How Long Have You Been a Baseball Fan?
January 11, 2008 by Geoff Young
Filed under Odds and Ends
Frivolous fun for a Friday:
{democracy:33}
I’ve been a fan since around 1977, although I didn’t get serious until the early-’80s. I won’t swear to it, but I think this is the first game I ever attended. I know that Gene Tenace hit two homers, and I’m pretty sure the Padres lost (that happened a lot back then).
How long have you been following baseball? Any stories about your first time at the ballpark?
The first season I was more than a casual observer was 1961. I was 7, living in NYC and Mantle and Maris was all anyone talked about. An uncle took me to my first game, just off the dirt up the left field line, in a box. (He worked at a big time law firm.) There’s little about that game I don’t remember, including feeling sorry for the Tigers, who I knew had to feel the futility of playing the Yankees. That was it. I was hooked. My grandmother, formerly a huge Dodgers fan, and soon to be a huge Mets fan, taught me how to read a boxscore, and later, how to read one. I’ve been in love ever since. I dropped the Yankees in the mid-seventies, Steinbrenner had just become too much of an embarrassment. When Bill James came along, it was a revelation I’ve been preaching for decades now. Baseball is as close as I come to having a religion, which has little to do with the personalities either on the field or off (read writers of the newspaper, magazine, and broadcast varieties,) and everything to do with the game.
Larry: What an awesome time to become a fan. I am totally with you on baseball as religion. It’s a strange thing that people either get or don’t. Thanks for the story; good stuff!
I remember watching my favorite player, Graig Nettles make several spectacular plays for the Yanks in the ‘81 WS. At that time, I was a casual fan.
When Nettles was traded to the Pads in ‘84. I developed three things:
1. An undying love for the Padres
2. A white-hot hate for George Steinbrenner and anything Yankees
3. A passion (obsession, fascination . .. whatever you want to call it) for baseball as a whole
March 30, 1984 was the day that changed my life.
And of course, the Pads made the World Series in their first season as my favorite team. After that, I was hooked for good!
Fandom started around 1977, if not earlier. My first game was actually two – a double-header in Candlestick Park. JR Richard against Montefusco in game one, and Joaquin Andujar tossed a complete game for the Astros in game 2. That was 4/15/79.
Ah, Nick; you and I were on the opposite sides of Nettles in ‘81. That was the peak of my Dodger fandom.
Harry: Thanks for dropping by. Those were some pretty good pitchers. I vaguely remember Richard before his stroke; what an arm.
For grins, here are the boxes from those games:
Game 1
Game 2
Some excellent position players on the field that day as well: Jose Cruz (Sr.), Bill Madlock, Jack Clark, Darrell Evans… Good stuff…
I remember going to watch the PCL Padres play at Westgate Park.
That would have probably been ‘65 or ‘66.