Diary of a Diehard

One of the cool things I like about going to an Arizona Diamondbacks game at Bank One Ballpark is the opportunity to sample some of the food from other ballparks. At each homestand, the Diamondbacks will bring one menu item from the opponents park. This food item is located at one of the concession stands on each level of the ballpark. It is referred to as the Visiting Team special. It is always interesting to see what if featured for each team during the course of the year. I am not normally adventurous when it comes to food but I have to admit that I have tried the item from each team. There were Dodger Dogs from Los Angeles, pulled pork sandwiches from Atlanta, pretzels from Philadelphia, and grilled chicken on sourdough bread from San Francisco. I eagerly awaited the Montreal series to see what fares would be served from north of the border. As I got to the front of the line, I was met by the smiling face of the concessionaire. “One visiting team special, please” I eagerly asked. My first clue should have been the vanishing smile and the confused look I was given. She retrieved my sandwich handing it to me and taking my money. It looked good and was quite large. As I made my way back to my seat, I noticed that I seemed to be the only one having one of these specials. I began eating and quickly learned that the sandwich was some sort of smoked meat. After finishing the meal, I sat and waited for the game to begin. The longer I sat there, the more queasy I became. Whatever was in this sandwich was not setting well with me. I decided to go back to the concession stand to ask a few questions. I looked at the menu to verify that the Visiting Team special was listed. There it was, Smoked Meat Sandwich. I asked the concession worker if she could tell me something about the special. “Well, it’s a sandwich and it has meat on it. The meat is smoked I think.” That was a little less than helpful so I asked if she could clarify what type of meat it was. She didn’t know but she would ask. She went into the back where she stayed for what seemed like 10 minutes. When she returned, she had additional information, “It’s smoked meat.” I could see that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with her and thanked her anyway for her help. As I was leaving, the person behind me in line offered his helpful comments, “Maybe it’s Canadian road kill.” I’m not sure I am going to have that menu item tomorrow. But then again, it wasn’t that bad.

It’s funny how important dates tend to stick with you throughout your life. For example, we can all remember our birthdays even though there are several who would like to forget theirs. We can usually remember other important dates that happen to each of us. My parents can recall where they were in 1963 with John F. Kennedy was assassinated and I can still remember where I was in 1969 with Neil Armstrong first stepped out onto the moon. But all of these dates pale in comparison to what I was doing 12 years ago. It was at that time that something happened in my life that I will never forget. That evening, with Trina at my side, we walked down aisle hand in hand looking into each others eyes while organ music played. People sat to the left and right of us and watched as we slowly walked to the front. There I stood gazing around, a tear in my eye. After so many years I was finally going to do it. My life after this moment would never be the same. How could it be? I mean no one thought this day would ever come. I was so happy and to have Trina at my side was the best part. The memory of that day is still very strong. I can hardly wait to get home to celebrate this anniversary with my wife. After all, how often do you get to see the first night game at Wrigley Field? I know that the game was not official because of a rain out in the fourth inning, but it is still pretty special. I hope Trina hasn’t forgotten this anniversary. How could she after all that we have been through?

My mother always taught me to be a good host and to make your guests feel comfortable. She went as far as saying that your guests should feel as if they were at home. I have try to mind my mother’s advice throughout my life. For the first few years, I minded out of fear. Mom is not a large lady but she could wield a paddle with the best of them. As I became older, this behavior became more comfortable. So for 38 years I have tried to make others feel at home when they visit, but I think I have found a boundary to mom’s generosity. The Montreal Expos have come to town and have a three game series with the Diamondbacks. I realize that the fans of Montreal are used to having only 1,000 of their closest friends attend a ballgame but I’m afraid we can’t be that hospitable. I had a couple of people from Canada make a comment to me last night that there were more people at the game for batting practice than during the game in Montreal. The fans of Montreal are used to having entire sections to themselves and given the number of foul balls that are hit, everyone in the stands could likely go home with a ball. Here, you are lucky if you get a foul ball in a couple of years let alone a single game. Montreal fans are also used to having fellow fans in the stands that speak French. I’ve been to every game for the past three years and I have to admit I have never heard anyone speak French. About the best I could do would be to have these Canadian fans come to one of the Mets games. The Mets fans didn’t speak French, but they were rude so that would be half right. I understand from talking to some of the fans that the Expos do not have a television contract so no games are seen on television. The best I can do here would be to turn off their televisions while they are watching them. Of course with the monsoon storms we are having, chances are they won’t have power where they are staying anyway. In the meantime, I will attempt to be a good host and to make our guests feel closer to home, I will try to incorporate some of their lingo into my conversations with the umpires, “Take off! That call sucked you hoser! That was a good one, eh?”

