In 1980 I was nine. In 1980 I was a New York Yankee's fan. For reasons still unknown to me, in 1980 my parents would not let me play Little League. I was the only kid in the neighborhood who wanted to -but was unable to be on a legitimate baseball team. Granted, I organized pick up teams in an effort to create a team that would somehow transcend organized ball-sport reality and win the Little League World Series. Unfortunately most of my draft pool were kids that were less interested in baseball and more motivated to just not be stuck inside, at home. Not until 1983 was I given the privilege of riding the bench on a real life baseball team.
Regardless of my credentials, I needed to see the Yankees play in order to be a true fan. In hindsight the best guess I have as to why I chose the Yankees was because I LOVED eating Reggie! bars between throat freezing drags of a Slurpee on the curb of the neighborhood 7-Eleven.
During one of my afterschool 7-Eleven stops I learned the Yankees would be playing the A's in nearby Oakland in a few weeks. I discussed with my parents who in turn explained I would have to buy my own ticket and another for an adult to take me. My mind wandered for days as to how to hustle up enough cash. Finally my mom and I decided that growing flowers and selling the starts door to door in the neighborhood would be my cash cow.
So a flower starter I became. Styrofoam egg cartons each filled with just enough soil and seed were watered daily and left in a window sill to grow. And grow they did. All of my futures sprouted and as they were able to stand up on their tiny little green stocks, I drug my wagon throughout the neighborhood selling the shit out of my flower starts. I learned to have a solid, quick sales speech. To look my customer in the eyes. To enunciate to my customer and pray for divine sympathy that the mom of the house would answer the door. I learned to not show the face of rejection from kids in my class who instead answered the door and flipped me crap calling me a desperate loser. Which I was.
I sold all my flowers in a week. I made $4.50 then called Ticket Master to order up two tickets along the first base line, close to the visiting team dugout. Words to this day cannot describe the tearing out of my soul I felt when I learned that $4.50 wouldn't pay for peanuts at a Major League Baseball game. I felt worse than when my brother pulled his Skylab stunt over on me. I was lost in an abyss.
Time passed and game day grew closer. Tickets appeared for the whole family to go to the game. This was huge as previous family outings involved camping and my dad napping or just my dad napping. My excitement was nearly the equal opposite to the disappointment I had felt from my pathetic fund-raising gardening experience.
On game day the whole family walked into the stadium, climbed up the concrete stairs in the cool shade to the concession level. I saw for the first time the ever so green and well mowed grass of the outfield as we walked through a tunnel to the box seat section. Then across an aisle to stairs baking from the late morning sun near left field. We climbed ever still to bleacher seats so high I could feel the breeze from the San Francisco bay. I had the same sensation as when one is on the highest point of a roller-coaster. I looked down to that emerald green grass and perfectly striped infield about the size of my 3rd grade hand and realized I would barely be able to make out any of the players. I accepted that I was in the cheap seats as my legs grew weak with each step closer to the heavens. Stuck at an altitude that if I fell I was certain to die I wondered if a car roof would cushion my fall.
Players came out onto the field. The National Anthem was played. The crack of a bat echoed. The Yankees come to find out, only wear pin-stripes in the Bronx. At away games they dressed in the same color as the primer on my neighbors unfinished GTO. My brother and sister argued, fought and made fun of everyone and everything. They both wore 3/4 sleeve tour 'jerseys' of Journey and REO Speedwagon. Lord only knows what my parents wore, but I know my dad took a nap. Beer was spilled on my mom by a drunk stranger, and I definitely smelled pot.
Billy Martin kicked dirt on an umpire, Reggie Jackson got on base, but Baseball -the experience I anticipated; was not the experience I had. Wise to the worldly knowledge of ticket prices, I estimated the cost of the whole family going to an A's game as I stared at my shoes through the late innings. For the record, the Athletics won in a year that history would show as a good year for the team. Likely it was a good game. But the cost, I figured in my 9-year old head, was far more than the expense for me to have played Little League that season. And definitely not worth the price I had to pay of sitting in the backseat sandwiched between teen-aged siblings all the way home as we were sun-baked and wind-burned from spending 9-innings together as a family in the cheap seats.
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