AT THE OLD BALL GAME

The other day Big Bore asked me if I’d ever been to a professional baseball game.

“Heck, I practically invented baseball!” I told him.

From approximately 1975-80, my first five years living in Eureka, I racked up “frequent driver miles” to Kansas City on weekends to hang out with Dr. Maureen and a cast of rowdy characters. As often as possible, we would cause calamity at Royals baseball games.

Since we were all operating on shoestring budgets, we typically sat in the first-come/first-serve bleacher seats in right field. I think they went for $1.50. Only the rejects sat in this section. Our favorite fan was “Toe Lady,” so named because she had the ugliest, stubby toes in the modern world, proudly displayed in equally ugly sandals, regardless of the weather. Toe Lady was a short, stocky, overly-tanned bleached blonde who looked like she could have socked a baseball out of the park with one pinky. But I digress.

In spite of slumming it among the lower class, Maureen and I were first-class authorities on the Royals. We made it a point to know EVERYTHING about EVERY player, even the benchwarmers. Does Jerry Terrell ring a bell to anyone other than Dr. M? Or course, not. --Maureen’s favorite player was Freddy “Big Things Come in Small Packages” Patek, and I was partial to Pete La Cock, a hunky blonde reserve first baseman who is the son of Hollywood Squares original host Peter Marshall. We lived for Photo Day, when we could roam the field before a game to take pics of all “our guys.” Fortunately, for the players, they posed behind a roped-off area and adhered to a strict “look but don’t touch” policy.

(Pete, "Be Still My Heart" La Cock makes eye contact with me over the Photo Day crowd.)

After games, sometimes M and I would hang out in the parking lot with the other groupies, stalking the players, who totally ignored us. I took lots of pictures of them trying to get to their cars, scowling, as if they wanted to say, “Get yourself a life.” Third baseman George Brett didn’t live too far from Maureen, so we made drive-bys at his place and even trick-or-treated there one year. George didn’t answer the doorbell, surprise, surprise, so Maureen left him some beer. I think shortly thereafter, he moved to a gated community.



(George Brett tries to get to his Porsche after a game. "Move it!!!")

So, yes, Big Bore, I’ve been to a professional baseball game, and I have the ticket stubs to prove it, but it’s probably been 25 years or more since I’ve been to one. Once the tickets were jacked up out of my price range, I quit going. Heck, nowadays it costs $10.00 just to park your car at the stadium. I’ll pass. Anyway, I no longer get excited seeing men in tight uniforms adjust their balls and strikes in their protector cups. Seeing Toe Lady again might be a kick, though.