Each year, before the season starts, my kids await the release of the schedule for the upcoming Diamondbacks season. No, not the game schedule. They are interested in the giveaway schedule. There becomes a near frenzy as the kids pour over the listing to determine when the coolest giveaway will be. At each date, they call “dibs” to ensure they will be going to those games that they are most interested in the freebies. Now Dakota is the youngest and is still quite naive. He still believes that you go to a baseball game to watch the game rather than get cool prizes. The girls continue to try and train him but the going is slow. When the schedule came out for the 2000 season, no one called today’s game. One look at the description had them all shy away from it. After all, who would want a 3TV metal lunch box. First off, metal lunch boxes went out with the Partridge Family. It would definitely be uncool to have one of those. Second, lunch boxes usually remind you of school and that is the last thing one of my kids want to try and remember. So this morning, amid the snickers from his sisters, Dakota got up and got ready to go to the game. Again, he could care less about the giveaway. He knew it was Sunday that that meant Bullpen Buddies. He planned on going down and hanging with the players in the bullpen and play in the dirt. As we reached the gates to enter the ballpark, the ushers began taking out the lunch boxes and lining them along the gates to give to the onrushing fans. As people began receiving these lunch boxes, they became excited. These were actually pretty cool. Dakota especially thought so. Now at last he had a place to store the dirt he was collecting from the bullpen along with a couple of Hot Wheels cars and the Bullpen Buddies T-Shirt he had just received. For the entire game, that lunch box kept him entertained as he opened it, emptied the contents onto his seat, played, and returned the contents back into the box. He would pause momentarily to yell encouragement to the Diamondbacks players and return to his play. He did not even complain that Armando Reynoso was pitching or that the game lasted over 3 hours. No, he had his lunch box and he was set. When we arrived home, he proudly displayed his new prized possession for everyone. Each of the girls replied with the same response, “Hey, that is cool. I want one of those.” To which both Dakota and I gave the same answer, “You’ve got to go to the game to get the prizes. You snoozed, you lose. Now quit whining like a Mets fan.” It is so rare for the men of this household to score, we have to savor the moment when it happens.

As I was sitting at the game on Wednesday evening, they announced that Luis Gonzalez would be signing autographs on Saturday at the MetroCenter Mall. Knowing full well that Gonzo was Mallorie’s favorite Diamondback of all time, I knew that I would be spending some time at the mall on Saturday. Well, as today arrived, I found that I not only had Mallorie but Whitney and Dakota as well. I would have had Tiffany too but she had gymnastics team practice this morning so she couldn’t go. That did not stop her from giving me items to have Luis autograph for her. Dragging three children and a bag of Diamondbacks gear, we headed to MetroCenter. As has been the case for this entire week, no trip through downtown Phoenix could be complete without at least three detours due to road construction. We weaved in and out of surface streets seeing some of the sights of Phoenix that the children don’t usually get to see. There were the usual handful of homeless people begging for money at the street corner, and I believe we witnessed a drug deal going down at one point. Of course who could forget the three prostitutes selling their wares. Ah, what an educational experience we have when we travel off the beaten path of the freeway. When we arrived at the mall, I noticed there was only a few people standing in line at The Gamekeeper waiting for autographs. What luck, we would be in and out in less than 10 minutes. As the kids and I got in line, I could hear people yelling. Curious, I turned to find 150 people letting me know that what I had thought was the end of the line, was only the beginning. The end was at the other side of the mall. Hmmm, perhaps I had miscalculated the time we would be here. Instead of 10 minutes, it was more like 120 minutes. In the end, it didn’t matter. Each of the kids had an item signed by Mr. Gonzalez. I even happened to slide in the picture of Tiffany for an autograph. Overall, it was a pretty good morning

It is one of those days that marks the passage of time that although is somewhat meaningless, is still depressing when I contemplate it for any amount of time. At each Arizona Diamondbacks home game, I bring my scorebook and keep track of each pitch that is thrown. Each page tells a story. Some stories have happy endings like the previous two nights where the Diamondbacks have won the game and there are others that are tragedies such as Monday night when the fan interfered with a home run ball that Luis Gonzalez could have caught. Besides documenting a box score, I keep track of other pieces of information that I find myself interested in. I have listed who the home plate umpire is for each game so that I can yell at them by name during the course of the game. I keep track of the time of each ball game so that I can answer Whitney’s constant question of how long will this game take. I keep track of who I bring to each game so that at the end of the season I can answer the argument by the children of who went to the most games this year. Of course I also keep track of whether the roof is open or closed so that I know what our record is for each type of environment. This piece of information has allowed me to observe that the ball carries approximately eight feet farther with the roof open and twelve feet farther if the roof and the panel doors are open. Another tidbit of information in the scorebook is the jersey we wear for each home game. It is interesting that each pitcher has a specific jersey that they feel more comfortable with. For example, Armando Reynoso will only wear the white pinstripe jersey. Brian Anderson always selects the purple. Todd Stottlemyre is also partial to the purple jersey for each home game. Randy Johnson likes the black jersey best but after last season when he received no run support for five or six games, he has changed to the white pinstripe. Curt Schilling seems to prefer the sleeveless jersey although I have only one game to base this observation. The final piece of data that is kept in the scorebook is by far the most important since it is the one question I am asked every game. “Who won the hot dog races?” Before each race, I am asked that and have to give the results from the previous 3 races so the kids can predict who will win next.

