by Gregory Pratt, BaseballEvolution.com
July 13
For those unaware, I am traveling the west coast with one of my closest friends
(a mathematician named Daniel) and it has been an experience well-worth having.
We have been everywhere from San Diego to Vancouver, and as I write this,
we are headed back to Los Angeles where we will relax for a couple of days
before flying back home to Chicago. The trip from Seattle to the City of Angels
is too large to reasonably take in one day, however, so we will be making a stop
in San Francisco to spend the night, which is worth mentioning because it is
ironically the scene of this article's adventure over a week ago.
My travel partner and I left Los Angeles early in the morning on July 3rd for
San Francisco. He dropped me off at AT&T Ballpark about an hour before the
Cubs/Giants game was set to begin, and I waited around for Richard Van Zandt to
arrive. That the Giants would be in town against the Cubs was a pure
coincidence, but one I was eager to take advantage of and I was especially
pleased to see that Tim Lincecum would be starting against the Cubs. (Lincecum
has been a favorite of mine since he was drafted).
I had contacted Rich with an invitation to meet me for a game because I enjoy
meeting people and feel that I would be doing myself a disservice if I came into
one of my colleagues' cities and did not make an attempt to catch a game with
them. He was definitely interested in the idea of taking a game in with me and
so it was that I called him around 3:30 and asked where he was. "Across the street," he
said to me, tugging at his jersey for good measure. I said, "I see you" and hung
up the phone. When he walked over to me I shook his hand and we took pictures
with one another in front of the monuments:
Willie Mays,
Willie McCovey,
Juan Marichal.
After this, we walked to the entrance and stood in line to enter the ballpark. This was when I realized that the day would be enjoyable and interesting, as Rich said hello to various homeless persons around the park, most of whom he has known forever. His basic kindness toward those less fortunate than him and I stood out to me, and I knew that I was hanging around with a good man. His statements to me throughout the game reinforced this first impression. He speaks glowingly of his wife, who sounds to me like a Saint (among other kind acts, she
bought him and his then-recently deceased cat a brick outside the ballpark), and of his twins, who are quite clearly the most important thing in the world to him. And he speaks glowingly of baseball, too, saying that "there is nowhere I'd rather be than at a ballpark."
Those words and their effect on me can only be understood by someone who has met
a kindred spirit before.
Nevertheless, I was struck by how smoothly we transitioned from near-total
strangers to flowing conversationalists, as it is always awkward to meet someone
for the first time and especially so when you only know them through their
writings. For some reason -- whether it be my smoothness, his, or the
force of the game between us -- we immediately became friends. And he's a good
host, too. We walked around the ballpark and sat in a variety of seats, with the
bleachers being my favorite, as he explained the history of the stadium and
shared general Giants stories with me. I was grateful that he waited patiently
while I bought my mom a Build-a-Bear or, in San Francisco's case, a
"Build-a-Seal," and he showed off his good-nature when he accepted an invitation
to join me for a slide down the Giant Coke bottle. Lincecum was good, not great,
but he got the win after a late assault by the Giants offense took the Cubs out
of the game permanently. Rich hadn't seen a win since 2006, and I was happy that
he was able to witness one.
In the later innings, Rich and I made our way to our seats in the right field
upper deck, and we talked about the game of baseball in general and its history
in particular. Somehow, we got onto the subject of Negro League baseball
players, and it quickly turned to a discussion on Satchel Paige. We both think
it's wrong to exclude him from a top baseball players of all-time list, and I
was critical of Asher's reasoning that "If I showed you Phil Niekro's statistics
from the time he was forty on you'd guess, 'Wow, this guy must've been great
when he was young!' so I don't know how to judge Paige. He might have been the
greatest or he might've not been." But Paige had a short major league career and
we just "don't know." I take exception to this, as I do not know many sources
who have ever referred to Niekro as being one of the very best in the prime of
his life, but I suspect that it is relatively and comparatively few (besides,
most baseball scholars do not take such a skeptical position toward Paige). Rich
joked that I didn't want Asher to hear me say that we should, sometimes, take
the word of players and managers, and I replied that that's not it.
Everyone fawns over Satchel Paige in unequivocal terms, and there is nothing to
suggest that he might not have been an all-time great pitcher deserving of
proper respect. To completely exclude him is, to me, a hyper-conservative (not
in the political sense) judgment at its worst and simple, sad negligence toward
the game's history at its best. Rich generally agreed with my points, but I
ought to make it clear that these are my characterizations and not necessarily
his.
San Francisco is a wonderful place, and so is Oakland. The ballpark in San Fran
is a beautiful home for any franchise, and the view is gorgeous everywhere but
especially from the upper deck. The bay is simply gorgeous, and it is a sight
that everyone should take in at some point in their lives. It was a delightful
day of baseball with a good guy who knows the game and loves it. It was my
pleasure to attend a game with him and buy him garlic fries. There's little more
to say about the experience that he hasn't already said. I would like to make it
clear that the ballpark has one significant flaw: you can still smell
the Devil. Aside from that
and the fact that it is so "elitist" in its pricing, it is a perfect place.
Get Rich's take on these events.
Gregory Pratt is a political science and history double-major at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His political commentary can be found at the Office of the Independent Blogger, and he can be reached at gregory@baseballevolution.com.