T-Mobile Park, Seattle (A Half-Century Relationship Through the Lens of Baseball)

 

When I realized that tonight’s game was not only our 49^th wedding anniversary, but also a game in the 49^th of the 60 stadiums we hope to get to in this five-year quest, I couldn’t resist paying to put a message on the message board. It probably didn’t make sense to anyone except us, but these trips have become a central theme of our early retirement years. Incidentally, Kerry posted a Facebook message about spending our anniversary at a ballpark a few minutes earlier, but when I posted the picture above, high school classmate Tim Smith commented, “Annniversary message on the Jumbotron for the win!”

We often get asked whether it was one of us that started out as a baseball fan, and the other comes along for the ride, or whether we were both fans from the start. The couple we went to the Tacoma game with Thursday night, Bill and Connie Robey, concluded that they bonded over the fact that they were both baseball fans. In our case, Kerry always answers that question by saying that I was the one who was a fan at the start, but that she wouldn’t tolerate going to this many games if she hadn’t become a fan, too. I think we’re equally intense fans, though in different ways. I know more of the history of the game, but she has known more people who were working in the major leagues as players, coaches, staff, and even umpires, thanks to her years doing the non-sports medicine for the Colorado Rockies during Spring Training.

So here is the story of a long-term relationship, through the lens of baseball experiences. 

Testing the relationship

I think the first major league baseball game we went to together was in St. Louis on the Monday of Easter weekend of 1976. The University of Evansville (Indiana), where I was a junior and she was a freshman, gave students a three- or four-day weekend. She went home to western Illinois for the weekend, but I stayed in Evansville, because I had a Saturday job as a reporter with the Sunday morning newspaper. On Monday, she flew to St. Louis, I drove the 160 miles over to St. Louis, and we went to a baseball game between the Cardinals and Mets.

The game went into extra innings, and it kept going, and going, and going because no one scored. I try to stay until the last pitch, and that was particularly true then since I really didn’t want to miss the ending of what was becoming an epic game. So we stayed until Del Unser of the Mets hit a home run in the top of the 17^th inning (still the longest game by innings I’ve been to), and the Mets shut down the Cards in the bottom of the inning to win it.

The game was over, but we were still had more than two hours of driving to the place where we both had 8 a.m. classes. I’d driven over, so Kerry agreed to drive back. The next morning (more correctly, later that morning), my class was cancelled, so I went back to bed, but Kerry did her chemistry lab.

It was a good sign for our relationship that she was still talking to me later that day. It was an even better sign that she married me the next year.

Then there was the time, probably in the early 1990s, when Kerry, exasperated, said, “You can’t remember to take out the trash, but you can remember what happened in a baseball game on Labor Day in 1983.”

It was probably not the wisest thing to do for a relationship to proceed to tell her what happened in the games we went to on Labor Day in 1983. In my defense, they were memorable (for one thing, I think it might be the only double-header we’ve ever gone to)

I still forget to take out the trash.

Being Cardinals fans

I think Kerry really got hooked on baseball when we lived in St. Louis from 1979 to 1986. It was the “Whiteyball” Cardinals managed by Whitey Herzog, a team built on speed and defense (two exciting aspects of the game) who won one World Series and lost two between 1982 and 1987. It was hard not to follow the Cardinals in that baseball-mad town, even harder when they had great teams. We started going to a lot of games in late 1981, when the Cardinals offered $1 General Admission for open seating in the top level of the upper deck to try to entice fans back after a strike took out the middle of the season. They allowed outside water and popcorn in the stadium, parking on the Riverfront (requiring a walk under the spectacular Gateway Arch at night) was free, so it was ideal entertainment for graduate students with no money.  We went to about half of their remaining 21 home games.

The Cards didn’t make the playoffs that year, but they won the World Series the next year. Kerry and I each stood in line for a day to get standing-room-only tickets, one for a game in the League Championship and one for a World Series game.

In 1985, the Cardinals again had fantastic season, but we were getting ready to leave St. Louis. In fact, there’s a baseball story about the transition that illustrates Kerry’s devotion to the game.

The New York Mets also had a fantastic year in 1985, and only one of the two teams was going to make the postseason. That meant a Mets-Cards series in St. Louis at the start of the last week of the season was crucial. I couldn’t make it, because I was interviewing for a job in Tucson, Arizona, a state I’d never been in before. Baseball is important, but we have to have a job.

