CELEBRITY

What is celebrity anyway?

Recently a city marker honoring Babe Ruth was dedicated at Kirby Park along the Susquehanna River in Kingston, PA.

On October 12, 1926, Babe Ruth played in an exhibition baseball game at Artillery Park, located next to Kirby Park.

The game was between Hughestown and Larksville. Babe Ruth was at bat and was thrown a pitch by Ernie Cochran. Ruth hit the ball deep and ran around the bases for a home run. After reaching home he asked that the distance the ball flew be measured as he thought it might just be the longest ball he ever hit.

It measured 650' many years corrected to just over 600'. His record of the longest home run remains intact today.

The pitcher that day, Ernie Cochran, was my uncle. I never got to meet him since he died before my birth.

Growing up I never heard the story of Uncle Ernie pitching the ball that became Babe Ruth's longest home run. I wondered why our family didn't tout that story?

My great-grandfather honorably served in the Civil War, another story I never heard growing up. Again, I wondered why?

All I can figure out is that people weren't concerned about celebrity and feats that people accomplished.

Maybe they just looked at it as doing their job or what was expected of them without fanfare.

Today it is a completely different mindset. Nowadays, people stand in line for hours to buy tickets to a concert of some "rock star" or a movie of some "Hollywood star".

Why, I wonder?
Are their performances so fantastic?
Do they really have talent?
Do they perform something so honorable?
Or do people escape into a fantasy to elude everyday life and it's problems?