Backyards to Ballparks: More Personal Baseball Stories from the Stands and Beyond

FOREWORD

I loved Eric Gray’s first book, Bases to Bleachers, and the hidden little gems colleagues and fans told about covering and enjoying the game of baseball. It gave me a chance to tell one of my own, which is still a constant source of giggles and laughter between Seattle Times sports columnist Larry Stone and myself.

Stoney always greets me with the line: Who has more authority, Rosey? You or Barry Bloom?

The giggles always then ensue. Of course, in that instance it was me, Barry M. Bloom.

Stoney was a baseball scribe back then covering the Giants for the San Francisco Examiner, and I was on the Padres beat for the San Diego Tribune. It was spring training at the old metal and brown-painted wooden Scottsdale Stadium where the current modern facility now stands, and the Giants still use as their spring home. Stoney was sitting in a media trailer down the first base line when I sent in the late Padres pitcher Eric Show to get a sandwich.

In the Cliff Notes version of the story – if you know what Cliff Notes are, it really dates you – I ran into Show (pronounced Sh-ow, like ow) in full uniform, his name and No. 30 on the back of his jersey – wandering through the stands as I was heading up to the ramshackle of a press box. When I asked where he was going, he said, To get a hot dog.

I sent him into the trailer with its abundance of deli meat and packaged breads on a table and then continued my journey. Enter Show followed closely behind by the late Al Rosen, a Hall of Fame infielder and then Giants president. As Stoney would tell it, Rosen started screaming at Show, who had no idea of the assailant’s identity.

Who are you? Show asked.

I’m Al Rosen, president of the Giants. Who told you that you could come in here?

Barry Bloom, Show said. And let me ask you this question: Who has more authority, Rosey? You or Barry Bloom?

I had a long-time relationship with Rosen, so that shut him up. Show left with the sandwich and that’s how legends are made.

In this current tome written by Eric Gray, Backyards to Ballparks, Chapter 1 involves stories about when baseball fans attended their first baseball games.

Mine was in 1960 with my dad, Len Bloom, at what I call the original, original Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. The edifice that Babe Ruth actually built and where he played when it opened in 1923. It was replaced by a sad facsimile in 1976. And the most recent version that opened in 2009 is across the wide boulevard of 161st Street.

My father was a big ball fan and catcher of some repute, but I’ll get to that a little bit later. I was nine. We saw the Yanks of Mantle, Maris, Ford, and Berra play the Cleveland Indians twice that summer. The second time, seated in the buck-fifty reserve seats in the upper deck behind home plate, the original Tito Francona hit a pair of homers into the upper deck in right field. It was a nice story to tell his son, Terry, when he managed the Red Sox decades later.

But that wasn’t the most memorable live Major League Baseball experience of my early life. That happened across the Harlem River at the venerable Polo Grounds on June 1, 1962.

The long and the short of it was the Giants and Dodgers left New York after the 1957 season for the west coast, leaving the city without National League baseball. A threat to establish a new Continental Baseball League with New York teams at its hub led to MLB expanding by four teams, and in 1962 the Metropolitans – Mets – were one of them.

For the seasons of 1962 and 1963, the Mets played at the Giants old home across the river from Yankee Stadium as Shea Stadium was being built in Queens, named after the lawyer – Bill Shea – who had spearheaded the nascent and never-to-be CBL. On the above-mentioned date, the Giants of San Francisco returned to play their first game back at the Polo Grounds since their final game in New York on Sept. 29, 1957, a 9-1 loss to the Pirates in front 11,606 tearful and mournful fans.

My father grew up in Harlem a short distance from the Polo Grounds. He was a good stick catcher for nearby George Washington High School in upper Manhattan near Hill Top Park where the Highlanders once played, around the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries, and the Giants had to also utilize when one of the many versions of the Polo Grounds burned down.