Kerry now had an MD, and while she was in a residency program, in St. Louis, you’d be forgiven if you weren’t at your best if you’d been to a crucial baseball game the night before. On Oct. 1, I gave my official presentation in Arizona, and talked to lots of faculty members, and Kerry went to a game that went 11 innings on a chilly night. Afterwards, we compared notes on a telephone call on weather and experiences.

I explained that Tucson was very warm and sunny, with the temperature about 95 degrees in October. But I didn’t feel like I fit in well with the department.

“It’s 95 degrees and sunny, and YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE YOU FIT IN?” Her voice was definitely all-caps. A few months later, I got offered the job, and knew better than to turn it down. Ultimately, Arizona would get an MLB team, and we’d become life-long fans there. That’s the team’s life, not ours, because we went to their first Spring Training game, their first regular season game, and their first World Series Game Seven.

Health considerations

The items on the wall of our family room at home include a poster about “Who’s on First” and a poster from the movie Field of Dreams, both pretty obvious for baseball fans. But we also have a limited-edition print of a famous (or infamous, depending on your allegiance) World Series play, signed by the two major participants. The print says “October 25, 1986,” and on the frame we put a little plaque that says “The reason David Swindle was born on October 26, 1986.”

The mid-1980s Mets were an easy team to hate, with a core of excellent players who had worn out their welcome with other teams, including former Cardinal Keith Hernandez, and a couple of phenomenal young players, Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, whom I always thought would have had better careers and lives if they hadn’t started out with the group they did. Suffice it to say that the definitive history of the team is called, “The Bad Guys Won: A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform--and Maybe the Best”

The Mets rolled through the regular season, survived a playoff series with the Astros, then found themselves behind the Red Sox 3 games to 2 in the World Series on the night of October 25. The game went into extra innings, and the Red Sox scored twice in the top of the 10^th, then got two quick outs in the bottom of the 10^th. So the Red Sox were one out away from their first World Series win in nearly 70 years, and the Mets were one out away from an ignoble end to a spectacular season. As certified Mets-haters, Kerry and I were happy campers.

Then it all unraveled. After three straight singles, it was a one-run game, with a runner on 3^rd. The Red Sox brought in a new pitcher, who promptly wild-pitched the tying run in. Then the Mets’ Mookie Wilson hit an easy ground ball to Bill Buckner, the Red Sox first baseman. At least the Red Sox would get another at-bat. Or so we thought.

The ball went through Buckner’s legs for an error, the winning run scored, and after a rainout, the Mets finished off the Red Sox two days later. The picture we have on our wall is of Buckner turning to go after the ball as Wilson is running to first, and is signed by Buckner and Wilson.

Why is that important to our family?

Remember, Kerry was nine months pregnant. When the ball went between Buckner’s legs, she was furious.

And her water broke.

A dozen years later, Phoenix got a team, and we felt our allegiances changing. Expansion teams aren’t expected to be very good. The 1962 Mets lost a record 120 games. So we weren’t expecting to see Cardinal-level baseball for a while. However, free agency meant that the Diamondbacks could sign some players who wouldn’t have been available to expansion teams a few decades before. In just their second year, it was all coming together. They won 100 regular season games, a rare feat (they’ve never matched it since),

In August or September, Kerry started having heart palpitations. It was worrisome, although they weren’t bad enough for her to go to a doctor. Doctors, remember, are not always good patients.

In the first round of the playoffs, the Diamondbacks faced the New York Mets. This was not the brawling, boozing, cocaine-snorting team of the 1980s that we despised. In fact, the only thing they had in common with that team was that they were very good, winning 97 games, so the best-of-five series looked like an even fight. 

The Mets won two of the first three. The fourth was played in New York, but if the Diamondbacks won, they’d be at home for the decisive fifth game at home if they won. That fourth game was close game throughout, and went into extra innings tied 3-3. In the bottom of the 10^th, with Matt Mantei pitching (he was one of the best relief pitchers in the game, acquired for this is the kind of situation), the Mets’ catcher, Todd Pratt, came to the plate.

Pratt was a classic backup catcher, the kind of character I'm drawn to. He played 14 years in the majors, but never played more than 80 games in a season.  At this point, he’d come to the plate 10 times in the postseason, and had never gotten a hit. He hit a fly ball to deep center field, and it was clear it was going to be near the fence. Steve Finley, one of the best outfielders in the game, ranged back, got to the fence, leapt, came down, and the ball just cleared the fence (in that order) for a home run to end the Diamondbacks’ season. Finley later said that he should have had it, but just mistimed the jump. That’s baseball. The season is over.

And Kerry’s heart palpitations stopped.

Don’t tell me Kerry isn’t invested in baseball.

