7/24. A date not as memorable as 9/11. But it changed my life in a similar way.
July 24 is this Wednesday The date probably will come and go for you. Nothing special, I imagine.
But the date always sticks with me. I will spend it at Dodger Stadium, not at my childhood house of worship. Shea Stadium. But, I will be at a baseball game on this day sixty years after I visited my first one as a fan. Fittingly, I will be there with my childhood best friend Leo. It all goes across the plate like a fast ball.
Happy Baseball Anniversary, Len.
It seems like only yesterday.
I was a new Met fan, having just met the team while out of school for a week in April with a bad case of German measles. I was starting to understand the sport. And my father, usually the family figure who always introduces the sport to a youngster, was gravitating to the team with me. Dad was a lifelong Yankee fan, having grown up in the Bronx. But, I guess he thought it would be easier now to adopt the team his little son had just selected.
I was consumed by the games on the radio and the television, but, now, I wanted to actually attend a game at brand, spanking new Shea Stadium.
For one of the only times in our lives together, Dad didn't use his usual response to our going any place.
"It's too far."
"There's too much traffic."
"It's too hot/too cold."
I guess he really wanted to go, too. None of those old standards seemingly applied. And he had a direct connection to some nifty seats. The guy he carpooled to work with had a wife who worked for Rambler, then the "Official Car of the New York Mets." Her dealership had a season box right behind the visiting dugout. She got four seats for a July Friday night.
Her husband and her son.
My father and his son.
Me.
I counted the days, the hours, the minutes, and the seconds. I started to plan out the Met rotation to see who would be pitching on this hallowed night. It would be Jack Fisher, wearing my favorite baseball number to this day. #22.
This date would cement the love affair for all time. The Mets. Me. Together in the same place. I could reach out and touch them.
Well, sort of.
This would be the best day of my life. I could barely sleep the night before. Full of awe and wonder?
Nope, it was the rain pelting my bedroom window.
How could this be happening? God, why have you foresaken me? I mean, I went to Sunday School every week. I said my prayers every night. Rain??? Doesn't everybody in the universe know that I'm supposed to go to Shea Stadium tonight?
And I dreaded the inevitable. This was totally playing into my father's back-up excuse for the usual trilogy of reasons why not to do something.
"It's too wet."
Uh oh.
My father had already taken the night off from work. His friend still wanted to go. The game was still on. Downpour or no downpour, we popped into the car around 6PM for the trip to Flushing.
I can still remember traversing the Bronx Whitestone Bridge with the sparkling lights of Shea piercing the raindrops on our windshield. This is where I was going. I had a ticket. Nothing could stop me now.
Thunderclap.
Lightning bolt.
Perhaps my first utterance of a curse word.
"Shit."
Not audible enough to be slapped across the kisser.
When we arrived at the blue and orange aluminum paneled palace, the grounds were a soggy mess. One puddle after another. We huddled under an umbrella. The game would be delayed but only a little. I stared with amazement at everything I saw as I entered Shea for the first time.
"Scorecard, scorecard here."
I wanted one. I would learn how to score that summer.
The souvenir stands. The amalgamated smell of hot dogs, pretzels, popcorn, and spilled beer. Like no other aroma. The escalators that raise up to the heavens. Well, in my case, the field level behind the third base dugout.
Billy Crystal has made a career talking about his first visual memory of Yankee Stadium. Walking up the ramp of darkness and suddenly emerging in the sun-kissed stands and the field with the brightness shade of green that God ever created. Unfortunately, it was a little different for me that evening at Shea. Coming out of the tunnel onto the field level stands, I saw more darkness. And rain. And a soaked canvas covering the playing area.
Indeed, having seen the Mets in nothing but Zenith black and white hues, the colors at that moment were almost the same. Muted, dull, and unimpressive. It would grow on me in a matter of minutes.
Looming up in front of me was the gigantic scoreboard. To me, at my tender age, it was nothing short of magical. Colors danced around the white backdrop. It had baseball scores from all around the country. I looked at the Met lineup and immediately recited to all who would listen those players we would be privileged to see that night.
