Category Archives: Baseball and Byond

A Short Essay On Pence

11 Friday Mar 2016

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It was a very hot desert afternoon but I walked straight to Scottsdale Stadium from my rental room several blocks away in honor of Hunter Pence.  I didn’t have a scooter, but feet are the next best thing. I was also hoping by committing this act of unity he would be in the lineup.  He wasn’t.

See exhibit A:

lineup

Read it a couple of times, his name still won’t be there.

I grabbed my frosty beverage (lemonade) and quickly found my primo seat in 208. The view was perfect and it was in the shade. To my left was a fairly rabid fan who spent much of the game bidding online for signed Duffy items. I liked him. Everything he said was right.

To my left was a sweet couple from Georgia who had no dog in the fight but were very happy to be there.  The belle noted she was cheering for the ‘blue team’ because she liked that color very, very much. When her boyfriend suggested this was unwise she countered with: This is America.  Diversity and stuff.  

I don’t know what that meant but I grew to like them both quickly as well.  Just as I got my score card adjusted they announced the lineup….. including the name PENCE.

PENCE!?  It was even better that they lied on the lineup. I love a switch surprise.

Seeing him take the field is akin to coming back from Buck Toms Summer Camp and realizing your best pal you made HAD JUST MOVED TO YOUR TOWN AND WAS NOW ATTENDING YOUR JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL.

Pence comforts.  Pence inspires. Pence makes us relax knowing he’s there for us with all his goofy, talent soaked equilibrium.  And he was. And he is. And he will be.

At first I panicked a little when he bobbled a ball and whiffed out on his first at bat. Was he  just setting us up?

At his next at bat, with Posey on second, he approached the plate like a starving caveman at a kale buffet. He was ready.  He watched 3 sliders turn into balls and waited for his pitch. The count was 3-1 after letting the one good slider get by. And then it came.  Fastball. Even faster leaving his bat for the left field berm. Perhaps beyond it. Perhaps it never landed. I know I haven’t.

That, my friends, is why the Hunter Pence bobblehead is the only bobblehead I own.

 

 

We Could All Use A Free T-shirt..and other rationalizations.

26 Sunday Apr 2015

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So if there is a new MILB ballpark opening anywhere within one tank of gas, I gotta go.  So I went to Nashville.  On a Tuesday.  And it was kind of cold.  And my car broke down. And there was a fix-it place with great Yelp reviews one block from where it started to go down.  And they fixed it in one hour.  And they didn’t cheat me. But it was still more money than I wanted to spend. But it could have broken down on I-40 in Putnam County. But it didn’t. And now it’s fixed and running better than ever.  So I was I was off to races. And it was free T-shirt night.  But only if you are one of the first 1,000 in the park.  And I was. So I got one. And it’s 100% cotton. And now I was warmer with extra cotton.

Sometimes you just have get out of town in a sickly car and take some chances if you want a free bright red Nashville Sounds T-shirt. I know I own a thrift store full of T-shirts.  But this one is RED. And FREE. And real COTTON. And….RED.

IMG_7676

I got there about an hour before my pal (as opposed to sitting on the side of I-40 in Putnam County) and decided to do the glorious walk around First Tennessee Park. Nothing says baseball like a bank I have no love for.  But, in this case, I’ll have to call it even with said bank because the park is fabulous. It’s big, clean, fun, chocked full of gregarious staff and padded seats, and as a bonus (?)…. a wandering hot chicken.

Anybody else got an idea why the hot chicken is a mascot?

I didn’t think so.

My long time pal and musical cohort Dug Meech met me at the gate and we assumed our padded seats down the third base line. We managed to see a great evening of baseball, discuss the record we are working on, have some laughs about beer sales pitches and aging, and not see Barry Zito.

Speaking of the beer, it came in GIANT CANS.  But it was chilly enough to where an enthusiastic ‘coldest beer in Nashville’ claim didn’t sound particularly appealing. In fact, that’s how he talked me out of it. Dug, being ready for any adventure, went for it. I had beer envy fairly soon after that.

Somewhere before last call, the enthusiastic senior pushing giant beer in a shiny can was giving it one more go to some reluctant drinkers on the first row. As he gave up and walked away, he slowly turned back for one final pitch:

I’m just trying to help you people!

He went down swinging.

Brian McCann in pinstripes

17 Monday Mar 2014

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This time… it’s personal.

McCann was my dad’s favorite player.  When we used to watch the Braves in his later years, he would he sit up a bit more straight, focus in tighter, when McCann was at the plate.  I really wish he would have lived long enough to see McCann take on Carlos Gomez, and win, in the infamous third baseline stare down.  And if I am being greedy, I wish he were here right now to go to breakfast with me and represent the best of humanity at the buffet as I represented the guy sitting next to such a person.

There’s really nothing positive about him being gone, but at least he didn’t have to see McCann in Yankee pinstripe.  He wouldn’t have heckled, he wouldn’t have belittled him, but I know he would have trouble with it.  I have trouble with it. If he had to leave at all I was hoping he would go the American League, but not THAT part of the American League.

Yesterday was my first opportunity to see him play, albeit in a spring training game vs. the Braves, his old flame. The first time he came to the plate, I just stared with no single emotion taking over from the countless others.  While I was processing that, a Braves fan yelled “TRAITOR” a particularly quiet moment. A mixture of uneasy laughs and easy laughs followed.

But…he looked…so… earnest.  Like he always has.  It was still the same guy my dad loved watching catch and hit baseballs. More importantly, he seemed pretty friendly with his old teammates, who, unlike the betrayed heckler, seemed pleased to see him, whatever his fashion choices.

The second time at bat, the heckler used the same “TRAITOR” joke- this time with less appreciation from the Braves fans. It’s like when the nerd gets teased in junior high- you go along with it by laughter, just to avoid getting the same abuse yourself.  But after awhile, you take up for the nerd or at least stop piling on.

Not that McCann is nerd.  In fact, he can be a hothead ready to defend the honor for a slighted pitcher. If I can only stick one label on him, it’s not hothead.  It’s ball player. The guy is a great ball player.  And, BAM, there goes a wobbly drive to right field that results in a double.  Not pretty, but it’s true in it’s direction.

When I was leaving the game I walked out the backside of Steinbrenner Field and saw a guy running laps around practice park.  It was McCann.  I stopped, admired, and forgave- and even forgave the folks who let him get away.

On the long, hot walk back to the hotel I also silently forgave one Mark Teixeira, who was my mom’s favorite.  She never saw him switch to the dark side, either. Like dad, she was also painfully absent at breakfast.