Day’s Word
IS the Super Bowl over yet? If this year is like the last 12, it was over as soon as the Packers woke up, scolded the Panthers and told them, "Run along now, little fellas." Super Bowl?
It’s baseball season alreadyThankfully, that means one thing - it's baseball season.
Already, we've had an interesting week. The Rainbows knocked off Miami in a fantastic game last Thursday night. Curt Flood passed away. Mike Piazza got a $15 million contract from the Dodgers and my son, Zack, showed me that he has the tools not so much to be a ball player but to be happy with the simple pleasures of the game.
Let's start at the top. For the past seven years, I've been telling my dad what a great place Rainbow Stadium is to watch a game. Trouble is, he lives in North Dakota, so getting to the games here isn't exactly a quick trip over the Pali. But he was in Hawaii last week and I finally got to take him to the park.
He loved it. We haven't gone to a baseball game together since I moved from Arizona in 1989. He refuses to go to the Metrodome, the nearest big-league park to my boyhood home, because the place is the pits, easily the worst park in the majors. Dad is 79 and the Humptydump just isn't suited to him. The seats are uncomfortable, there's lots of waiting in line, the beer is usually warm and expensive and there's a roof over the top of it. What kind of ballpark is that?
Rainbow is another matter, though. Clean, lots of leg room, comfortable seats and cheap beer. To top it off, Andrew McNally throws a gem of a game and UH wins in 10 innings. My dad is kind of like LesMurakami when it comes to pitching: He has no patience for guys who don't throw strikes. So, to McNally, good on you, mate.
ON to Mike Piazza. He signed a big contract this week and is one guy who deserves it. For my money, now that Kirby Puckett is retired, he's the best player in the game. Hits for average, hits for power, drives in runs, catches a decent game and acts like an adult. He's one player from the big media cities who deserves all his hype. That reminds me, Don Mattingly "retired" yesterday. Check me if I'm wrong, but didn't baseball retire Don Mattingly last year?
But anyway, since we're talking about big contracts, on to Curt Flood. I met the man once and my buddies in Arizona and I used to laugh that he still owed us a round of drinks. We were hanging out at a baseball bar near where the Cubs play in Mesa during spring training some years back and Flood was there. One of my friends was kind of embarrassing Flood, I think, by insisting that all players today owe him some money for the courageous stand he took against the reserve clause. Flood lost his career as a result, but his action helped open the way for players to become free agents and, thus, reap huge rewards for hitting .265.
FLOOD was gracious in his denial that players owed him anything. Anyway, I buy a round of drinks and ask Flood what he'd like. He orders an iced tea and, we swear, offers to get the next round. Naturally, he finds more respectable company to hang with and never does buy us the round he doesn't owe us. But it made for good laughs every time we'd hear him mentioned on Sportscenter. "He owes us a round," we'd bellow. Baseball players owe Flood much more.
And then, there is Zack, my 21-month-old son. Obviously, he doesn't hit for average or for power yet, but the kid's a natural. The other day my dad and I were watching the 'Bows play Miami. Handwringers fret that young people are turning off to baseball, but I say it ain't so.
Zack hasn't actually seen a baseball game since he started to kind of talk a couple months ago, but he hops up on the sofa next to me. Three generations of Edwards boys watching the game on TV. Zack isn't there more than 10 seconds before he points to the tube and, in that little boy voice that gets his daddy right in the heart, says, "Bate-baw."
Exactly.