As legend would have it, my father told the story of trying out for the Giants during the World War II years at the Polo Grounds and even hitting the ball into the upper deck in left. He said he was assigned to the lower minor leagues, but then was drafted into the army and sent to Europe. And that was all she wrote for his budding professional baseball career. There’s no way of confirming or denying this story, so I’ve always gone with it. And why not? The Giants seem to have a life-long connection to all these stories.

On this Friday night in 1962, my father grabbed me, my eight-year-old red-headed brother, Steve, and a group of his friends from our Riverdale neighborhood in the Bronx and headed by subway to the Polo Grounds to see the Giants of the two Willies – Mays and McCovey. Mays was born as a New York Giant at the Polo Grounds and my Uncle Eddie really adored him. A rejected and neglected Giants fan, he said that night all he wanted to see was three things: Mays make a basket catch, Mays hit a home run and Mays run out from under his cap making a play in center field. That all happened. And McCovey hit two homers.

We sat in the left-field upper deck in fair territory just above the spot where nearly 11 years earlier, on Oct. 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson had hit his walk-off homer to defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers. Of course, there was no such thing as a walk-off homer back then. The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant, Giants radio voice Russ Hodges crowed out of the small boxes that were tuned in across the city. I was born 23 days later.

Memories? During the middle of the 1962 game, some fan came up the isle by our seats looking for a friend of his.

Fagan, Fag-an, he screamed.

In an instant, to much merriment, our entire group started also calling for Fagan. He never materialized. Or so it seemed. The Giants defeated the Mets that night, 9-6. Billy Pierce earned the win, Roger Craig the loss, Stu Miller the save.

The game drew 43,742, a bigger crowd than any that attended a game at the Polo Grounds during the entire 1957 swan song season. It makes me wonder what might have happened back then if fans had come to the games.

Enjoy the book Backyards to Ballparks. Enjoy the stories. I know I do.

~Barry M. Bloom, Senior Writer, Sportico, and BBWAA Member and Hall of Fame Voter

INTRODUCTION

My first book, Bases to Bleachers was born of a simple question posed to other fans at a baseball game: What was your favorite game? Writing a book about baseball was as little of a thought as a batter has about swinging on a 3-0 count against a pitcher who just walked the bases loaded…although like so many things, that has changed in this home run-happy era. Then I asked the slightly revised question over and over again, with growing confidence, like DiMaggio who knew he would get a hit every game (56 straight), What was your favorite game, or moment, relating to baseball? The odds were good I’d get a great, funny, emotional, or bizarre story others would love to read.

Equipped with a ton of great stories not in the first book, and an ongoing collection of email and Facebook messages relaying memories, it was clear to me there would be at least one sequel, maybe more. Think of this book as the second in a series.

How can I say this in a confident and honest, but somewhat humble manner…?

The stories in the first book, and now in this one, are simply wonderful. I don’t take credit for them; I owe them all to the contributors, the people who had great memories they were happy to share. I became, I suppose, the Casey Stengel of curation. My dad believed anyone could have won World Series championships managing the ’50s through ’60s Yankees. I don’t think that is quite true, although it was a lot easier to accomplish with that great lineup. Someone had to write the names on the card, know which player to put into the game at the right time. In writing my books, I, too, had great players—in this case stories—to work with; it was just a question of which ones to use in the right chapter and in the right place. So, there you go, me and Casey, the Ol’ Perfessor, with whom I happen to share a birth date. Yes, I am talking about month and day, but he did have a few years on me.

My first impulse in writing this introduction was to repeat a lot of what I wrote in the intro to Bases to Bleachers for anyone who did not read that book. Why baseball is important to me, thoughts about the game, why I think it is sometimes undervalued, how the idea for the book came about, and the various steps involved in putting together that first book. My better instinct was that would be a cheap, lazy, thoughtless, effortless, and boring way to begin this book. So, I won’t do that. I decided to Let It Be (no cite necessary).

For the most part.

