Baseball Journal 8-26-13

When I went over to my parents’ apartment on Sunday afternoon, little did I suspect the epic struggle between titans that I would witness.  In the aftermath of the conflict, there would be nothing but bitterness and regret.  These are the moments in which men’s very characters are defined.  Legends are forged in these fires.

So it’s a beautiful day in San Diego, essentially like every other day there.  The hopelessly inept Cubs were playing the virtually anonymous Padres in a completely meaningless game.  The home team was wearing their camouflage tops and hats, which I find rather striking.  (If I might recommend a slight orange trim around the letters and numbers so they stand out a little more.  Yes, I know what the definition of camouflage is, but it doesn’t make sense to obscure the team’s name.)  A company of marines in their tan dress uniforms occupied an entire section of the stadium.  They looked uncomfortable.

To further set the scene, the pre-game talked about Darwin Barney of the Cubs, and one of my favorite players, was the offensive hero last night, thus putting me in a good mood.  There was a reasonable looking crowd for the game.  What I found interesting was the lack of Padres team gear among the fans.  Those that were wearing team colors, were a mixed bag of several eras.  Of course, there were plenty of easily identifiable Cubs fans.  The game begins.

Meanwhile in the Sunday paper, there was a lengthy article about the El Paso Diablos baseball team.  The current franchise was playing their last game of the season, and for the franchise in El Paso, and probably the last professional baseball game in the stadium.  As I’ve mentioned, a Triple A team with a new stadium are coming next year.  (Keep in mind, the players who aren’t good enough to make a crappy Padres team, will playing in El Paso.)  The article took up about a full page and mentioned all of the accolades that the Jim Paul era team accumulated, including being the first to have fireworks after a game (I didn’t know that).  No mention of the infamous Cohen Stadium canopy, which required a separate bond issue years later and was knocked down by windstorms, twice. 

On the news later that night, they showed a large crowd coming out for that last game.  It was a heartfelt, touching tribute, mostly in remembrance of better days.  On the other hand, is this really what it took to get people to finally come out to see the team?  I think the new team will draw well in its inaugural season (as long as they’re not named the Chihuahuas), but this doesn’t bode well for succeeding ones, unless they make a real, sustained effort to get fans there.  Dad’s only comment, as he used to work in downtown El Paso, was that he can’t believe they tore down city hall to build the new stadium.  He said he was tempted to drive down there to see if it was really gone.

Meanwhile in San Diego, there’s no score.  Len and JD have a brief discussion about a famous Padre fan, Harry the Heckler, who sits in the outfield.

The Little League World Series is also going on.  As much as I enjoy watching the kids play, much like NASCAR, I can’t stand the broadcast coverage.  It was a four-hour broadcast to show five and a half innings.  There were like ten-minute commercial breaks between every inning.  Oh, and they have expanded replay.  In other words, this is the future of the MLB.

Meanwhile in San Diego, there’s still no score.  We are introduced to Zack and Max.  These were little Cubs fans, with their names are on the back of their jerseys, seated together with their future agents, whom they may be closely related to.  They were dressed out and ready to enter the game at any time if called upon.  Little did we know at the time, it might come to that.

Zack got a foul ball and was very happy.  Max started crying.  Dad went over to bribe a ball girl.  No dice.  The next foul ball in the area was given to a little girl.  Max started crying again.  After having a good deal of fun at the kid’s expense, a WGN producer ran over and gave him a ball between innings.  Max and dad gave the camera a happy, jaunty wave.  Of course, the director kept going back to them during the game.  I love this human-interest stuff.  It’s sad that this is the only reason to watch Cubs baseball this season.

According to the ticker, the White Sox have defeated the Rangers . . . again . . . damn it!  I had heard a little of the game on the radio.  There was some story about a lineup card that Eric and Matt (who was mentioned in the Diablo article as one of their former broadcasters) didn’t elaborate on while I was listening.  As I heard later, the White Sox bench coach was thrown out while delivering the lineup card before the game.  The shocking part was that this type of ejection has happened before.

Meanwhile, I finally noticed that the game was still scoreless.  It may have been about 6^th inning.  Now this wasn’t a day game in the middle of the week in unpleasant heat with guys just taking three swings and sitting down.  The players were actually taking decent at bats.  There was just nothing to show for it.  It wasn’t like either pitcher had no-hitter stuff.  In other words, both teams were completely offensively hopeless.  So much for bringing in the fences at Petco Park to generate more scoring.   

By the 9^th inning of scoreless ball, I observed that if this was a soccer match, both teams would be exchanging jerseys and leaving the field.  Previously, the crowd had only really cheered a great fan catch of a foul ball.  Now, the game was taking on a different tone.  The crowd was getting into it.  Each pitch and at bat were now becoming important.  It wouldn’t be until about 5:00 pm local time there, that the crowd started seriously thinning out, but give them credit.  They had to wait about four hours to see somebody score.  By that point, we all just rooting for somebody, anybody, to win.     

I knew that when it happened, it would have to be somehow embarrassing, a bases loaded walk, a wild pitch scoring someone from third, or some Little League antics from missing the cutoff man.  I didn’t envision what did happen.  With the bases loaded with Cubs, Nate Shierholtz hit a grounder to the first baseman, who immediately threw the ball back to the catcher.  Unfortunately, Nate had fallen down after the hit and as he got back up, was hit by the throw.  The run scored and the Cubs would tack on another.  Kevin Gregg came in to close it out, and while he didn’t blow the blow the save by walking a bunch of guys like Marmol, the result was the same.  On to the 14^th.

Apparently nobody saw this kind of lengthy game coming, including the managers.  Bud Black of the Padres was forced to send up a pitcher to pinch-hit, which worked out about as well as you’d think.  He was no longer even in a position to even have a position player pitch.  On to the 15^th.

At this point, I must relate my most shameful act of the weekend.  I left the game.  The sun was going down, and I had walked over and didn’t want to walk back in the dark.  I felt bad all the way back.  I turned on the Dodger game on the radio, hoping to get an update.  Dad would call about 15 minutes later and tell me that the Padres had won, by driving in a guy from second with two outs.  He didn’t have any other details, but by that point, it only mattered that the game was over.  He was exhausted. 

It’s hard to put a capper on this, given that I didn’t see the end (and the sun still hadn’t gone all the way down by the time of the update, further mocking me).  I lay this whole incident at Len’s feet for making fun of Bob Brenly during his 18-inning game the night before.  Do I still want to watch more baseball after all of this?  You bet!  Let’s play two.