the Redskins play the Giants. Whatever happened to going up to the window and buying seats the day of the game?

A. Robert Bloom, Potomac

Uh, after today, you can walk up to Nationals Park and buy a ticket for just about any game.

My first experience at a live Senators game came in the mid-1950s when my parents took me to a night game. My immediate reaction, after watching many baseball games on the black-and-white TV, was to say "Wow, it's in color!"

Lewis Gertz, Darnestown

It's funny what we choose to remember.

You've undoubtedly heard from Belmont Abbey College alumni about the location of the school. Last time I was down that way it was located in the little town of -- you guessed it -- Belmont, N.C., about 12 miles west of Charlotte.

Joe O'Connell, Gaithersburg

Belmont Abbey's Web site lists both cities as home.

Is Tiger the best ever? The only argument anyone could have has to do with his opponents, vis-á-vis Jack Nicklaus's (Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino) or Ben Hogan's (Sam Snead, Byron Nelson). Hogan's and Nicklaus's competition won more tournaments than Tiger's opponents. But as a lifelong Hogan fan, I bow to Tiger.

Ben Mirman, Gaithersburg

Agreed.