What I will talk about, though, are things that evolved from that first project, with a few diversions into the past. In a nutshell, Bases to Bleachers, born that afternoon in August of 2011, was a life-changing experience. It began with one simple question to my wife, Lynn, daughter Rachel, and friend Cheryl, followed by hundreds of emails to friends, random meetings on the street, at games, in airports, and enhanced by uncountable numbers of Facebook exchanges. Day After Day, Everyday (Badfinger, Buddy Holly). I ultimately collected 1250+ stories to choose from, only a relatively small portion of which I was able to fit in the first book, though many so clearly deserved a place. It was a soul-crushing dilemma. Feeling guilty, hurting feelings—I mean, man, I experienced a whole record collection of anxiety. The title of a relatively unknown Who album said it best: It’s Hard. Many additional stories followed, after and because of the first book, leaving me again with that gnawing-in-the-gut crisis I ultimately chose to confront, fight through, and hopefully conquer. Which stories? Here I Go Again, Déjà vu (Hollies and CSNY, tied together, of course, by Graham Nash).

The first book set me off on that path of meeting people, getting to know many of them, getting their stories. Was it fun? Mostly. Was it easy? Not always. I proved to myself that I am very good, or at least diligent, at something I am not particularly proud of—being a really good nag.

Was it worth it? I am not aware that I lost any friends because of it, and for absolute certain, I made a slew of new ones. My friendship team roster grew far larger than most teams’ injured lists did in the 2020-21 covid-affected seasons. I received amazing stories.

I didn’t have to follow up with Jesse; his story came two days after I met him. Ironically, he was an afterthought, what I figured would be a consolation prize, as I really had been focused on a young woman (relax, Lynn was with me) who was wearing a Wrigley Field T-shirt in a NYC coffee shop. It is hard to believe she might have given me a better story than Jesse’s. Did I have to—and I will be gentle here—follow up with Dan K? Yes, for years, but man, the wait was worth it. He provided a story of such emotional impact, decades-spanning memories that, like Jesse’s, is on perennial rotation on my set list when I do readings. (While never a rock star, I was a college and career-aspiring DJ and always think in terms of music, if you haven’t noticed.) Because I asked that question at a Brewers game, Dean and Debbie not only became our good friends, it turns out we are related by marriage—second cousins-in-law three times removed or something like.

Which brings us to the stories that were not in the first book, and not because they weren’t good enough. My first draft was literally more than twice as long as I’d been told it was supposed to be. Yes, I was that college student who was frustrated when there was a maximum length for a college essay. It was an absolutely gut-wrenching, ulcer-inducing—though, honestly, that is more figurative than literal—exercise, trying to figure out which stories I could fit in a book someone would be able to carry, or hold, without the assistance of a Sherpa. But it soon became clear that my publisher wanted to do a second volume, so with this safely tucked away in my mind the way Bob Costas keeps a Mickey Mantle card in his wallet, I knew—especially since Lynn repeatedly hammered me with this point—that I had to save enough great stories to make book two just as good as book one. Some were omitted from book one because the chapters they would be in were DFA’d (Designated for Assignment), for whatever reason, to book two. Some were in chapters I knew would have to be repeated, as I felt they were the core of the book: Family. What Baseball Means to Me. Meeting the Stars. Did you see and love the film Ghostbusters? Great movie, right? How many of you liked the 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II? Anyone? I did not want my own sequel to be a book people regretted reading.

It hadn’t been easy for me to omit Scott’s tale of meeting the legendary Hank Aaron, but I knew there would be a chapter on Mickey, Willie, and the Greats of the Golden Age of Baseball. I never intended to include a chapter about games watched on television, listened to on the radio. But then my Uncle David told me the story about when he, my dad, and their other brother, Richard, crowded around the radio to listen to the famous 1934 All-Star Game, and I knew that story, with some others, was destined for book two as well. Andy’s amazing tale about catching a ball? Book two. My First Game? A chapter astonishingly, and for reasons I still don’t understand, not in the first book. I have tried, only to some degree successfully, to resist my urge to feel guilty that they weren’t in the first, but I am glad my friends generally understood. I mean, I even left out my own greatest memory, going to Mickey Mantle’s retirement ceremony.

