Crying foul
I should have taken my own advice. On my family’s Web site where we sell our Giants’ season tickets, I had written this to entice people to buy baseball tickets from us: “Bring a mitt. Foul balls come our way.”
Last Wednesday, sure enough, a foul ball came my way. A line drive, hit hard, screamed toward me from several hundred feet away like a heat-seeking missile. My initial thought was: holy sh–. It’s coming my way!
So I stood.
And in those three or four seconds, I had these frenzied thoughts:
I can catch it!
Wait, it’s going to hurt!
But I can catch it!
The ball was above me. I knew I had to reach high above my head and jump a little for the ball to hit square on my palms. Should I reach out and touch someone, or in this case, something? I was at AT&T Park, after all. But did I really want to hurt my hand, maybe break it, for a stupid foul ball? Read more
Is it spring yet?
I hate this time of year, and I’m not talking about the weather. It’s been nearly three months since the World Series and another two months before the 2008 baseball season starts. I’ve been jonesin’ for baseball big time, so what do I do? Go nuts the last few weeks, buying tickets to six spring training games as teams in the Cactus League open up ticket sales to the public.
About ten years ago, when I flew into Arizona for ballgames in March, I loved lying in the grass beyond the outfield fences and stretching out. But now I’ve become a snob and like to get as close to home plate as possible. And that’s why I love the Milwaukee Brewers. Their fans seemingly never go to their games, so you can always get seats right behind home plate. (Score!)
Two years ago, during the World Baseball Classic, when Team Japan played a practice night game against the Brewers, my brother and I just strolled into the ballpark, bought tickets, and were three rows behind home plate. We were so close to Ichiro on the on-deck circle that we could hear the velcro rip as he put on and adjusted his elbow pad.
Off the field, this offseason provided us another round of mindnumbing steroids news — Barry heading to court, the Mitchell Report, the Congressional hearing and the Clemens saga. We get it. Steroids is bad. Yes, the last 20 years of baseball statistics are a joke. But the sport has tried to clean up its act and instituted stringent testing three years ago, so let’s move on people.
Major League Baseball’s Web site has a countdown to Feb. 14, the day pitchers and catchers report to spring training. As I write this, it’s 18 days, 21 hours, 28 minutes and 2 seconds.
Play ball, already, dammit.
Art of the Interview
My San Francisco Giants book was recently republished in paperback, so the publisher had me do a few radio interviews this month to publicize it. Last Sunday night, while being interviewed live on a sports radio show, everything was going well until the host asked me a question I couldn’t possibly answer. The question was something like: “How would you compare Juan Marichal’s pitching style with other Hall of Famers like Sandy Koufax?”
I had one or two seconds to comprehend the question, realize I had no answer, and to come up with an answer. My insides churned. So what did I do? I told him the truth. I recall laughing into the phone and saying, “Well, I wish I could answer that, but I can’t because I wasn’t alive when they pitched. Maybe you would be a better person to answer that for me?”
He had to answer his own question. The guy threw me a curveball and I hit it right back at him!