Memory milestone
I have to tell a baseball story. It’s World Series time and because my team wasn’t even a “contenda” this year, I’ve been missing baseball.
I’m not a fanatic and it probably says something sad about my life, but many times watching the Blue Jays is the highlight of my week, followed in second place by looking forward to watching the Blue Jays.
Maybe that’s why on October 23 Facebook started asking me, “Where were you 25 years ago today?” When Joe Carter hit the home run?
Note, not A home run but THE home run.
The bottom half of the ninth three-run homer that gave the Blue Jays the World Series. Blue Jays fans all over the world know exactly where they were.
I was right there. In the Skydome. And missed the big moment. This is how the best baseball moment that I never had happened:
My father never missed a Blue Jays game on TV. Twenty-five years ago, my two sisters and I decided it was long past time for him to see a real live Blue Jays game.
Luckily, Big Sister moonlighted at the Windows restaurant at the Skydome and was able to score two great tickets on the third base line for Dad, Little Sister and me.
You do the math. Dad got one seat. Little Sis and I took turns using the other.
The tickets were for Game 6. If the Jays had won Game 5 there would have been no Game 6, so we were probably the only Jays fans praying that the Phillies would win it.
I wasn’t really much of a fan in those days so the bottom of the ninth was my turn to stand up in the back.
I was crammed next to two good-looking guys in the crowd against the back of the last row. One of them moved right in front of me just as the crack of that famous hit was heard and the place erupted.
So, I heard it all, jumped up and down and screamed with everyone else, but didn’t actually see one second of that famous home run.
The guy who was with the one who blocked my view suggested that view-blocker give me an autograph by way of an apology.
It was only a few years ago when I rediscovered baseball that I had a clue who Buck Martinez was.
What he was doing standing there that day I have no idea and I have no idea what happened to the pennant he signed for me.
Besides, there was a better autograph story that day. Picture us in the crowded restaurant after the game.
Hostess Big Sister shows us to our prime table.
Her son, a cook, looking every bit a chef in his whites complete with tall white hat comes out to greet his grandfather.
Her daughter, a server, gives us the royal treatment (nepotism was alive and well) and the other staff make it a point to drop by the table to meet Dad.
Then along comes a polite young man with his program in hand and says “sir may I have your autograph?” and my father takes the program as if he had been signing autographs all his life, says “Who do I make it out to my son?” and signs his name with a flourish.
To this day there is probably a man somewhere out west thinking Charlie Wells must have been a team owner or certainly a VIP of some sort. Why else would he have caused such a stir and gotten such treatment!
Maybe I’ve told you that story before. I tell it every now and then just because it tickles me.
Now I get to say I can’t believe it was 25 years ago.
What I wouldn’t give to go to a Jays game with my father again!