Of course, I received many new stories as a result of the first volume. After my NPR interview with Robin Young on Here and Now (talk about a life-changing experience—thanks Gail!), I got Nancy’s story. She didn’t remember we had actually met at a Giant’s game several years before. Out of the clear blue I received a great email from Charlie, whose daughter had bought him the book. I was supposed to meet Wilmer at a reading in St. Petersburg, Florida, that was cancelled at the last minute because of the pandemic. His story is in here, as well. And Brillo (Gary), I finally got yours!

What has happened or changed since the first book came out? The Astros and Red Sox scandals were revealed. Covid-19 scuttled the beginning of the 2020 season and when it returned, well, it was like you’d done a Rip Van Winkle and awoke to find you had a whole new roster of players on your favorite team and very different circumstances inside the ballpark. When play resumed, you simply weren’t in the stands unless you were a cardboard cutout. Only players not in the starting lineup and grounds crew could sit there. Everyone was supposed to wear a mask, although that seemed to be enforced about as much as the strike zone. Who knew if, when this book was originally due to be published in 2021, you’d be getting your peanuts and beer at the stadium or still in your den? There were lots of on-field changes as well: designated hitters in each league, and relief pitchers had to throw to at least three batters unless they ended an inning. Doubleheaders—inevitable with game postponements not because of rainouts but COVID-outs—were seven innings long, like a standard Little League game…which quickly resulted in the MadBum no-hitter controversy. And get this, beginning in the 10th inning, a runner starts the inning on second base. Haha, hilarious. Wait, what? (For you, LA.) True.

What hasn’t changed? Pitchers throw, batters swing, runners run, fielders catch and throw. There are still five tools to make a complete player: he must be able to run, throw, field, hit for average, hit with power. The beauty of a 6-4-3 double play, the elation of a stand-up triple. Thankfully, there are still no ties in baseball to end a game. I still plan my trips to D.C. and NYC around when the Giants will be in town, and usually suffer through uncomfortable, hot, muggy, July and August weather. But uncomfortable is what I am used to living in San Francisco, albeit on the freezing side in those same months.

But other, more important things haven’t changed, at least as far as the storied collective national experience and history of this game, and the feelings that everyone from elderly people to young children, hipsters and nerds, strait-laced folks and goths, have about our national pastime. Young boys and girls will still be told Lights out! and sneak under the covers not a transistor radio but a cell phone, to listen to the end of the game, and read the box scores the next morning not in the newspaper, but on that same phone (thanks, Stavros). Through technology, they won’t discuss with their parents and schoolmates the next morning the one play the umpire missed last night, but the scores of plays they’d seen on ESPN, MLB, and internet highlights of every game, especially because of the umpteen number of slo-mo and different angled reviews of any play. Older folks will still reminisce about the old-timers and back in my day, although they will be talking about Mantle and Mays, Koufax and Aaron rather than Ruth and Gehrig, Ty Cobb and Cy Young. The next generation will one day talk about Griffey and Trout and Mariano.

Then once you were finally allowed back inside the park, you know what else hadn’t changed? The wide expanse of green grass, the dirt infield interrupted only by white bases and chalk marks down the baselines, the peanuts and crackerjack and hot dogs and beer. Okay, that has kind of changed, beers are $15 now, rather than $1.50. But you get the point.

My love for baseball hasn’t changed. It is still (usually) a sunny afternoon or balmy evening at the park—though still not in San Francisco—sitting with your partner or your kids, or your dad or your friends, or with people you don’t know but might become friends with. The game recap and box score are still the first things I read in the paper with my morning tea. Admittedly, I am not likely to watch a Dodgers vs Cardinals game—I have my team biases, and there are lots of things to do in life—but I will always watch Giants and Mets games.

