Family Day

Check out this picture: me and my girls, Dodger Stadium, back in the day. This day was memorable. This isn't some lost cherished photo, recently recovered, like a found treasure. It is in a file of photos I glance through frequently and rarely think about. For some reason, I looked at it the other day and it occurred to me that this was a day when Pedro Martinez pitched for the Mets, and Pedro just got elected into the Hall Of Fame. I suddenly remembered that fact and it bestowed a new sense of value to this picture. Then I started remembering a bunch of other stuff about that day and that game. This picture is loaded with memories, and I will unpack some of them all over this page.

I remember people booing Mike Piazza. It bugged me. I stood and applauded when I saw him in his pregame warmups. Why boo Piazza? What did he ever do besides kick serious ass the whole time he wore LA threads? He never should have been traded away, and never wanted to be traded. Maybe people were

booing their own heartbreak, even after a few years had passed. That would make no sense at all, but I would understand.

I was glad I was there, but it was one of those games that probably required a baseball geek's appreciation. I flash my geek credentials in the above photo: the score book in my right hand, the glove on my knee. Keeping score at the ballpark is a complex enterprise for me, testing my focus and dexterity. I write left handed, I throw right handed. I write with my glove hand. I insist on sitting in a field level section between the bases, so I need my glove. In the imaginary retrospective documentary of my life in baseball, I was always told that this would hold me back. They said I couldn't do it. They told me to give up. They said "you can't keep score in the big leagues (meaning 'at a big league game'), if you have to write with your glove hand." But every time they said I couldn't do it, it just stiffened my resolve to overcome, to persevere, to succeed. And this photograph validates all the hard work, as I sit with loved ones, the ones who stood by me and supported me as I proved the naysayers wrong. We sit together and celebrate, as I keep score, with my glove hand, in a big league ballpark.

By the way, in the photo, my wife and daughter are not huddling together, separating themselves from me. It isn't like that. This isn't a thing where Dad is on his own trip, while the ladies are left to create their own experience, which doesn't involve disrupting Dad's concentration in any way unless it's between innings, when his own personal game of moundball is settled, and after he's caught up in his scorebook. They were still close enough for me to duck into the picture. I am not photobombing a family picture of my own family.

The kid in the photo behind my daughter, in the Mets jersey, was loving, and I mean loving, being at this game. There were three others with him, adults, the lot of them visiting from New York. The adults were much more casual, fan-wise, and the kid almost seemed embarrassed by them once or twice. It was as if their errant comments and boilerplate cliches reflected poorly on him, and I caught him rolling his eyes or slightly shaking his head. The elders acted as though this was nothing new, and they were amused by it. But mostly the kid was just thrilled, and, putting myself in his shoes, I could imagine the unbelievable miracle of events and conditions that had to conspire to create this scene: first, he's in L.A. on vacation, and the Mets are in town. Sure, he wants to go; in fact, that's all he wants to do. Then, some adults actually want to go to the game. They even kick down for good seats. And Pedro is on the mound. It was a perfect storm of baseball. Pregame chit-chat flowed easily, but once the game started, the kid was dead serious. He would be managing the game from his seat. I cannot deny that I identified completely with this kid; I was that kid at that age.

 

Adolescents don't feel a reciprocal appreciation of adults. He wasn't looking at me, saying to himself: "look at that man. I bet he was just like me when he was my age, and I'll probably be like him, as a baseball fan, when I get old." I was just another physical object whose existence was incidental to this setting. I can't explain why, but the kid was twelve, I wanted his respect, didn't have it, and he had mine. In the fateful 8th, he was calling for the catcher to go out to the mound. He gave me hope for this world.

So the game starts, and through the first few it is clear that Pedro Martinez brought his best stuff with him. He is dominant. Somewhere in the middle innings, the Mets get Pedro a run, and Pedro has not allowed a hit. This was of supreme importance at the time, for the kid anyway, because, at that point, no Met had ever thrown a no-hitter. Each out adds weight to the moment, and the kid is getting quieter. He might be able to tell his bros back home that he was there when it happened, when Pedro got the monkey off the Mets' back. It was a big deal; maybe the biggest deal for a Mets fan. Something like that is the fan's equivalent to a retirement nest-egg, something you can always fall back on, real currency. You can't put a pricetag on it. That's what was at stake for the kid.

For me, it was different. I go to one or two games a year. Because of that, I pay for good seats when I do go. Dodger Stadium is a three hour drive. Above all that, I am a Dodger fan to the bone. I want a win, every time, no matter what. I've never attended a no-hitter. It would be a big deal to see one. But I was not thrilled at the prospect of making the trip happen just to see a loss and have the Dodgers suffer the indignity of getting no-hit.

