A Baseball Fan Who Knows His Signs

Robert Panara has been "deaf as a post," he says, since he contracted spinal meningitis when he was 10.

Back in 1931, his father thought he might have a solution to his son's deafness. It involved Babe Ruth.

"He wrote to the Yankees, and he asked if I could possibly meet the Bambino," Panara, now 89, tells his friend Greg Livadas. The Pinstripes came through.

On game day, Panara says, "We sat about 10 rows from the field. And before the game, my father gives the letter from the Yankees to the usher, usher goes down to the dugout, comes back with the Babe. Big fellow, huge. He says, 'Hi kid! How you doing?' "

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