I know, I get it, baseball isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. It is the game that many kids stop playing first because it is too boring. Many adults don’t like the inaction and sometimes low scores. But hello? Forty-five seconds between snaps in football followed by eight seconds of action, and regular 1-0 soccer scores? And people are aggravated by the length of games. The thing is, a lot of people don’t—or don’t take the time—to get it. Baseball is a cerebral game; there is far more going on than appears on the surface. My friend Andy, who is totally disinterested in baseball yet ironically provided me with the story that inspired the first book, came over one day to watch a game. It was terrific for me, as I had the chance to talk for three nonstop hours, explaining all the strategy and nuance. He left with a splitting headache, caused, he said, not by my incessant babbling, but because, I never realized this game was so complicated.

The most important thing that has not changed, for me, is that baseball continues to be one of the unifying factors for my family. See my story about how Matt Cain’s perfect game confirmed that. Lynn and I are still season ticket owners, and our goal, although not a hardcore bucket list item, is to see all the major league parks—six to go. Daughter Rachel is now in her 23rd year working for the Giants, where everyone from the Giants broadcasters to the team president knows her. She comes to the occasional game, and she and her partner, Steve, make a point of merging this with another great love on Star Wars Night at Oracle Park. Our son and daughter-in-law, David and Lisa, living in D.C., also are big Giants fans, and I continue to visit almost every year when the Giants are on the schedule, and we collectively endure mostly losing games. But, as I’d hoped for and even conjectured in the first book, they have brought a new generation of baseball and Giants fan, Juliet, onto our team and into our lives. And, David, wasn’t that catch we had last summer just great, even with a few misthrows?

As said, Bases to Bleachers changed my life, as it did, to some degree, Lynn’s. Suddenly I was setting up book tours. Okay, to be honest, that is far too grandiose a term. We planned trips to see family and friends, and figured out places, libraries, living rooms, and bookstores where I could do readings. But what the heck, I can pretend I had my little rock star journey, unlike Mike C. who provided an epic story in book one that truly encompasses that sacred Come Together (Beatles) of rock star and baseball. I think Mike still doesn’t recognize how great a story that is.

How has this changed Lynn’s life? There are obvious tasks for which she was professionally trained and particularly adept at—bookkeeper, accountant, tech support. But she also took on roles with which she had no prior experience—book promotion, producer of online readings, plus design and maintenance of my website, basestobleachers.com, and my FB page, @basestobleachers. And she has been my partner on our travels and in meeting new friends. You know who you are.

This is not a scholarly book, a biography, or a look at a franchise, but it is a ton of fun. For those of you who have read Bases to Bleachers, I hope you will find this second volume, Backyards to Ballparks, filled with as many funny, emotional, entertaining, and remindful stories as the first. If you haven’t read the first book and don’t find the need to do so but would like to read all those amazing pearls of wisdom in that book’s introduction, contact me at [email protected] and I will email it to you. Or just look at my website, where it’s posted.

And please continue to send me your stories.

Or anything about baseball.

Or, you know, just say hi!

A couple of programming notes. There are a handful of people with more than one story in this book, and a few more who have stories in each. There are several stories about both Matt Cain and Willie McCovey; it just worked out that way. My hero, Mickey Mantle, also makes several appearances. Stories were often written at a particular point in time, so in some cases, the ages of the people and circumstances have changed—yes, the Red Sox finally won one, er, I mean four World Series. And while the book skews to my g-g-generation (The Who, again), it was not for lack of trying to get stories from younger fans. But more important, it doesn’t matter. It is the stories that count, and they could have been about any player or team.

The horror of COVID-19 is thankfully abating, but none of us will forget so much about that lost year, including the 2020 baseball season. Here is a permanent reminder of how the games were played in that crazy year, written by my good friend, and sung to the tune of Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

Time to start playing some ball games

But the crowd won’t be loud

Vendors, announcers, will not be brought back

No one but players will hear the bats’ crack

It’s a poor substitute for the real thing

With cardboard fans in the stands

Could be 2, 3, 4 months of this

’Till we snag that foul with our hands.

