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Jul. 5th, 2002 05:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
like_a_clownTed Williams died today.
This kind of saddens me, because baseball and I go back a long way. My family used to take a trip every August to an American city to which we'd never been before, every one of which had a major league baseball team. Our goal was to hit all 26 major league ballparks (this was in the late '80s). Sometimes, we'd do two at once: around 1990, we went to St. Louis and drove to Kansas City, and caught a Royals game and a Cardinals game. My dad sprained his hand catching a Darryl Strawberry batting-practice home run at that one; some guy tried to wrestle with him for the ball, but my dad held on. He still gets twinges in that hand, as far as I know.
In 1987, we went to Boston. All I remember about Fenway Park--and this is kind of flimsy--is that we sat in backless bleachers in right field and had a good view of the Green Monster, ate hot dogs that were kind of nasty, and had a good grumble about the inaudible, ancient PA system. My dad loved it; I think I did too. It was almost fifteen years ago, and I still have the program that Fenway Park mailed to me--I lost the one I'd bought and kept score in at the game.
We haven't done this thing for some years now, partly because we all got older and the kids (especially me) got lives. It would've been nearly impossible to accomplish anyway, what with all the new stadia and moving and expanding teams. But I still remember Fenway, however fragmentedly, as a good time, and my dad still remembers it as his favorite ballpark (perhaps barring Comiskey). And I remember being excited with all that had gone down there, including the feats of Mr. Williams.
.406 was an awe-inspiring number to a kid who was mildly obsessed with baseball statistics and the fact that he averaged one foul ball and one or two walks per Little League season. Now, the guy who did it is gone, and this simple fact tugs at the part of me that used to dream of one day taking the pitcher's mound under blinding lights and bathed in the roar of an appreciative crowd. But it doesn't tug as hard as it might have a few years ago; this is why I'm only "kind of saddened," and only noted it in my LJ rather than avidly following the proceedings.
Baseball is moving on; the places and people involved that I witnessed first hand are being overtaken by new, shinier baseball megastadia, are being traded, are retiring, are dying off. Baseball has lost a huge link to its own history. I kind of know how it feels.
This kind of saddens me, because baseball and I go back a long way. My family used to take a trip every August to an American city to which we'd never been before, every one of which had a major league baseball team. Our goal was to hit all 26 major league ballparks (this was in the late '80s). Sometimes, we'd do two at once: around 1990, we went to St. Louis and drove to Kansas City, and caught a Royals game and a Cardinals game. My dad sprained his hand catching a Darryl Strawberry batting-practice home run at that one; some guy tried to wrestle with him for the ball, but my dad held on. He still gets twinges in that hand, as far as I know.
In 1987, we went to Boston. All I remember about Fenway Park--and this is kind of flimsy--is that we sat in backless bleachers in right field and had a good view of the Green Monster, ate hot dogs that were kind of nasty, and had a good grumble about the inaudible, ancient PA system. My dad loved it; I think I did too. It was almost fifteen years ago, and I still have the program that Fenway Park mailed to me--I lost the one I'd bought and kept score in at the game.
We haven't done this thing for some years now, partly because we all got older and the kids (especially me) got lives. It would've been nearly impossible to accomplish anyway, what with all the new stadia and moving and expanding teams. But I still remember Fenway, however fragmentedly, as a good time, and my dad still remembers it as his favorite ballpark (perhaps barring Comiskey). And I remember being excited with all that had gone down there, including the feats of Mr. Williams.
.406 was an awe-inspiring number to a kid who was mildly obsessed with baseball statistics and the fact that he averaged one foul ball and one or two walks per Little League season. Now, the guy who did it is gone, and this simple fact tugs at the part of me that used to dream of one day taking the pitcher's mound under blinding lights and bathed in the roar of an appreciative crowd. But it doesn't tug as hard as it might have a few years ago; this is why I'm only "kind of saddened," and only noted it in my LJ rather than avidly following the proceedings.
Baseball is moving on; the places and people involved that I witnessed first hand are being overtaken by new, shinier baseball megastadia, are being traded, are retiring, are dying off. Baseball has lost a huge link to its own history. I kind of know how it feels.