Anyway, this game had a weird, but familiar, vibe that I knew the kid was aware of. Brad Penny, for the Dodgers, was not dealing. There were always Mets everywhere on the bases. Penny was striking guys out, but he wasn't super sharp.It stayed a one-run game, with the Mets blowing several chances. As a fan, you just get a nervous feeling about those kinds of games if you are leading.

It should probably have been more of a moral conflict for me, the way I behaved, and maybe it was; I don't remember that part. What I did was, arguably, nothing at all, but I probably performed some psychological contortions anyway to make myself okay with what I was going to do. It probably went something like this: my standing as a fan, in the kid's estimation, was already lost. I figured that at least part of that was a New Yorker's superiority complex in relation to anyone from California. This kid, even in his youth, knows in his mind that nobody on the west coast knows shit about anything. We're all airheaded softies with sand in our ears and we'll never be real fans with any real knowledge of anything. That is the image that I projected on to the kid that made me feel like the kid brought it upon himself when I played dumb, since he already thought I was dumb. In actuality, the kid gave no indication of any of these preconceptions.

I played dumb about the baseball law that prohibits mentioning or acknowledging the fact that a no-hitter is intact and in progress. I mentioned and acknowledged the impending no-hitter to the kid, throwing all of California's already threadbare credibility under the bus in the process. The kid was visibly incensed, but what could he do? I would brush it off if he upbraided me. You can't really believe that I, while sitting here in my seat, actually have any bearing on the game's events, do you? Let me get this straight: if I mention the no-hitter, then somehow, magically, I will have caused the Dodgers to get a hit? Is that it? Do I have it right? Because that is preposterous!

Except I know that it is not preposterous. It is reality. I have seen the jinx work too many times for it to be coincidence. I broke one up for Hideo Nomo, in spite of myself. It was late in the game, too. I walked into a pub and the game was just going to commercial between innings, and they showed the line score. I don't even know if I said it out loud; I know I didn't say it to anyone. I said it to myself, just like, 'what do ya know, self, Nomo hasn't given up a hit'. Next batter, maybe a minute later, bangs out a hit  It would have been a Nomo no-no.

He had two others that he finished, and I was in attendance at Candlestink Park another time when the only hit he gave up was a ground ball to deep short that Jose Offerman actually made a good play on, but whoever the Giant asshole base runner was beat it out. That one wasn't my fault. I kept my mouth shut.

At any rate, the 8th inning rolls around, still, somehow, 1-0, Mets. Pedro's rolling, Penny is hanging around. Antonio Perez hits a one-out triple off the wall to break up the no-no. The next guy up, old friend Jayson Werth, hits a bomb and gets to touch each and every base to give the Dodgers the lead. Two ground outs later, and we head to the ninth. Bang! That half inning was over so quickly, it was hard to believe what had happened. Penny stayed in and finished the ninth for the win.The kid was crushed. I was elated. I even took satisfaction in the kid's misery, simply as an enemy vanquished, with no sympathy for the wasted trip, the Mets' loss, or the broken no-hitter. Tough shit kid. Get used to it.

That's baseball. Pedro Martinez throws a two hitter and loses. Penny works around ten hits and wins. Great day at the yard with the fam. My ladies may not have appreciated the full scope of what they had witnessed, but I still have the score card. Here's the game page I found on baseball Reference:

  http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN200508140.shtml 

Check out that Dodger lineup. Milton Bradley and Olmedo Saenz are the meat of the order.

Mets 1 59-58 ⇐ Lost 1 ⇒ 5th, 8½ GB Willie Randolph	at	Dodgers 2 53-64 ⇐ Won 1 ⇒ 3rd, 5 GB Jim Tracy	W: Brad Penny (6-7) L: Pedro Martinez (12-5)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E - - - - - - - - - - - - Mets 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 10 0 Dodgers 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 X 2 2 0

New York Mets

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Batting	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	SO	PA	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pit	Str	WPA	aLI	WPA+	WPA-	RE24	PO	A
Jose Reyes SS	4	0	1	0	0	1	4	.274	.298	.371	.670	15	11	-0.043	0.68	0.014	-0.057	-0.4	2	1
Miguel Cairo 2B	4	0	1	0	0	0	4	.278	.318	.368	.686	13	8	-0.082	0.94	0.038	-0.120	-0.8	1	4	CS
David Wright 3B	4	0	2	0	0	1	4	.305	.385	.512	.897	20	10	-0.020	0.67	0.025	-0.045	-0.1	0	4
Cliff Floyd LF	4	0	2	0	0	0	4	.287	.367	.534	.901	11	7	0.017	0.73	0.064	-0.047	0.1	2	0	2B
Mike Piazza C	4	0	1	0	0	3	4	.261	.326	.447	.773	12	10	-0.109	1.56	0.029	-0.139	-0.6	5	0
Marlon Anderson 1B	4	0	1	0	0	0	4	.268	.314	.363	.678	12	7	0.120	2.05	0.232	-0.112	-0.3	12	0	2B,SB
Victor Diaz RF	4	1	1	0	0	0	4	.259	.373	.489	.862	10	7	-0.196	1.80	0.082	-0.278	-0.4	1	0	2B
Gerald Williams CF	3	0	1	1	0	1	3	.263	.263	.526	.789	12	8	0.082	1.11	0.125	-0.043	0.6	1	0	2B
Kazuo Matsui PH	1	0	0	0	0	1	1	.232	.280	.316	.596	6	4	-0.079	2.79	0.000	-0.079	-0.2
Pedro Martinez P	3	0	0	0	0	2	3	.089	.105	.089	.195	11	10	-0.137	0.82	0.000	-0.137	-1.3	0	0
Team Totals	35	1	10	1	0	9	35	.286	.286	.400	.686	122	82	-0.447	1.22	0.609	-1.057	-3.5	24	9