The collateral damage is daunting

Employees will not be there

Roosting pigeons are feeling abused

Hungry seagulls will be so confused

If the game’s going bad on the TV

We can head to the kitchen for snacks

The game then can turn on a dime

All it takes is a couple of jacks

We’re finally getting some ballgames

There won’t be much of a crowd

No buying our peanuts and Cracker Jack

No one knows when we’ll ever get back

Still we root, root, root for the home team

Not being there is a shame

Wonder when we’ll get out

To the old ball game

~Steve G., San Francisco, California

BONUS STORIES FROM BASES

TO BLEACHERS

I ended my first book with Coming Battractions, a couple of stories from chapters specifically held for book two. It seemed only fitting to lead off this book with this chapter, Bonus stories from Bases To Bleachers… containing a couple of extra stories from chapters that were in book one. Enjoy!

Love and Baseball

My husband, Joe, didn’t follow sports at all until we met, so his favorite teams are those I follow. I have been an Atlanta Braves fan since I was a kid because that was the team my dad’s family followed while living in Panama City, Florida. I ended up in the D.C. area because Dad was stationed at Joint Base Andrews. I stayed in the area because my husband’s family is local and most of my family is within a day’s a drive, as well. I have lived in Florida, Germany, England, Sacramento, and Plattsburgh, NY. The Braves have remained my team.

Joe decided to propose to me at a ballgame on September 11th, 2005, at RFK stadium. He couldn’t do what he’d originally planned—have the event shown on the scoreboard—because the Nationals didn’t own the stadium. The only person with us that day was my future mother-in-law—my parents were invited to a wedding and forgot about having tickets to the game. It was a warm day in D.C., and during the seventh inning stretch I mentioned I wanted something to drink. Joe said he would get something, but first put his arm around my shoulder and said, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, will you marry me? Completely surprised, I of course said yes and proceeded to text friends and family while he went on his drink run. The day was extra wonderful because the Braves won 9-7 thanks to a game-tying home run by Chipper Jones and a 2-run homer by Andruw Jones.

I called my parents to let them know my happy news, but they first asked about the score. I told them about the game, but as I tried to break the good news about the engagement my phone died, so I had to call back on Joe’s phone. I told Dad first. He asked me what I’d said, and I replied, What do you think I said? He handed the phone to my mom so I could tell her. She later told me that she’d looked over and Dad had tears in his eyes. I’ve always been Daddy’s little girl.

~Brandy Copsey, Waldorf, Maryland

On July 17, 2010, the summer before I proposed to my now-wife, Lauren, she had bought tickets to a Cardinals game against the Dodgers. I was so excited to go. I always look forward to a great game at Busch Stadium, and with Adam Wainwright starting, it promised to be an extra-special day. This was my first birthday celebrated with Lauren, and in addition to the tickets, she bought me a David Freese jersey to wear to the game. Of course this was awesome, but what let me know she really loved me was that despite being a big Cubs fan, she also got a Cardinals shirt to wear at the game! I knew then and there she was the one for me.

~David Butch, Louisville, Kentucky

The question is, David, has Lauren worn it to a Cardinals vs. Cubs game?

In 1973, working for Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington D.C., I was given a one-week assignment in Boston to gain regional office experience. I met a pretty girl in the office and invited her to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, the baseball cathedral of a team rich in baseball history. I felt honored, in a way, to be there in the oldest park in Major League Baseball. I could feel that history, and still do 43 years later. And it didn’t hurt to be sitting next to…I’ll call her Marie. I recall sitting there listening to the Boston accent of the stadium announcer say the names of the players coming to bat. Fisk, Yastrzemski, Petrocelli, Aparicio. Some of the names were mouthfuls, representative of so many ethnic groups and cultures.

Marie lived in the Italian section of the city and made it very clear that the neighborhood guys watched out for her whenever she left or came back to her apartment. I don’t recall if I had secret plans in mind… Needless to say, when I heard that, I did not even think about going home with her. Which is probably how she wanted it, as I think back on it…

~Marc Ordman, Oceanside, California

I was set up on a blind date with Diana in June of 1984. Within a few dates, I knew she was the one, and we were married in July 1986. When you meet someone and the relationship develops, you begin to see similarities and differences. There were some big differences—an Italian Roman Catholic girl from Brooklyn and a Jewish guy from Long Island—but that ended up not being a big deal, especially as my mother adored Diana and made it clear she wanted her as a daughter-in-law.