Religious considerations

In 2001, the Dbacks made it to the World Series, in just their fourth season of competition (the previous record for an expansion team was five). They were going to be playing the New York Yankees, who had won the last three World Series.

Kerry had been participating in medical mission trips to Honduras for the last few years. In the summer of 2001, when the organizer, Rev. John Verburg, wanted to do a trip in October, Kerry looked at the baseball schedule, and said she’d only go if he scheduled the trip for after the World Series, because she had a good feeling about the Dbacks and we now had a way to get tickets for postseason games. As one of two MD’s on his trips, John agreed to schedule it the week after the World Series ended.

On 9/11/2001, the most successful terrorist attack in history occurred, with Al Qaeda destroying the World Trade Centers in New York, and panicking America. MLB suspended play a week, which pushed the World Series back a week, which meant that instead of Kerry’s mission trip being the week after the World Series, it was the during first week of the World Series. Despite having tickets for (potentially) games 1, 2, 6 and 7 in Phoenix, Kerry would be unable to attend any, unless it went to a Game Seven.

Kerry didn’t want to back out of a commitment, but John assured her, tongue in cheek, that since she was doing God’s work, if there was something she didn’t want to miss at the World Series, she’d be there. I suspect a number of Yankee fans received the same assurance about various trips, but it didn't work out for them, and they’re not the focus of this blog.

The Diamondbacks won the first two games easily in Phoenix, lost a close game in New York in the third game, then had back-to-back heartbreakers in New York where they led in the 9^th inning, but ended up losing. I think she’s glad she missed those games. If 1986 put her in labor, and 1999 gave her heart palpitations, I hate to think what would have happened during those come-from-ahead losses.

Meanwhile, Kerry was in Honduras. Baseball is extremely popular in Mexico and the Carribean, and some countries in Central and South America. Honduras is not one of those countries. In Honduras, fútbol is the big sport – a war with neighboring El Salvador is called the “Soccer War.” Plus, Kerry was in a remote area, with little to no communication with the outside world about any sports or other news. So when the group came out of the field to fly back to the U.S., she got her first news of the Series, that the Dbacks were down three games to two. On the final flight from Houston to Phoenix, they got regular updates. But since it was a 15-2 Arizona win, it wasn’t very exciting. However, Kerry got home to Tucson in time for us to drive to Phoenix the next day and watch Game 7. And what a Game 7 it was.

Game 7 was a tight pitching duel between Curt Schilling of the Dbacks and Roger Clemens of the Yankees. Alfonso Soriano of the Yankees, in the first of his dozen full seasons in the majors, gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead when he hit a home run in the 8^th inning, on a pitch that he later admitted that he hit because he was young enough that he didn’t yet understand that it was a pitcher’s pitch that a batter can’t hit.

In the 9^th, Rivera, perhaps the best closer in baseball history, came in to finish it off. Rivera ultimately had 42 “saves” for his career (close games in which he came in with a lead and finished the games), a record. But Mark Grace, in the twilight of a great career, opened the inning by hitting one of Soriano’s unhittable “cutters,” a moving fastball at which Rivera was the expert, into centerfield for a single.

Dbacks catcher Damian Miller tried to execute a sacrifice bunt, tapping the ball at a place where he’d be thrown out but the runner would get to second base, but it wasn’t a good bunt. Rivera fielded it, threw to second …, and his throw had more movement than his cutter. The Yankee infield was lucky to knock the throw down before the runners advanced further. Now there were two runners on base, and no one out. A few pitches later, Tony Womack had gotten a  hit to tie the game, the bases were loaded with one out, and the Dbacks’ best hitter, Luis Gonzalez, was coming to bat.

Gonzalez hit a weak popup that would have  been an easy out for (Hall of Fame) shortstop Derek Jeter had Jeter been playing at a normal depth (not recommended) or even at double-play depth (which I’d expected). Instead, the Yankee infield was playing all the way in, and the ball dropped a safely behind Jeter, driving in the winning run, and the World Series was over.

The first modern World Series was played in 1903. Since then there have been two teams that were behind in the bottom of the 9^th inning of the 7^th game but won. One went to extra innings. Only one team has won in the 9^th inning after having been behind, the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks.

We were there. It’s one of those moments for which the number of people who saw it live seems to be growing by the year, but we really were there. I think she'd agree it’s one of the highlights of our marriage,

Mid 2000s: ROKYDOC and a summer home in Phoenix

Kerry did the non-sports medicine for the Colorado Rockies during Spring Training for three or four years in the mid-2000s. Every spring, the Rockies would come to town, with players bringing their families from all over the U.S. and Latin America. All the children played together, and shared the germs from all sorts of places, so they all got the sniffles, or worse. And some of the wives would be pregnant, and need a doctor to coordinate their care. And umpires would come to town and need to see a doctor.

