Baseball

On the night that Barry Bonds tied Hank Aaron's record with his 755th home run, I was at a ballpark watching a baseball game. Not the big league park in San Diego where Bonds hit his historic homer, but at my home park in Arcata, watching the Humboldt Crabs play the Solano Mudcats in a twi-night doubleheader.

The Crabs and the teams they play are mostly college players, and some of them do end up in the Bigs. It was a great night at the ballpark. The first game was played in daylight, a bit of sunshine, a big of evening high fog. It was Hawaiian night, so plastic leis were given out at the gate, and some fans showed up in Hawaiian shirts. There were about 800 fans all told, which filled the bleachers, including the new ones along right field, the first time any have been added for the outfield. Lots of families, lots of kids. There was a brass band, playing all the old favorites--breaking into "Wild Thing" after a wild pitch, the drummer doing the sound of a ball hitting off a car parked outside when a foul ball leapt the fence, and it gets you every time.

The second game was after dark, with the green field and the infield dirt, the players in motion, all etched in a way that's unique to a baseball game under the lights. Most of the young children were gone, replaced by teenagers parading back and forth. There was a constant line for hamburgers made on the spot, and at the concession stand a teenage boy asked me politely if he could step in front of me to return some money he believed had been given to him by mistake, but the concessionaire assured him that it was the correct change. I had a hot dog and some nauchos, probably for the first time since the last time I came here for a game, which was alas several years ago. This was the last night game of the season for the Crabs, and as such clearly a community event. What impressed me was not only that the complete range of community people were there--every age, color, gender and gender preference, and young and old with various disabilities--but that there was tolerance and appreciation for eccentricities and wit.

As for the games, they were more competitive than the final scores indicate (the Crabs won both by a healthy margin, as they usually did this year) and the level of play was pretty good, with some excellent baseball moments--a couple of home runs (one for each team), timely hitting, exciting pitching, stellar fielding plays, including a catch with the center fielder's back against the fence in the dead center most distant point in the park, 368 ft. if memory serves. And this was wooden bats baseball.

I had a good time, and so I didn't especially envy the fans in San Diego. I've seen Barry Bonds hit homers, and I recall seeing Hank Aaron on TV when he broke Babe Ruth's total home run record. These days it's less the steroid allegations than all the money involved that puts me off--Roger Clemens is being paid just about a million dollars a game this season--and it's only going to get worse. The resulting hype is smothering.

I honor Bonds' achievement (ESPN had a great feature recounting the more than 400 pitchers who served up his home run pitches, including 6 brothers) and I'm impressed by the feats of today's players. But these days I'm happy in a ballpark that seats 800, watching line drives from right behind home plate, or watching the pitches while standing almost as close, listening to the play-by-play over a nearby speaker. There's a lot of baseball at a Crabs game--great catches, collisions, great strategy, strategy that backfires, close plays, bad calls, arguments, little guys hitting a ton, big guys bunting, a right fielder who nails a runner at third, a catcher who can't catch anybody stealing (9 Crabs mercilessly stole on him), etc. And the National Anthem sung with everybody silent and motionless, and half the park at a time being led by the band in singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game.