As our relationship grew, Diana and I realized there was one major difference on which we would never agree: Diana is a Yankees fan and I bleed blue and orange, a hardcore fanatic Mets fan from their inception in 1962. When we first went out the Mets were on their way back and the Yankees were in the doldrums. I took her to Shea Stadium for opening days in 1995 and 1996, and was too smitten with Keith Hernandez, Daryl Strawberry, and Doc Gooden to worry about this difference. We were at Shea the night Bill Buckner couldn’t handle Mookie Wilson’s groundball. Diana being Diana, she took it all in stride, and I was glad I’d married someone who liked baseball…even though on many summer evenings she would watch the Yankees game while I watched the Mets. By the time interleague games started, the Mets were down in the dumps, so when the two teams played it was no big deal to her if the Mets took a few. The Yankees were dominant again, and a loss to my Mets was just a bump in the road.

Baseball in New York often has one team up and one down, but 2000 was the year all real New York baseball fans were waiting for—the first Subway Series since 1956 (and that was the Dodgers, not the Mets). I was so psyched I even found a six-pack of Rheingold beer, since some brewery had relaunched that brand. Diana said to me, We have an interfaith marriage, and I replied, Yeah, I know, pausing to reflect on our wedding day with its two ceremonies. No, she said with emphasis, We have an interfaith marriage. Meaning the Yankees and Mets. I guess that was okay since I knew she adored Tom Seaver, and any NY baseball fan had to love The Mick.

~Mike Roberts, Edison, New Jersey

Let’s Beat the Traffic

I grew up in Hawaii watching the Hawaii Islanders of the old Pacific Coast League, going to games with my father at the old Honolulu Stadium. Chuck Tanner managed the Islanders. When I left Hawaii to go to college at Valparaiso University in Indiana, he was selected to manage the Chicago White Sox, the reason I am still a Sox fan. He brought some of the Islanders with him, notably Bill Iron Glove Melton. I have something in common with President Obama: we’re both Hawaiian-born White Sox fans!

I have worked for the YMCA for 30 years, and as a gift they gave me Diamond Level seats right behind home plate. My wife and I went to an A’s vs. Angels night game that eventually went 19 innings, the longest playing time in A’s history. We were going to leave in the 8th because the A’s were behind, but they rallied and tied the game in the 9th. We decided to stay a few more innings, and eventually it became clear we were not leaving. The Angels scored a run in the 15th, and the A’s tied it up. Free food and beer came with the tickets, but darn, they stopped serving in the 7th. Brandon Moss hit a walk-off home run to end the marathon. We got home at 2:30 in the morning.

~Don Lau, Richmond, California

Born and raised in Spokane, WA, my family moved to San Diego when I was 10, only to return to south of downtown Seattle three years later. I had been to a few Padres game, but the game I went to when I was 17 was one of the most memorable…for all the wrong reasons. My dad had taken to me to Safeco, a ballpark I had come to love, a beautiful stadium in a beautiful city. The Mariners hosted the Oakland Athletics that night. It was a very close game through 8½ innings, tied after the top of the 9th. Dad looked at me and said we were leaving, he didn’t want to get stuck in traffic at the conclusion of the game. I couldn’t believe it. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. We got up and headed for the exit. By the time we were in the car and on the freeway, Dad looked over at me and could tell I wasn’t in a very good mood. He turned on the radio to hear the game. It was the bottom of the 10th by this point, and Bucky Jacobson, the hometown hero that season for the Mariners, was up to bat. Not more than two minutes after the radio was turned on, Dave Niehaus’ voice erupted on the other end in excitement as Jacobson hit a walk-off home run to win the game. A blank stare settled over my face. Dad looked over at me and turned off the radio. Not another word was spoken on the way home. I still remember that moment like it happened last night. That was 12 years ago. I guess baseball has that effect on me. I have a hard time remembering what I ate for breakfast, but I can recall what happened during an obscure regular season game more than a decade ago. Win or lose, I love the game of baseball.