For a couple of years, the vanity plate on her car was “ROKYDOC.”  She’s got stories of meeting umpires, taking care of toddlers who are now Major Leaguers themselves, and even getting butt-dialed by the Rockies’ owner (he had a young family that she was taking care of, so he had her number in his cell phone). The lasting memento of that is a jersey signed by many members of the 2007 “Rocktober” Rockies, the only Colorado team to ever play in the World Series.

We were crushed when they moved their Spring Training to Phoenix.

But at about that time, we started buying season tickets, going to most of the weekend games, and selling off the other games when possible. Our seats are good enough that it’s usually possible.

However, we found that coming up to Phoenix, staying in a hotel for the weekend, then driving home, felt a little hectic. Plus, there were condos being built across the street from the stadium. Plus, we were now empty-nesters, and our children were on the verge of being financially self-sufficient. So we engaged a realtor, and looked at buying a condo in downtown Phoenix, within walking distance of the stadium. We looked at several condos, but the ones we liked were too expensive, and the ones we could afford weren’t that attractive to us.

Then the housing market collapsed, as the years of deregulation and bundled mortgages came back to bite the market. So we called our realtor again in 2008. One of the buildings we’d liked the most was the Orpheum Lofts, condos in a renovated 1931 building about seven blocks from the stadium. A large fraction of the condos had been foreclosed, and prices were about 30% lower than the year before. We bought one we liked.

The price went down by another 50% in the next year or so, but has steadily climbed in the 18 years since. We didn’t buy it as an investment, but it’s been a good investment.

We mostly use the condo in the summer, during the baseball season (although we occasionally use it when one of us has a meeting in the Phoenix area in the winter). That means that we have a summer home in Phoenix.

When we tell people that we have a summer home in Phoenix, almost everyone laughs at the absurdity. There is, however, one demographic that doesn’t laugh, because they don’t get the joke.  That’s people who have grown up in the Phoenix area, who are among the 1% of the nation’s population who see nothing wrong with being in Phoenix in the summer.

But we like it, and our condo now feels like a true second home.

Is Kerry a baseball fan, or just indulging me? You be the judge.   

Back to the game in Seattle: Seattle Mariners 5, Arizona Diamondbacks 1

Over the course of two trips, we'd gone to eight straight games that the home team lost. The bookends were the Cubs beating the Diamondbacks in Chicago, and the Mariners beating the Diamondbacks in Seattle. Kerry suggested that maybe we need to add a rule that we don't watch the Diamondbacks on the road. 

As in last night's game, the Mariners hit four home runs to take an early lead. Unlike last night's game, the Diamondbacks never came back. Mariner starting pitcher Bryan Woo was spectacular, striking out nine and allowing only two hits and no walks in seven innings. In fact, the game should have finished 5-0, not 5-1, but for some astoundingly sloppy play by the Mariners in the 9th inning. 

With two out, and a 5-0 score, the Diamondbacks' Geraldo Perdomo came back from a count of no balls and two strikes to get a walk, the only walk of the game for either team. Perdomo's run didn't matter, so the Mariners didn't try to keep him from taking second base on the first pitch. Since the Mariners didn't contest it, it was scored as "defensive indifference" rather than a stolen base. Up to now, this is all quite standard. 

A couple of pitches later, Mariners' catcher Mitch Garver missed a pitch he probably should have caught (at least that's what the official scorer ruled), and the ball rolled to the backstop. Garver trotted after it, and Perdomo ran to third. But the pitcher hadn't trotted in to cover home plate (his responsibility in this situation), and Garver hadn't gone after the ball in much of a hurry, so when Perdomo got to third, he saw that there wasn't anyone who could get to home plate before he could, so he kept running, and there wasn't even a throw.

More on T-Mobile Stadium  

The attendance was even larger than the previous night, 44,364, and the light rail worked well despite some closures for construction. It was a sunny day, so the roof was open, giving an opportunity to see the view. There are skyscrapers down the left field line, but all you can see beyond centerfield is parking lots and, in the distance, the traffic on Interstate-5, the major highway that is clogged from San Diego to San Francisco in the south and from Tacoma to the Canadian border in the north (we haven't been on the stretch from San Francisco to Tacoma). If you want the view to be representative of the city, that's probably appropriate.