-- by Josh Suchon
On this Father’s Day, I wanted to tell the story of the
ultimate father-son baseball vacation, and the impact it had on my future
occupation.
By the end of summer in 1990, my obsession with getting
Sharpie Scribbles was fading. I was busy working 4-5 days a week as a busboy at
Chili’s. It was the summer before my last year of high school. It was harder to
get autographs because new restrictions and barricades were in place.
College was getting closer. I knew that I’d major in journalism
or broadcasting. My focus was shifting toward my own writing, rather than
getting the scribbles of my future subjects.
Whether my obsession was playing sports, taking photos at
sporting events, getting autographs and batting practice home runs, using every
penny to buy baseball cards and other memorabilia, or reading every piece of
sports journalism out there, my dad was there to support me.
I’m sure my Dad thought it was a little ridiculous, or a lot
ridiculous, that I spent so much time and money and energy collecting baseball cards and
other items to get autographed. He showed remarkable patience. He provided so
many rides to card shops and card shows, and on wild goose chases to find convenience
stores that sold the specific type of baseball card packages that I was
seeking.
My dad was a huge sports fan. It’s where I developed my love
for sports. He didn’t care about autographs or memorabilia. He just wanted to
watch a game, be entertained, and cheer on his teams.
As a result, I’m sure the trip we took in 1990 was just as
thrilling for him as it was for me. We'd talked about it, then decided to go for it. He told me to look at all the schedules in baseball
to find the ideal week. That was the easy part. Dad made it happen financially.
The trip: two games at Wrigley Field, two games at the old
Comiskey Park (in the final season), one game at Tiger Stadium, a day at the
baseball Hall of Fame, two nights at Yankee Stadium, and a day game at Fenway
Park, before a red-eye flight home.
A lot of the photos and memorabilia from that trip were either ruined due to a leak in the closet of my bedroom a few years ago, or because I stupidly threw them away.
What follows are my memories:
Wrigley Field, Sept.
1 and 2, 1990
We left extremely early on a Saturday morning, probably a 6
a.m. flight out San Francisco, and after landing at O’Hare and getting a rental
car, we arrived at Wrigley Field very close to game time. We might have even
missed first pitch.
We had standing-room only tickets for the first game, and
just assumed we’d easily find two empty seats. Nope. We truly stood the entire
game. I didn’t remember any of the details from the game, and even viewing the boxscore, an 8-1 Reds win, doesn’t bring back any memories. The same goes for the second game. What I remember most was thinking if the Reds reach the World Series, my A’s
would have their hands full.
The atmosphere around Wrigley was more memorable than the
games. I bought one of those “Top 10 Lies Told at Wrigley Field ” t-shirts.
One
of the lies: “Harry’s not drunk.”
Another: “Dunston just needs a few
years to develop.”
I’d always liked Shawon Dunston. A few years earlier in
spring training, Dunston came onto the field singing, “I’m going back to Cali,
Cali, Cali, I’m going back to Cali … ” and I yelled out “I don’t think so” from
the stands. Dunston giggled that giggle that I’d grow to love.
Dunston remains my all-time favorite athlete I ever covered
as a newspaper reporter. Whenever I see him now at the ballpark, I call him “my
favorite celebrity coach” because I always see him in uniform, but I’m still
not sure what his job is, other than being himself.
One of my favorite stories that I wrote at The Trib was an off-day feature about Dunston and his son. It was a
look back on the day in 1998 when Dunston hit a home run at Candlestick, and
his son leaped into his arms at home plate. The photo was on the front page of
every Bay Area newspaper.
That father-son photo seemed to resonate with everybody. It
was four years later, but many of my friends still had that photo on their
refrigerators. I thought it would make a good story, and Dunston lit-up when
discussing it.
Old Comiskey, with new Comiskey in back. |
Old Comiskey Park,
Sept. 3 and 4, 1990
The White Sox were the surprising top challenger for the A’s
that year. They were 6 ½ games back when I wore my A’s clothing to the old Comiskey
Park, which was in its final season.
