Great seats, great food, and a beautiful day. Of course, after attending a game in Nashville recently, I was reminded just how much of a dump The Diamond has become. The concessions are a mess, the bathrooms stink, and the scoreboard is uninspired and hard to read. But any hopes that we might get a new stadium are dead simply because this is Richmond, Virginia we’re talking about, a city with perhaps the most pathetic and inept government in the history of democracy…but that’s a topic for another day. Right now, I’d rather talk about my father-in-law.
Russ is in his 80’s somewhere. I won’t offer a specific number because it doesn’t matter. He’s not old, at least he doesn’t act old, which is the important part. He’s just a really smart, funny guy who is always fun to hang around. On the subject of baseball, he is one of the few people in my life who I can talk baseball with who…understands. He’s a baseball lifer and still follows his RedSox and the Nationals, mostly because they are on television a lot. But yesterday he told a fascinating story from when he was a kid. Pam had asked him if he could remember the first big league game he ever attended. Russ didn’t hesitate.
“I was around 14 or so and we had driven down to Fenway Park to see the RedSox play the Yankees. I was so excited that I was going to see my hero, Ted Williams. Only bad thing was when they announced the starting lineup he wasn’t in it. He had a cold that day so he didn’t play. I was so disappointed!! But later on my senior class in high school went to Fenway for two days to see the RedSox play the Kansas City Athletics. On Sunday it was a double header and Ted Williams had himself a day. In the first inning of both games he hit a three run homer!”
How great is that? First of all that his senior class trip was to Fenway Park, but second of all that he got to see Ted freaking Williams hit two home runs…and he still remembers the details?! When I asked him about the lineup that day he immediately mentioned that one of the guys on base for both home runs was Dom DiMaggio, Joe’s kid brother.
There’s something about baseball that does that to you. It makes an impression that stays with you. Although its been over fifty years now, I can still remember the guys who played for the old Richmond Virginians from when I was like 7 years old…Joe Pepitone, Tom Tresh, and Al Downing. Then the Braves came to town and it was Hal Breedan, Shawn Fitzmorris, Ralph Garr and Dusty Baker. If I live to be 100 and all of my other faculties are gone, I’ll still be able to tell the nurses at the old folks home about who was in the starting lineup for the Mets in game five of the 1969 World Series.
And now, my son has taken up watching baseball videos on YouTube and sending them to me. Dad, have you seen this catch and throw?! Crazy!!
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