2B: C Floyd (18, off B Penny); V Diaz (8, off B Penny); G Williams (2, off B Penny); M Anderson (8, off B Penny).

TB: C Floyd 3; M Anderson 2; V Diaz 2; D Wright 2; G Williams 2; J Reyes; M Piazza; M Cairo.

RBI: G Williams (2).

Team LOB: 7.

With RISP: 1 for 6.

Baserunning

SB: M Anderson (6, 3rd base off B Penny/D Navarro).

CS: M Cairo (3, 2nd base by B Penny/D Navarro).

Los Angeles Dodgers

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Batting	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	SO	PA	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pit	Str	WPA	aLI	WPA+	WPA-	RE24	PO	A
Cesar Izturis SS	3	0	0	0	0	1	3	.265	.309	.329	.638	10	7	-0.053	0.70	0.000	-0.053	-0.4	2	0
Oscar Robles 3B	3	0	0	0	0	0	3	.283	.362	.348	.709	9	8	-0.091	1.20	0.000	-0.091	-0.6	0	2
Milton Bradley CF	2	0	0	0	1	0	3	.287	.346	.484	.831	9	4	-0.042	0.86	0.012	-0.054	-0.2	3	0
Olmedo Saenz 1B	3	0	0	0	0	1	3	.288	.345	.524	.869	12	9	-0.060	0.75	0.000	-0.060	-0.4	4	0
Ricky Ledee RF	3	0	0	0	0	1	3	.296	.351	.471	.822	10	8	-0.121	1.59	0.000	-0.121	-0.7	4	0
Jason Repko RF	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.228	.294	.377	.670			0.000	0.00	0.000	0.000	0.0	0	0
Antonio Perez 2B	3	1	1	0	0	0	3	.330	.388	.443	.831	14	9	0.168	1.16	0.209	-0.041	0.4	1	2	3B
Jayson Werth LF	3	1	1	2	0	1	3	.236	.331	.399	.730	12	9	0.381	1.72	0.408	-0.027	1.1	2	0	HR
Dioner Navarro C	3	0	0	0	0	0	3	.271	.386	.333	.719	10	10	-0.075	0.99	0.000	-0.075	-0.6	10	1
Brad Penny P	3	0	0	0	0	1	3	.105	.150	.158	.308	11	8	-0.053	0.72	0.000	-0.053	-0.4	1	1
Team Totals	26	2	2	2	1	5	27	.077	.111	.269	.380	97	72	0.054	1.08	0.629	-0.575	-2.0	27	6

3B: A Perez (1, off P Martinez).

HR: J Werth (6, off P Martinez, 8th inn, 1 on, 1 out to LF).

TB: J Werth 4; A Perez 3.

RBI: J Werth 2 (27).

Team LOB: 1.

With RISP: 1 for 1.

Fielding

DP: 1. B Penny-C Izturis.

New York Mets

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Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA	BF	Pit	Str	Ctct	StS	StL	GB	FB	LD	Unk	GSc	IR	IS	WPA	aLI	RE24
Pedro Martinez, L (12-5)	8	2	2	2	1	5	1	2.96	27	97	72	42	8	22	10	11	1	0	74			-0.053	1.08	2.0
Team Totals	8	2	2	2	1	5	1	2.25	27	97	72	42	8	22	10	11	1	0	74			-0.053	1.08	2.0

Los Angeles Dodgers

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Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA	BF	Pit	Str	Ctct	StS	StL	GB	FB	LD	Unk	GSc	IR	IS	WPA	aLI	RE24
Brad Penny, W (6-7)	9	10	1	1	0	9	0	3.34	35	122	82	51	10	21	11	15	5	0	72			0.447	1.22	3.5
Team Totals	9	10	1	1	0	9	0	1.00	35	122	82	51	10	21	11	15	5	0	72			0.447	1.22	3.5

Balks: None.

WP: None.

HBP: None.

IBB: None.

Pickoffs: None.