Retrosheet.org

This is Yankee Stadium before the apes took over the planet. It's noteworthy to me only because this is the first place I ever saw a baseball game in person. And I can call up the specifics of such a momentous event, thanks to this wonderful website called retrosheet.org. Oddly enough, the Los Angeles Times just did a spotlight feature on it. I felt so smart. I've been tapping into it for some time now, thanks to a good friend who specializes in finding a lot of nonsense on the internet. (And you know who you are.)

Retrosheet.org has baseball statistics and box scores going back almost as far as President Lincoln in Ford's Theatre. (Or President Ford in Lincoln's Theater, if you are dyslexic.) Indeed, they have box scores going back to 1957, and who doesn't remember looking a box scores every morning with your Cheerios. It's an amazing site that you can get easily lost in if you are even a lukewarm baseball fan.

You would think that something this data-intense would come from a bunch of geeks going to Berkeley. Actually, Retrosheet.org was started by David Smith, a 59 year-old biology professor at the University of Delaware in 1988. The service is free and listed as a charitable organization with the IRS. Smith gets helps from a small group of volunteers and he himself spends about 20 hours a week doing system updates.

Does anybody really want to know how many hits the Mets' Hubie Brooks had on July 3, 1983? I certainly could care less. But, I found that Retrosheet is a godsend if you want to open up a storage locker of memories. That's how I found out my first baseball game ever was at Yankee Stadium. My father's second cousin had access to season tickets through the oil burner company he owned. My father and others in the family had all been huge Yankee fans up to this point. (They later found religion.) I was probably in first grade at the time. It was a Wednesday afternoon in May and I was home from school with an ear infection. Too sick to spell, but not sick enough to troop out to a baseball game. With cotton stuffed in my ears like pimentos in olives, I apparently witnessed a Yankee 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins. The Yanks came from behind with two runs in the eighth. The first-ever homerun I saw in person? Mickey Mantle. The game lasted 2:14 and was attended by 14,177, which had to make the other 50,000 seats look very empty.

My first game at Shea Stadium? Well, my father had seen the light and joined me in Metfandom. Once again, the ticket connection was through a season holder. The wife of my father's work buddy had a job with Rambler, which was, at that time, the official car of the New York Mets. We used their box behind the Braves dugout and sat in the rain on a sultry Friday night. The Mets naturally lost 8-5 in a 2:32 contest attended by 20,646.

Okay, moving on to my first game ever in my Saturday seats at Shea, that would be a Met 3-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Tom Seaver was the winning pitcher in a 2:22 tilt before 19,938 frozen patrons.

My premiere appearance ever at Dodger Stadium? It was during my first visit ever to Los Angeles. It was a warm Sunday afternoon and I have no clue how I got into the place, as there were 52,888 other fans crowding my space. The Dodgers lost to the Cincinnati Reds by a score of 8-1.

Information overload? You bet it is. But, beyond those scores, game lengths, and attendance figures, are some memories of my dad, my family, childhood friends, and other visions etched forever in my mind.

Try Retrosheet.org. It is dazzling how much life flashes before your eyes.

And, oh, yeah, on July 3, 1983, Hubie Brooks went 1 for 4 as the Mets lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-4, in the Veterans Memorial Urinal.

Dinner last night: rotisserie chicken and veggies at Rosti prior to an Aero Theater showing of "The Geat Escape." Saw Robert Downey Jr. walking on the street with his girlfriend.