Baseball Musings: Close To Home

April 25, 2006

Close To Home

I was born and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and still have family in the area. Now there is a baseball controversy involving the city. They want to knock down the house of Jim O'Rourke, the only Hall of Famer to come out of Bridgeport.

As you can see from the aerial photograph, there's not a lot around the O'Rouke house anymore. The East Side of the city is a mess. The Pequonnock River is lined with closed factories that can't be knocked down or rehabilitated due to the toxic waste contained within. Once beautiful two family houses are falling in on themselves from decades of neglect. When my grandmother died in 1984, her funeral took place in that part of town. I remember thinking with a little work on the residences how nice this area could look. When my uncle died over a decade later, and we drove the same route, everything looked beyond saving.

This house is an example of that.

A few years ago, they formed a group, the First Hit, and a Web site, Thefirsthit.com, and began holding small fundraisers to help pay the costs of either moving or restoring the home. Bielawa and Crowley estimate that they would need at least $500,000 to finish the work. Asked what they have raised, they looked at each other and did some quick mental calculations.
"Under $10,000," Crowley finally said.

Thirty years ago, it could have been saved easily. Now the price is too high.

So I understand the city's desire to develop and the knock down the house. I understand the desire to keep a piece of history in a part of town where history is decaying. It's unfortunate that decades of poor judgement and corrupt management led to this. Maybe the best compromise at this point is a shrine in the shopping mall to be built on the spot remembering the Bridgeport legend and the house he constructed, a reminder of how easy it is to lose our past.

Posted by David Pinto at 11:20 AM | All-Time Greats | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Wow, I'm one of those people 'thundering' through Bridgeport on 95 and had no idea.

It's really a shame that in (FOIP) the richest state in the union, this city and its outlying areas have become so run down and beyond repair. Harbor Yard is an example of what the city could become if a little more money from the gov't was invested, but most of us still shuffle out of the parking lot pretty darned quickly once the event/ballgame is over...

Posted by: Pete at April 25, 2006 12:43 PM

Orator Jim could talk them into saving the home, if only his generous vocabulary could be channeled.

Posted by: Brian at April 25, 2006 12:53 PM

I had no idea you grew up in Bridgeport. I lived in Stratford from 1990 until last year (my mom's still there and drives by it every day on the way to work), and it was years before I found out why the house was still standing.
Obviously, there's lots of reasons why Bpt. is how it is -- internal corruption, no county system to funnel money to the cities, too small a population to be a "real" big city -- but that house seems to be a symbol of the stagnation and hand-wringing that goes on. It's really too bad.

Posted by: James d. at April 25, 2006 02:05 PM

Not meaning to get too political, but I think corruption is a big problem with lots of this countries ills.

Posted by: sabernar at April 25, 2006 03:07 PM

re: bridgeport, CT

(1) I had greco-albanian relatives on my dad's side who lived in the middle of bridgeport, CT who we visited yearly during the 60s and 70s while I was growing up. It was a nice town then.

(2) Bridgeport's AHL team is beating Wilkes-Barre PA right now in the AHL playoffs 2 games to none.

(3) the houses in Bridgeport were all old and new england style. And they were huge.

(4) There's a lot of old industrial buildings in Bridgeport as well.

(5) My cousin and my Aunt still live in Trumbull, CT, home of the once and future Little League World Series Champions of Trumbull, CT, just off the Meritt Parkway. My cousing teaches chemistry, smart dude.

--arthur john kyriazis
--philly

Posted by: arthur john kyriazis at April 25, 2006 04:14 PM

Have an architect's contest to build a kid's size replica of it in the shopping center. The losing models get auctioned off as rich-kid's playhouses, and the winning model becomes a playhouse feature of the mall.

They do that sort of thing all the time in south. Cal.

Posted by: Frank at April 25, 2006 05:21 PM

Here is a good web site with info on O'Rourke and his house: www.thefirsthit.org

Posted by: Orator fan at June 8, 2006 10:13 AM