What I remember most about those two games is that Bobby
Thigpen broke the single-season record for saves when we were there. A check of
the boxscores showed it happened the first night, and then Thigpen got another save the second night.
Since they were night games, we had more time to explore
Chicago. Dad and I ate lunch at some random places on the South Side. We noticed
how quickly the neighborhoods seemed to change, street to street, in their ethnicity
and style.
Getting autographs was a challenge. I didn’t know the tricks
or the ideal location in other cities. My heart wasn’t totally into it. This
trip was more about viewing ballparks, taking photos, enjoying the games, and
bonding with my dad.
One of the autographs I did get was Steve Lyons. Two decades
later, he’s the ex-athlete I’ve worked with professionally more than any other. We’ve done
pre-game shows before playoff series, post-game call-in shows, and called a few
Dodgers spring training games together on radio and TV.
In my four years co-hosting Dodger Talk and traveling with
the team, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Lyons say no to an autograph request. Lyons
signs at the ballparks, at the hotel, before getting on the team bus, and he
often uses the flights to catch up on his autograph requests in the mail.
The White Sox won both games my Dad and I saw. That wasn’t good for the A’s,
but they still held on and won the division easily. I was excited that Ivan Calderon hit a home run because we got to see the
famed exploding scoreboard.
It was the last year of the old Comiskey, and it
was very cool that Dad and I got to see it.
Tiger Stadium, Sept. 5,
1990
After four days in Chicago, Dad and I flew to Detroit and
caught a game at Tiger Stadium. I vividly recall Cecil Fielder hit a ball over the
roof. The boxscore shows it was his 44th that season,
en route to 51, back when 50 was a huge deal.
We got there when the gates opened and walked around
everywhere. We stood in the front row of the right-field upper deck (which
actually hung over the playing field), and marveled at the flag pole that was
in the playing field.
Another memory from Detroit is that was the first time we
saw hustling ushers. They’d ask for your ticket, walk you to the seat, spray
and wipe it down, then just stand there. I had no idea why they stood there.
Dad realized they were waiting for a tip and forked over a few dollars. That’s
common back east. It was a foreign concept to us Californians.
Another thing I remember from that week was buying
newspapers in every city, reading the different styles, and imagining what it
would be like to fly from city to city for a living and write about baseball.
The National, an all-sports daily newspaper that was the greatest thing ever, was in its peak. We bought it
wherever we saw it, and exchanged reading all the newspapers we could find, on the flights from city to city.
I was about to start my senior year in high school, and was
the editor-in-chief of my high school newspaper.
That week on the road was like a sports
journalism education, watching games each day, keeping score, discussing
strategy with dad, reading the stories filed for the next day’s papers, getting
on a plane to another city, and doing it all over again the next day.
Baseball Hall of
Fame, Sept. 6, 1990
It was mid-week, so it wasn’t too packed. It was a little
over a month since the induction ceremonies, so there was still quite a bit of pageantry
around town. We spent hours and hours walking around, reading the exhibits, and
studying those Hall of Fame plaques.
The first autograph that I ever obtained was from Johnny Bench. I don't remember it. I don't know what I got signed, or what I did with it. My memory is based on what other people told me, that my Dad was practically holding me over the railing trying to get Bench's attention. It worked. Bench signed. We don't have the autograph, but we have the photo of the autograph.
Bench became one of my first heroes, a combination of that story and because he was the host of The Baseball Bunch. One of my first gloves was a
Johnny Bench catcher’s glove. It was too big for me and I never played
catcher. But my dad used that sucker all the time, as he crouched into a squat
and caught my pitching sessions.
On our trip to Cooperstown, I studied the Bench plaque longer than any other, and took a photo of
it.
We ate dinner in Cooperstown, walked into the numerous
stores that sell autographs and memorabilia. Even the restaurants were filled with
photos and signatures.
Afterward, we drove to our hotel in Tarrytown. This is a
bizarre memory, but I recall we watched the U.S. Open tennis tournament from
the hotel, and did much-needed rounds of laundry.
