(Note: Long Beach State travels to Palo Alto today to play Stanford. I grew up there and thought I would reflect on that).Before there were lights, or stadium seats or crowds in the thousands there were just sun-swept afternoons. There was the "ping" of the aluminum bat like the sound of a golf ball and there was freshly cut green grass. There was Sunken Diamond.
Against the crystal clear blue backdrop of the Northern California sky the ball would careen higher and higher and as a kid I often wondered if it would ever come down. Sometimes, it did. Even more exciting was the fashion in which it would.
We went to a lot of games. So many games, Friday and Saturday and Sunday afternoons. I rarely missed one and if I did it was probably because I had my own. I knew many of the players. Or should I say they knew my friends and I.
Because there we always were, rolling around the grassy hill below the clubhouse next to the bullpen. Talking to whoever would listen, constantly with ball and pen in hand seeking more autographs.
One player in particular, a sub-mariner named Brendan Sullivan, really took to my liking. It was a thrill for four years going down there and talking to him. A kid and a college athlete, forging a bond. I always loved watching him pitch.
The submarine style he employed meant he bent over at the waist and threw the ball not only sidearm but brought it down as if he would scrape the ball in the dirt before flinging it upwards toward the plate. Yet, even he, like so many players before and after, graduated and moved on.
The real thrill of the game were the baseballs that were hit out-of-play. Tearing down the hills behind the grandstands towards the fence and the concessions, that was our arena, and we patrolled it as such.
In a bin in my parent's house in St. Louis sits the remnants of these days. 50-60 foul balls, most signed, many still bearing the mark of their original sender into my possession. The blue-green stamp of contact with the bat, and even more the wear of becoming batting practice fodder for my training days.
One magical afternoon everything came together. The perfect storm of ball-retrieving-possibility. First, it was a Tuesday. Tuesday opponents were usually local second-rate teams. Plus, this was before the days of lights so it was a mid-afternoon start. Finally, it had been raining.
My friend's mom used to pick us up from school and take us to the games. With all the elements above working in perfect unison, the place was practically empty. And for a ten-year-old kid it created an unbelievable day.
Over the course of the two or so hours, because I'm sure all these years later we didn't make it in time for the first pitch -- which in retrospect makes the achievement even greater -- I snagged 4, yea that's right four foul balls.
I can vividly remember the feeling of trying to cradle all four balls in my arms. This was my World Series. My perfect game, and the confused looks of all 19 other people in attendance made it all the sweeter.
Just a game on a Tuesday afternoon, many years ago, in a season filled with fifty or sixty. A season that will later seem to be little more than a line in a record book. But those games, those seasons, define us. The precious memories of who we are or were, where we came from and what will become of us.
I was born at Stanford Hospital, raised at Sunken Diamond and will no doubt die a Cardinal fan. Generations of ballplayers come and go like seasons but the feelings of those games, those perfect moments, will live on within them and will certainly never leave us.
