Peanuts by Charles Schulz for June 24, 2022

Good job Charlie Brown!

I was at a Salt Lake Bees minor league baseball game in one summer with my father, brother, and (soon-to-be engaged at the time) sister-in-law. During one inning, I was browsing my phone until a fly ball bounced off an empty area of the stadium a few seats away from where I was sitting. Had I not been paying attention, the ball would’ve beaned me hard.

Wow, I had no idea until now that foul balls were in so much more demand by game fans than home-run balls. I wonder how much money collectors will pay for them?

DEAD.

You see, claims that Peanuts had “jumped the shark” by the mid-70s are ridiculous. It’s 1975 and the strips are just as enjoyable as ever, and what is more, Schulz is doing new and original things with the story arcs and characters (something that he continued to do right until the very end – he NEVER ran out of ideas or steam). And Peanuts NEVER “jumped the shark”.

“I got it”…and boy are you getting it!

Now you dont

Poor chuck will walk away empty handed

Charlie Brown caught the baseball, now the other people in the bleachers want it?

Poor Chuck.

All those other arms are literally coming out of the woodwork.

This is the 1st time I see Charlie Brown catches a ball, even better bare handed.

3rd panel-pure joy for charlie brown.

Better not announce that to a bunch of hardcore fans.

Maybe you should move from pitcher to center field CB.

That was short lived.

So much for CB and the kid with Lisa Simpson hair being the only ones at the ballgame today.

Foul balls are dangerous! I was at a Cincinnati Reds game one time and I was sitting along the third base side and somebody hit a line drive foul ball my way and it was hit real hard and fast. It hit a guy standing about three seats beside me in the head. Everything happened so fast you didn’t have time to react. The guy refused medical treatment but he should have as it would have broke anybody’s head that’s how hard it was hit. Fortunately, he had a lot of beer so it lessened the pain on impact. I would have been screaming in pain and taken to a hospital if that was me.

1978 TPC, my fave golfer Jack Nicklaus had just won. He was walking back to the clubhouse when he tossed his ball into the crowd. Right to me, rather. I foolishly tried to catch it with one hand, but it bounced off and some girl got it.

Reminds me of a story I read in a guitar magazine about the restoration of a Les Paul that got broken in two at the neck. The bulk of the story was about what the luthier did to fix it, but what interested me was how it got broken in the first place.

In the mid 70s, the Who was performing at the Odeon, and some fans were milling around the rear entrance, where the performers sometimes sneak in to avoid getting mobbed. For no apparent reason, this Les Paul that belonged to Pete Townshend came hurtling through a second story window and landed on the ground, headstock first and snapped the neck clean off. Two guys tried to grab it before it hit the ground (they failed), and in the process, one broke his thumb. Just like in this comic, this crazed mob descended on them both, trying to grab the pieces away from the two guys who tried to catch it.

In the midst of the chaos, the back door of the Odeon opens, and out steps (gasp!) Ringo Starr. He sees the two guys scrambling to keep the pieces of the guitar. He just holds up a hand and says, “Let ’em have it.” It was like the parting of the Red Sea. Everybody backs away (who’s going to argue with an ex-Beatle??), and the two guys who tried to catch it went home, one with the neck, the other with the body.

Years later, the two pieces of the guitar were reunited, and it was finally repaired.

If I remember right,Charlie got Joe Shlabotnik to autograph the ball;only he spelled his own name wrong.

TRUe STOry—-The great fastball pitcher BobFeller invited his Mother to come see him pitch on Mother’s Day.

A foul line drive knocked Mom out cold.She got out of it with only a black eye.

Like announcing you won powerball

The flying cap gives away the fight for thr ball. The roundhead is too happy to get his hands on his hero’s ball at last.

Wait, are all those arms attached to adults? If so, this rivals that early strip featuring Lucy at the golf tournament in terms of number of adults depicted in a Peanuts strip.

With how empty those benches are in the first panel, where’d all those people come from?

Not Charlie’s day, again.

I got a rock.