"Number 10, second base, Rod Kanehl. Number 42, centerfield, Larry Elliot. Number 23, right field, Joe Christopher. Number 2, in left field, George Altman. Number 25, at first base, Frank Thomas. Number 12, catching, Jesse Gonder. Number 1, at third base, Charlie Smith. Number 11, playing shortstop, Roy McMillan. Number 22, and pitching, Jack Fisher."
With a less squeaky and even less juvenile voice, I could have replaced the public address announcer.Around the third inning, little obnoxious Me decided to use my proximity to the Milwaukee Braves dugout and give them a child's version of Hell. No epithets. Just some good natured booing.
At one point, their third base coach, Jo Jo White, was amused by me. As he headed back to the dugout, he stuck his hand in his pocket. And pulled out a handful of Bazooka Bubble Gum pieces. He tossed them into a rain puddle on the dugout roof. I grabbed them quickly. The comic strips were soaked and not legible. The gum, however, was delicious. And I suddenly didn't hate the Milwaukee Braves so much.
Truth be told, other than the sense of shock and awe, I remember little about the game itself. Retrosheet tells me the Mets lost, 8-5, in front of a crowd that numbered 20,646.As far as I was concerned, it was me, my dad, and 20,644 other people.
This game was my first. It would not be my last.
So we flash forward two decades. I had my own Saturday plan seats at Shea. I didn't have to rely on my dad any more to go to Met games. Sometimes, I didn't even wait until Saturday to visit Mecca. I would pop out there on an odd weeknight.
This was one of those nights. Smack in the middle of the summer. And I probably didn't even realize the date when the impromptu plans were made to see this contest of the Mets versus the St. Louis Cardinals. The Flushing guys, after languishing in mediocrity for several seasons, were getting competitive again.
And here it is. July 24.
Now, over the course of my life, I've been to lots and lots of baseball games with lots and lots of good friends. I've enjoyed every minute of it all. But, besides my beloved Leo, there are two friends that stand out as my ideal baseball game mates. One would be my best friend from high school Danny, who pretty much was the standard bearer for my Saturday seats until I no longer had them. But there's also my buddy, the Bibster. We met in college. Only children who gravitated toward each other with an almost identical sense of humor and whimsy. Indeed, he probably deserves a blog posting all to himself.
But we also enjoyed the same things at baseball games. Both life-long fans of the downtrodden bunch at Shea, we started to go to games on weeknights. On this July 24, I had tickets that resulted from a rainout on a previous Saturday. We would both pull out scorebooks. And we would both proceed to manage the game from our seats. Endless and persistent strategy. Up in the loge behind home plate on this July 24, we endeavored to stay two strategic moves ahead of Mets manager Davey Johnson.
The weather this night was a little steamy but not terribly uncomfortable. We had virtually the best seats in the house. And we did what we did best. Watched a baseball game.
For some reason, this ordinary July game had it all. A see-saw contest that perfectly illustrated the highs and lows of being a baseball fan.
Mets up 3-0.
Cardinals take the lead 4-3.
Mets storm back 7-4.
Cardinals squeak ahead 8-7.
Mets tie it in the bottom of the eighth 8-8.
A Keith Hernandez single in the bottom of the tenth wins it for the Metsies.
One of those games that looked like Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed at the end of the first "Rocky" movie. Two objects staggering but trying not to fall.
We loved every second of it all. So did the almost 37,000 others in attendance.
It wasn't a game that won a pennant or a World Series. It wasn't a no-hitter or a contest where somebody hit the cycle.
It was simply baseball with a great friend. And perhaps one of the most exciting games I had ever seen in my life.
It was another July 24 at Shea Stadium. There might have been other times I was there on July 24. I also may have had one or two in my new baseball home Dodger Stadium. But there was never anything like the two July 24s. Twenty years apart.
But only a second away in my memory bank of lifetime highlights. What wonderful memory awaits me this coming Wednesday.
Dinner last night: Short ribs at the Hollywood Bowl.