Yankee Stadium, Sept.
7 and 8, 1990
This was a year the Yankees finished in last place, the A’s
won the division, and the A’s went 12-0 against them head-to-head. The major reason we picked the week we did was
to watch the A’s at Yankee Stadium.
The A’s didn’t disappoint. Jose Canseco (who I thought was always showing off for me) and Mark McGwire went deep in the Friday night game. Rickey Henderson hit two home runs, and newly acquired
Harold Baines went 4-for-4 in the Saturday night game. In a week full of unbelievable memories, this had to be the best part of the trip.
One of the afternoons, we did that tour where you
take a bus around Manhattan, and can get off as many times as you like. We went
to the Statue of Liberty, the top of the Empire State Building, and plenty of
other famed tourist stops.
We rode a taxi. It was my first time ever in a taxi. I’d
heard the reputation of crazy New York taxi drivers. Ours didn’t drive on
sidewalks, but lived up to the hype. Dad said afterward the most important
part of a taxi cab is the horn because they honked at everything. The ride was terrifying and exhilarating.
Before one of the games, I remember we went from store to
store, looking for souvenirs and soaking up the energy of the crowd. That was
the year Jimmy Connors made a surprising run to the semifinals of the U.S. Open in nearby
Queens. It seemed every store had tennis on a small TV, and everybody was
talking about Connors.
I wore my A’s “Just Do It” t-shirt to Yankee Stadium. It was
part of Nike’s campaign around Bo Jackson. Not sure the wisdom of wearing A’s
colors to the Bronx, but teen-age kids usually get a break from the rowdies. I
received a few comments here and there. Overall, no problems at all.
The stadium was only half full, but I remember the energy
and the craziness. When the Beach Boys song, “Surfin’ Safari” came on, some guy
stood up on a couple seats and pretended he was surfing. I remember we listened
to “Post Game Yankee Talk,” or whatever they called it, and all these crazy
guys in accents talked about how, “we gotta get Higuera next year.”
Teddy Higuera wasn’t a bad pitcher and a free agent in the
winter. But he was injury-prone, and I remember thinking that’s not the answer
to the Yankees problems. I also remember thinking, “who in their right mind
would ever want to host a call-in show immediately after a baseball game and
deal with callers like this?”
Fenway Park, Sept. 9,
1990
We woke up early on a Sunday for our last day. We made the
four-hour drive from New York to Boston, and drove straight to Fenway Park. I
remember that driving and parking in that city was ridiculous. I was so glad my
dad was driving.
My memory said Ken Griffey, Jr and his dad started that game,
and they both got back-to-back hits in the game. My memory failed me, after viewing the box score. Senior had a pinch-hit single, and Junior went 0-for-4 in the game.
The view from our seats at Fenway. |
Honestly, we weren’t that impressed with Fenway.
Maybe it was because we were tired after a long trip. Maybe
it was because the fan energy on the rooftop seats wasn’t that intense. Maybe it
was because there was some annoying obnoxious kid near us. Maybe it was because
the game was fairly dull. Maybe it was because we didn’t have much pre-game
time to soak it up, and hustled to the airport immediately after the game.
This was before Fenway Park became such a cultural event. I
returned a few years later, during a weekend when I was interning at ESPN, sat just above the
dugout and fell in love with the place. But my first trip was dull.
When we got to the airport, Dad got a message on his beeper (yep, his beeper) from the office. He needed to fly directly to some other place for work. I flew
home from Boston solo. For a couple moments, I looked around the Boston airport
nervously about this proposition. Then I realized it was no big deal. We’d been
doing this all week.
My friend James Elliott and his father picked me up at the San
Francisco airport around midnight. The next day was my first day as a senior in
high school. I knew what the future held. I knew this would be my line of work.
This trip sealed it.
For that, I have my Dad to thank.
Using RentalCars you can discover affordable car hire at over 49,000 locations worldwide.
ReplyDeleteTOP ONLINE CASINO in KOREA
ReplyDelete네임드
라이브스코어