I have lots of baseball memories -- like watching games on TV with my Grandpa Alec and having to leave the room because of his farting. Or seeing the Washington Senators and big Boog Powell (such an unfortunate nickname) when I was 5. Or going to a minor league game in Spokane during summers at Grandpa's and watching a pear-shaped, little manager named Tommy Lasorda. Being "oldish" I have tons of these memories. I was even at the 1989 world series game that was cancelled by the Loma Prieta earthquake. However, if I had to pick a couple of memories that really stand out . . .
In 1970, my dad, my uncle, and my Grandpa Alec went to Baltimore to see the World Series between the Reds and the Orioles. We sat on the wooden benches at Memorial Stadium, took a family photo, kept the ticket stub, and framed them both. "My" team won that day because Lee May hit a home run and it was the perfect childhood memory. However, what sticks in my mind the most is my complete and utter terror the following day at school. My 2nd grade teacher called me up to her desk while everyone was working and asked me quite sternly why I'd been absent the previous day (I guess my parents hadn't called or anything). Trembling and sweating at the sudden realization that baseball probably wasn't on par with the stomach flu or strep throat when it came to good excuses. Scared that I was about to be expelled or sent home, I managed to whisper, "I was at the World Series with my dad." . . . big pause . . . "Oh" And then she just looked down. Clearly, she wasn't a baseball fan. But more importantly, her disinterest in further conversation was a sign. A sign that I was being let off! I was positively thrilled. Yes, I learned to read pretty well in second grade, but that was pretty much beside the point. The most wonderful thing about that year was that I'd learned that baseball, or the world series at least, was a perfectly good reason for skipping school.
In 1993, at the age of thirty, I moved back to SF. I hadn't cared about baseball in a long, long time. Probably not since I stopped playing little league. However, I had a few weeks before starting my new job, so I had plenty of time to kill. For some reason I decided to go to a game. I don't even remember who the Giants were playing that day at Candlestick, but it was GLORIOUS day. The kind of perfect, warm sunny day that happened about once a decade at that godforsaken stadium. After buying a program, I planted myself in the left field bleachers and kept score the whole game. I was hooked again. This time, as an adult, I'd done it by choice. No one had taken me, but I'd rediscovered, the joy of baseball on my own. It was something about the park, or the color of the grass and the beauty of the day, or maybe it was that I kept score and had to pay a little bit closer attention. I don't really know what it was and I have no memory of whether or not the Giants won that day. Ever since then I've been hooked. Watching. Reading. Exploring. Visiting. Discussing. And playing catch.
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My favorite memory of baseball was during the weekend of my thirteenth birthday. I had gone with my dad on a trip for the weekend to New York to celebrate my birthday. While in New York we had acquired tickets to the New York Yankees - Pittsburgh Pirates game. My dad and I took the subway from my uncle's house on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to right outside the gates of Yankee Stadium. I remember seeing the field for the first time from the subway, and getting a very excited feeling in the pit of my stomach. Once inside the gates of the original Yankee stadium, I remember seeing the Navy wall and wondering how great the stadium must have looked when the wall lined the entire top of the stadium. When my dad gave me my ticket i read the seat number and row, I looked at the signs and began to walk farther and farther down the row of seats until I was practically standing behind the Away team's dugout. When my father and I had taken our seat (directly behind the Pirates' dugout) my dad, being a native New Yorker, explained all of the rituals they did for certain players and in between innings. The memory that I remember most about that baseball game though was when Derek Jeter was at bat and he stepped out of the batter's box to tie his shoe or something and then I yelled, "here we go Jeter!" and he turned and looked at me for about 2 seconds and then stepped up to bat. Although he grounded out after our interaction, it still helped make my night.
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