PICKED A GOOD
ONE…ballgame that is
Baseball is
a great game, and there is nothing like watching a game at the ballpark. Before my time, kids went to major league
games all the time. Bleacher seats were
affordable and a hot dog and a soda could be purchased with blue collar
wages. Sadly that is no longer true.
I only went
to Yankee Stadium once when I was a kid.
It was a double header against the Orioles and the Yankees won both
games. My hero, Mickey Mantle, hit a home
run in the second game, and I went home six inches off the ground.
I took my
two boys ( before Spencer) to the ballpark only one time. We went to a game on July 15, 1990. I think I got free tickets through work so I
only had to pay for parking, hot dogs and sodas. It was still probably more than I could
comfortably afford. So Mike, Matt,
myself and I believe their two friends, probably Kyle and Ray drove to the big
park. It was the Yankees against the
Kansas City Royals.
I don’t
remember who won the game, what I do remember and I am sure the boys all
remember, was watching two of the greatest athletes of our time play against
each other. Two of the only athletes to
be legitimate stars in two different great American sports played against each
other.
Bo Jackson,
the Heisman award winner as the best college football player of 1985, was in
centerfield for the Royals. Bo was
freakishly good at all sports. He was
one of the fastest runners in the world and his strength was legendary. He played professional football for the
Oakland Raiders and Baseball for the Royals.
Dion "Neon
Dion" Sanders played centerfield for the Yankees. Dion was to become an all pro defensive back
for several professional football teams, become a Hall-of-famer and he may well have been
the best defensive back in football of all time.
It was
exciting to see these great two-sport athletes, probably the last players who
will ever start for professional teams in two different sports, play in the
same game at the same position.
They put on
a show!
Bo Jackson
started the show. In his first at bat he
hit a tremendous homerun into the bleachers deep in left field. The second time at bat, Bo launched a huge
shot into the right field upper deck for his second homerun. In his third at bat, Bo hit a ball into
centerfield which it seemed would never come down; three at bats, three
homeruns. Even the hometown fans were
waiting for his fourth at bat, to see if the great Bo Jackson could hit four
homeruns in one game.
Bo never
came to bat a fourth time in that game.
In the eighth inning, Neon Dion Sanders lined a shot to center
field. Bo ran in and dove for the ball,
but it was hit too hard and too low. The
drive got by Bo and went to the wall.
Dion rounded the bases with speed that perhaps only Bo Jackson could
match and scored on a rare inside-the-park homerun.
Bo was hurt
trying to make the catch. He was out of
baseball for six weeks. When he
returned, in his first at bat since the injury, Bo hit a homerun. He hit four homeruns in four at bats with the
fourth coming six weeks after the third.
I wish I
could have taken my boys to more big league games, but at least I knew how to
pick them. One of the greatest athletes
the world has ever seen hit three consecutive homeruns, one to each field, and
a football Hall-of-famer hit a rare inside-the-park homerun in the same game.
Many years
before this game, my father went to Yankee Stadium for the only time in his life. It was a World Series game. The Yankees won. Mickey Mantle hit a homerun. Don Larson pitched the only no-hitter in World Series history.
Two years
ago, Spencer was invited by a friend for his first game at the new Yankee
Stadium. Derrick Jeter hit a homerun,
the three thousandth hit in his career.
We don’t go
to very many games, but we sure know how to pick them.
