Bill Gould baseball nut, across from Nut House on Cali Ave today

I ran into William B. Gould IV, the famous labor law professor and baseball nut, at the dry cleaners today. I go to the Norge on California Avenue, in the building that used to hold the fabled Keystone Palo Alto and several other successively lesser nightclubs, and before that, some they say, it was a supermarket, before Mollie Stone moved in down at the end of the block.

I didn’t recognize Gould at first, although I went to his reading at Stanford Book Store a few months back. I bought and had him sign his recent book on the history of baseball as told in labor terms (Curt Flood and all that).

I noticed a set of credentials on his dashboard from civic events and baseball games gone by, then double-taked and back-tracked to greet him. His sons Bill the V and Tim were at Gunn when I was there, back in the early 1980s. I recall that his book, although mostly about Major Leagues had a photo of the professor’s grandson, William B. Gould VI or his brother or cousin, hitting a game-winning homer in a youth game in SoCal. (His Carlton Fisk moment, I guess, or the first such; I wish all the Gould’s Generation VI many happy returns and walk-off homers, but I digress).

Gould’s car is a red Chevy Camero Z-24 that has a personalized plate reading BOSOX98 which I will have to look into whether it references a year (1898? as in the first World Series or something, or 1998 as in I don’t recall, what, Wade Boggs top season? Or maybe it’s a jersey number? What did Yaz wear?).

Most people know him, if at all, as a Stanford professor who was on National Labor Relations Board and helped end a baseball labor dispute. I also recall running into him and mentioning Alan Davis and the No on D campaign and I think Gould did send a letter out expressing his concern over the measure (which won anyways, i.e. we of the working class lost, but I am here to talk baseball, not politics).

I recall that local writer Gennady Sheyner wrote a nice review of Dr. Gould’s book. It is called “Bargaining With Baseball”.

Gould said he is throwing out the first pitch tomorrow Friday, February 17, at Stanford Sunken Diamond, Cardinal versus Vanderbilt, at 5 o’clock. I bluffed my way through mentioning that I had noticed we have an impressive list of pre-season All America — I think Bill said that five of our nine starters rate that highly and that Stanford is #2 in the nation.

I have been watching a lot of basketball lately so missed the fact that spring is already here.

Shout out to my cousin Jenny Moats the former Vandy cheerleader recently married to Pat Falloon in St. Louis in a hotel decorated by Stan Musial, excuse the Cardinals not Cardinal nor BoSox backslide not headfirst like Rickey Henderson.

My tip to Gould was to err on the side of a wild pitch rather than a wicked curve in the dirt. He said that people are telling him to throw from the stretch rather than wind-up and get into a run down and cheat toward the plate and down from 60’6″.

Tip of the cap to the ol’ perfessor.

edit to add: let’s play three: Card-Vandy Friday, Sat and Sunday, check your local listings:

http://www.gostanford.com/sports/m-basebl/sched/stan-m-basebl-sched.html

more edit to add, two minutes: this is either a coinky or the salient point but extensive search-injuning (hello Jacoby Ellsbury!!) reveals that Bosox98 could mean that in the fabled 2004 Championship season the Red Sox won 98 regular season games and via the Wild Card advanced to the eventual victory. What year is the car?

and more: I had a photo in my phone recently but then deleted the license plate of not Bill but Dick Gould the Stanford tennis coach whose plates read:

1NCAA