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Tonight it was Tiffany’s turn to go to the game. I have to admit, she is the most fun to take to the ballpark. I think it is because she genuinely loves the game of baseball and is interested in understanding all of the nuances of the game. Of course it doesn’t hurt that she is an autograph magnet. She can get players to come over that no one else can get. I am fascinated and mildly impressed at her abilities. She is never pushy and she is always polite with the players. She does demand for them to act the same way. Tiffany will not put up with players who are prima donnas or who cop an attitude. Tonight was proof of that. We were at the ballpark in time to watch batting practice. There we watched as Alex Cabrera did his nightly impression of Mark McGwire hitting balls to areas where you generally need a very tall ladder. While I was watching the hitters, Tiffany was yelling to Johnny Ruffin. He immediately acknowledged her presence and when he was done with his warm-ups, he came over and autographed Tiffany’s ball. She and he spoke for a few minutes and she politely thanked him for his time. You could tell she admired him and his behavior towards the fans. When the Diamondbacks finished their batting practice, we went out into the left field stands to watch the Braves hit. When we got there, Chipper Jones was standing in the field doing his best to ignore the fans. Tiffany attempted several times to get his attention by calling out his name. Finally, he acknowledged her presence and stated abruptly that he didn’t sign autographs for fans, especially on the road. His response and attitude surprised me as it did others in the stands. Tiffany was somewhat put out that he thought he was better than the game and could care less about the fans. From that point forward, she did her best to get everyone in the bleachers to begin to heckle Chipper Jones. Knowing that he doesn’t really like his given name, she began to chant, “Larry Wayne Jones”. After a few minutes of this, it was obvious that “Larry” had enough and headed for the dugout. All the while that he jogged in, he was greeted with a chorus of boo’s and chants of “Lar-ry”. Never has a father been this proud of his little girl. She dissed a millionaire and taught him that the fans do account for something in baseball.

Wednesday is always Whitney’s day to go to the game. Well, actually I have my choice of taking Whitney or Dakota. Since the Code Man is still a wild man, I always choose to take him only once a week. I think the fans that sit around me are also grateful for that decision. There are times, like tonight, that Whitney really doesn’t want to go. Don’t get me wrong, she loves baseball, just not enough to go down and hang out for five or six hours a night. We always have a great time at the ballpark and she is always glad she went. Her theory on going to a baseball game is that baseball is a good thing, especially when taken in moderation. What typically happens when we go is that I end up bribing her with some trinket at the team shop. I then have to endure the wrath of Trina when I get home and she has to dig receipts out of my seat cushion to see what kind of damage I have done to our checkbook. Tonight though, I did think ahead. As I was heading out the door for the game, I grabbed my color GameBoy (I want it noted that the Color GameBoy is mine regardless of whether the children have claimed squatters rights to this device). When we got down to the ballpark, I let Whitney see what I had brought and told her that she could play it for the entire game if she wanted. She was extremely excited and could hardly wait for the game to start so that she could begin playing. This exercise lasted the entire nine innings as she sat quietly and worked her little fingers to the bone as she navigated level after level. Many of you may be asking yourselves, what game would keep a six year old child entertained for so long? Well it is Ken Griffey Baseball of course. Is there any other game out there?

With the beginning of August comes the official dog days of summer. This is the long hot days where we just lay around and catch a few baseball games while the thermometer blows it top like Old Faithful. As a child in Idaho, we would spend each day playing ball at the school field. Before each game we would select shirts and skins and then begin a game that would last six to eight hours. We never kept score and the game ended when the teams were reduced to 4-on-4. If you were lucky, you were chosen to play on the skins team or the team without the kid that had one arm and no mitt. At this point in the summer, you were far enough away from school ending that you had forgotten how much you hated that teacher or the countless hours you spent in the principal’s office for reciting the pledge of allegiance with wax teeth in your mouth when the teacher’s back was turned.

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