Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Last week, I gazed outside my eleventh story office window and watched the rain fall steadily down.

An old Tom Petty song that I must have heard a thousand times before, played in the background on a small transistor radio that keeps me company in my office. Lost in the perfect daydream, I wondered if they would get the game in tonight.  I hoped so.

That solitary thought magically transported me back to my Pony League baseball games played as a teenager.  It seemed my mom did wash every other day in order to keep my grass stained uniform looking clean for my next game.  My dad would race home from his work responsibilities at DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware, an hour away, to see his oldest son compete in his weekly Marlton recreation council (REC) baseball games. 

These games were just that - games.  They were mostly two hour diversions from my chores and school work both of which I avoided at all costs.  However, for the first time in my life I was part of something.  I was part of a team and a teammate to my fellow ball players.  Did you ever see the movie – The Sandlot?  Well, it was exactly like that.  At this young age, baseball meant everything to me. 

Back then, all I wanted to be was the next Johnny Bench.  From about age 13 to age 15, that’s all I cared about!   Not a lot to ask for.  It wasn’t like I wanted to be Pete Townshend or Bruce Springsteen.  Well….not yet anyway?

Like me, Bench played catcher.  For most boys my age he was The Catcher.  Even though he played for the enemy team, Cincinnati Reds, (aka The Big Red Machine) he was my favorite non-Philly player.  I would never be caught rooting for the Reds over my beloved Phillies, but I watched his every move in awe, anytime the hated Reds would face my Phils.

I was only a teenager then. 

I knew nothing about the stock market, 401-k plans, mortgages and networking.  I collected baseball cards.  I read Baseball Digest more than my high school textbooks.  And I always rooted for the Phillies to win.  I was just one of a thousand kids growing up in the shadow of the home baseball team playing across the Delaware River.  And I was truly lucky, blessed with some winning Phillies teams in the mid-late 70’s.  My Dad on the other hand had suffered through many losing seasons when he was my age back in the mid 50’s. 

Decades later, it is painfully clear that I was born to be an accountant and not a ball player.  However, from the naïve eyes of a thirteen year old boy, it was fun to dream about one day playing in the Major Leagues, however improbable that dream would have been.

Back in the day, a youngster’s sports calendars followed the professional teams’ regular season schedule.  That meant baseball was played between June and August, football was played in the fall and so forth.  Nowadays, kids participate in Fall Ball, playing baseball well into football season, when we would have been playing touch football in between parked cars on

Kennington Drive

. During the winter months, kids now play indoors, honing their skills with Hit Doctor and other training camps.  Back then we would have been setting up lawn chairs and playing street hockey emulating our heroes from the Flyers.

Back then, me and my friends played baseball only for bragging rights at school come Monday morning.  This past weekend while surfing through the cable TV stations, Marie and I stumbled upon the Little League World Series Sectional games being played in Williamsport, Pennsylvania covered on ESPN.   How cool is that!  Can you imagine if one of the Marlton teams back then had made it to that level?  I watched these kids compete for hours.  It really took me back.  I marveled how big and athletic these kids were! 

About two months ago, my seventy year old father emailed me and my brother-in-law about getting some tickets to an upcoming Phillies game before the summer ended.  I told him that Lauren and I would love to join him for a game.  So, he logged onto StubHub and purchased the tickets.  For weeks leading up to the game, he told me all of the intimate details of his ticket purchase.  How the tickets were purchased.  How only a paper ticket was printed.  How he was worried that he might have gotten ripped-off, since he did not have an actual ticket stub, but only a piece of paper with Roy Halladay’s picture, listing our section and seat number.

(Note – Game day he brought all the Stub Hub emails, just in case we had a problem with the tickets at the CBP entrance)

Game day had finally arrived. 

We munched on hoagies in the parking lot before the game.  I had an awesome “catch” with my eleven year-old nephew, Will.  We sat around and talked about the things that were happening in our respective lives, enjoying the fact that tonight we had no cares.  We were enjoying a beautiful hot summer night, moments away from watching the Home Team on our turf, Citizens Bank Park.  Quite an upgrade from the Vet!

We dutifully took our seats in the left field bleachers, nineteen rows back from the left field wall in close proximity to the home run foul pole.  At my Dad’s suggestion, we had all brought our gloves with the hopes of maybe snagging a home run ball off the bat of a Phillie.  I can’t even remember the last time I brought a mitt to a game.  Perhaps I was Will’s age tagging along with my Dad to all those games at The Vet, all those years ago.

When John Mayberry Jr. stepped into the batter’s box at the bottom of the third inning, I motioned to Will and said “Grab your mitt….here it comes”.  After a couple of fouled-off pitches, Mayberry ripped into an inside pitch sending it flying our way.  It bounced off the foul pole – Home Run!  We looked at each other in utter disbelief as the ball landed just to the left of our seats, immediately high-fiving each other, as well as the other fans in our section.  Home run for the Phillies!  Innings later I looked over at Will and wondered if he would remember this night 30 years from now?  Would he and his Dad talk about this night many years from now?

A lengthy rain delay and light show provided by Mother Nature soon followed.  As the grounds crew went about readying the field for play, my Dad and I chatted about a number of items we were experiencing when we were not in each other’s company away from the ball park.  Throughout the conversation he proudly pointed up to the stadium seats showing me where he and my Grandpop Martino saw the 1980 World Series Game # 1, along with the time he and my brother had tickets on the forty-yard line for the 1981 NFC Championship game against the Cowboys.  Chris got a signed football from Robert Newhouse before the game, as my Dad had received the tickets from an oil company supplier and client of DuPont located in Dallas. 

Of course, I knew these historic sports moments had taken place at the Vet, but they were special nonetheless.  Hearing my Dad tell me these stories all these years later made them seem even more special.  As we sat there, I imagined my Dad being more youthful and almost 40 years old, which means I would have been about 20 years old.  Time stood still.

Play had finally resumed and two and a half hours later, we all left the park happy.  The Home Team held on for another victory in what’s shaping up to be another magical baseball season.

Can the Phillies win another World Series Championship this year? 

This time around, I hope The Kerns can all attend a victory parade down

Broad Street

, something that due to work commitments and busy schedules eluded us back in 2008.

So, take me out to the ballgame with my Dad.  And remember, we Philly fans always root, root, root for the Home Team!

Go Phillies!