~Brad Benesch, San Diego, California

Women IN Baseball

In June of 1979 I was a 10-year-old baseball fan, having been entranced by the 1978 Yankees vs. Dodgers World Series. Dodger Blue all the way! On Little League sign-up day, I was a girl with a plan. I naturally got in the baseball line—I wanted to play baseball. But then I noticed the line was all boys. All the girls were in the softball lines. What to do? Should I take the hard path, play the game I wanted to play and be the only girl, or take the easier path and switch to the softball? It was the decision of a lifetime and, alas, I caved and switched lines.

So, I played softball all through Little League, and middle and high school. I loved it, and even made some all-star squads, but it wasn’t baseball, it was a different game. My heart wanted to play baseball. In 1996 I tried out for a men’s baseball league, the only woman to do so. I was placed on the scraped-together Bad News Bears team that featured those men not good enough for the regular teams, plus me, the Tatum O’Neal. The Tornadoes were 3-17 that season, and two of those wins were by forfeit. We did win one outright, 3-2, and that crackerjack woman at second base made a mean diving stop and throw to first to save a run and chipped in a single and an RBI! Batting stats for the year: 3-37. Not pretty. I’d struck out in the first game of a doubleheader five times in a row and begged the coach to take me out for the second game. He wouldn’t, and I struck out three more times. It was humiliating, but I really didn’t care; I was playing baseball. Baseball! Ten years later in 2007, in another men’s league, I improved to 6-26, catching half the games. I was accepted and treated well. The men respected a woman willing to get behind the dish, and that was the only place I wanted to be.

I ultimately played baseball on three continents. In Australia, I mentored the women of the Canberra Ainslie Bears in the inaugural year of their women’s league. These women had never played baseball before. I helped teach them our national game, and we made it to the grand finale. It was the first and only time I ever felt like a hotshot, my proudest baseball moment ever.

I’ve made hundreds of new friends through the game, including players from the All-American Women’s Professional Baseball League through years of attending their reunions. It’s been the thrill of a lifetime to get to know these pioneer women who also lived my dream by playing professional baseball in the 1940s and 50s. I give advice at tournaments to young girls who now have that precious chance I didn’t take to play baseball while they are kids. It still astounds me and makes my heart glad that I got another chance, at age 27, to reinvent myself as a baseball player.

The one thing that never changes—each time that 10-year-old girl, now a woman, steps onto a baseball field, sees that green grass and gorgeous field, grips the ball that completely, perfectly fits into her hand, smells the air, smiles at her teammates, flops in the dirt behind the backstop, and dives for a ball at third base that she (probably) won’t come up with, she is transported. She is home. She is playing baseball! Baseball. Imagine that! She still pinches herself each and every time. She is playing the greatest game in the world!

~Debbie Pierson, Eugene, Oregon

The most memorable baseball game I have played in was when I was a girl of 15, and the first time I’d made it onto a boy’s representative baseball team for my hometown of Brisbane, Australia. It was July 10, 2016, the grand finale day for the inaugural Timber Jacks Tournament, played just north of Sydney in New South Wales. My team, Brisbane Metro, was playing for first place after what had been a pretty successful tournament. As a player, though, my tournament was not so eventful. The only girl on the team, I wasn’t anticipating much playing time, although I was excited to finally be selected for the team I’d been trying to break onto for years. As expected, I played little, not figuring to be called upon from the bench, especially for the championship game. Over six games, I’d only had five at-bats, just one hit, and one put out at second base.

I sat on the bench most of that last game. The score was tied, and I was playing the role of ultimate bat girl and cheer-er…until the top of the 9th inning. To my surprise, the coach decided it would be a great idea to put me in at second base. Internally, I was freaking out, scared and mentally unprepared. To this day, I remember the stress I felt walking onto that field knowing