it was 30 years ago today

I told this story five years ago ... it's one of the advantages/disadvantages of having a blog as long as I have, I can cannabalize my old stuff. Here's an edited version of that earlier post:

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the first time I took my kid to the baseball game. Neal was 3 years old at the time ... Sara wasn't even 2 yet, she didn't come with ... and the Giants, after four losing seasons in a row, were having a good 1978 (they had led the league for much of the season, as I recall, and on September 2, 1978 were still only 2 games out of first place). Jack Clark was 22 years old and earning his "Jack the Ripper" sobriquet ... Mike Ivie hit two pinch-hit grand slams that season ... newly-acquired Vida Blue won 18 games ... it was a fun team. Their opponents on that day were the Philadelphia Phillies, led by the greatest third baseman of all time, Mike Schmidt. Not a bad way to introduce your kid to baseball, having Mike Schmidt as part of the show. Making his major-league debut that afternoon for the Phils was Lonnie Smith, who went on to play in the majors for 17 seasons ... Smith also appeared in five different World Series.

It wasn't the Hall-of-Famer who made the biggest impact, though. You'll often hear baseball announcers claim that every time you go to the ballpark, you see something new, and they're exaggerating for the most part, but on September 2, 1978, something actually did happen for the very first time; in fact, it was also the very last time it ever happened, which is to say, the first game Neal attended, he saw something happen for the one and only time.

John Tamargo was a switch-hitting catcher, 6th-round draft pick of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1973, who had only managed to get a handful of at-bats with the Cards before the Giants acquired him in a trade for Rob Dressler in late July of '78. Tamargo bounced around a couple more seasons, posting a .242 average over 244 major-league at-bats. He had a son born just 13 days before Neal was born ... I wonder if the kid was at that game along with Neal? ... far as I can tell, Tamargo Jr. is now a hitting coach for the Corpus Christi Hooks. Tamargo Senior spent many years coaching the majors and managing in the minors, including one season in charge of the Durham Bulls of movie fame.

Anyway, September 2, 1978 saw a great pitchers' duel between Vida Blue and the Phils' Larry Christenson. As John Tamargo strode to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Giants were down to their last out, trailing 1-0, with the potential tying run, Larry Herndon, at first base. Tamargo, the Giants' last hope, was hitless for the afternoon, and in fact was 5 for his last 34. But this time, John rose to the occasion, hitting a triple to right field that scored the tying run and sent the game into extra innings (where, sadly, the Giants eventually lost).

Not the greatest story, I know, but there's a reason for telling it, because that was the only triple John Tamargo hit in his entire major-league career. And it was during Neal's first-ever baseball game.

When I was a kid, my dad would take me to a couple of games a year. I have faint memories of at least one game at Seals Stadium, but Candlestick Park was the venue for most of my childhood memories. I don't remember specific games, and in fact, most of the baseball memories of my youth come from television (Mrs. Jimmy Davenport doing commercials for Gulden's mustard, Giants-Dodgers games from L.A.). I do know that each live game seemed like a big deal, because it didn't happen very often. And that's something I suspect I didn't pass along to my own kids, because Neal and then Sara went to more games in one season than I went to in my entire childhood. Going to the game was something we did together, and I think especially for Sara, it's the going together that matters ... Sara's not really a baseball fan, but she still goes to games with me a few times a year because it's something we've always done together. That thrill of seeing the expansive grass, the proverbial smell of the hotdogs and Crackerjacks, that's more a thrill when you only get it twice a year, than it is when it's part of your semi-daily life.

I don't suppose I'll ever know if taking my kids to lots of baseball games was a better idea than parceling out the trips more frugally. But times do change ... it's harder and harder each season to convince people to join me at the game, and thus it's more and more expensive per game for me to dole out the money for season tickets. This might be my last year for Giants season tickets.