Reminiscences

The first professional baseball game I ever saw featured a tall thin right-handed pitcher I had never heard of, but my father was eager to see. This was in Miami, in 1955, when I was about six years old. We had moved from Boston to Miami in November 1953, and being as I was only four at the time, I decided to go along with the family.

I don't actually remember the game at all, except that I wanted to chase around the upper reaches of the stadium after foul balls and Dad insisted I stay with him. I've always cherished the game, however, because the pitcher for the Marlins was Satchel Paige. He meant nothing to me at the time, but now I can say I saw one of the truly great players.

In 1964, my brother Larry and I were treated to a game at Fenway Park, the first time I had ever been there. It was the last game before the All-Star break and the Red Sox and White Sox started relievers, Jack Lamabe and Hoyt Wilhelm. I remember Carl Yastrzemski throwing out a runner at the plate, Dick Radatz pitching in relief for Boston and the Pale Hose winning in extra innings. I thought my father would be mad at us for keeping him waiting outside the park, but he was chatting with my uncle Raymond and said he had guessed the game was running long. He was not a man to be patient with tardiness, so I was surprised and pleased that he didn't bawl us out.

Years later, in college at Florida State, I went to see a game between the professional Pittsfield Red Sox and the FSU team. I mostly was interested in the center-fielder for the Sox, Billy Conigliaro, but took notice of the big catcher they had too. His name was Carlton Fisk.

The only time I ever caught a foul ball at a professional game took place when I lived in Pennsylvania and went to a Reading Phillies game. There was a sparse crowd and the ball arced back directly to me, so I had a cherished souvenir. About a week later, my daughter, age two, threw the ball out the window of our car while it was moving and I never found it. I still tell her the story.

While living in Pennsylvania, I also saw two Philadelphia games, both against the Chicago Cubs. In one of them the Phillies scored ten runs in the first inning. After that it was the most boring game I ever witnessed.

Living in smaller cities, I've mostly seen minor league games, but every minor league team has at least one real prospect, and at AAA games there are big league veterans trying for one more chance at the majors. I remember the Peninsula Pilots in Newport News Virginia had Juan Samuel at shortstop, for example.

Lower levels in the minors sometimes have plays you'd never see in the big leagues. Once at a Pilots game I remember a suicide squeeze play, where the runner came barreling in from third base as the batter dropped his bunt in front of the mound, the pitcher scooped it up, shoveled it underhand to the catcher, blocking the plate as the runner slid, there was a cloud of dust, the umpire shouted "Safe!" and the everyone was mesmerized. Including the batter, who was still standing there and decided as the call was made that maybe he should run to first. He was thrown out by seventy feet and then had to return to his dugout where the manager was waiting, hands on hips, for him.

Richmond, Virginia, had the top farm team of the Atlanta Braves. The first game I saw there featured John Smoltz, who, as I recall, wasn't very good that night. Braves teams included Ryan Klesko, probably the most powerful hitter I ever saw in the minors, David Justice, who went on to a solid big league career, and Kevin Millwood, who came closest to a no-hitter I ever saw, eight and one-third innings before he gave up a single. The fastest bats I ever saw belonged to Chipper Jones and Nomar Garciaparra. The ball just jumped when they hit it.

Since coming to Colorado, I've been to numerous Rockies games and several of their Colorado Springs farm club contests. (The Colorado Springs team is called the "Sky Sox" whatever that is. Their mascot is a fox, again for no readily apparent reason.) Rockies players of note include Todd Helton, Troy Tulowitzki, and Ubaldo Jimenez. I've seen the very graceful Carlos Gonzalez in both the minors and majors. He's probably the best athlete I have seen, a true five-tool player. Two years ago, the Sky Sox team included Mark Bellhorn, once a hero on the 2004 Red Sox, but clearly winding up his career at Colorado Springs.

Last year brought some trauma as Kris and I attended a Rockies - Red Sox game at Coors field, won in the bottom of the ninth inning when Ian Stewart and Jason Giambi both homered off Jonathan Papelbon. My wife, who showed no interest in baseball before I married her, wore Rockies purple to the game, which I countered with a battered old Red Sox cap. It's a mixed marriage, as we used to say.