More Than Just A Game.

This time of year as the baseball season draws to a close I always get very nostalgic about baseball. The playoffs and the World Series
always brings with it memories of past seasons or memorable games. I remember watching my first World Series back in 1988 when the Los Angels Dodgers beat the Oakland A's. I remember watching the 1989 World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's. What stands out during that World Series is I remember being excited to watch game 3. During the opening of the telecast on ABC as the announcers were talking about the game I remember the screen going black for a few seconds and one announcer saying they had just had an earthquake. From that moment on the ABC sports announcers stopped preparing to announce game 3 of the World Series and started reporting a tragedy, the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. During the 1990 World Series as the Cincinnati Reds were on their way to a 4 game sweep of the Oakland A's I remember listening to one of the games on the radio with my dad one night when he took me to work with him.

My memories aren't just about the World Series. My dad and I started going to Tulsa Drillers games back in 1988. I've been hooked ever since. We would go to at least 2 to 3 games each year for about 10 years. And if we would leave a game early we would always listen to the rest of the game on the radio during the ride home. Together with my mom we have seen many all stars come through Tulsa. Stars like Kevin Brown, Kenny Rogers, Juan Gonzalez, Sammy Sosa, Dean Palmer, Ivan Rodriguez, Rusty Greer and many others. I will never forget one Drillers game back in 1989 when a young Juan Gonzalez was standing out on the concourse of Drillers stadium before the game. My dad had just bought me a 1989 Drillers team set. I quickly fished through the cards to find his and walked nervously up Gonzalez and asked for his autograph which he kindly gave me. I still have that card to this day and each time I see it I remember that experience. Back then the Tulsa Drillers were the double A affiliate of the Texas Rangers which is what began my die hard love for the Rangers. My dad and I could go see a Drillers game one year and see a player like Ivan Rodriguez play and then the next year see him on TV playing with the Rangers.

I also remember my dad and I collecting baseball cards. As a twelve year old boy who liked baseball I had some cards. But in 1990 I remember my dad and I going every other Saturday to the mall in Bartlesville and going to Weebee's Baseball Cards. One trip that year changed the way he and I collected cards forever. They were doing a contest giveaway of a unopened box of 1990 Upper Deck baseball cards. Which we entered. If you have ever gone into a store such as Walmart or whatever and seen their box of cards where the packs are sold individual that whole box unopened is what was up for grabs.  One week later we got the call that we had won. We sat for a couple of hours opening 36 packs of cards. From then on my dad would buy other packs of the 1990 Upper Deck cards on his way home from work. We eventually had enough Upper Deck cards to put together at least 4 sets. Here is the crazy part. A complete set of 1990 Upper Deck baseball cards has 800 cards numbered from 1 to 800. Four sets of an 800 card set is a lot of baseball cards. We did the same with the other baseball card brands such as Topps, Donruss, Score and Fleer. And each set contained at least 700 cards and we had at least 3 sets of each. We did this for about 3 years. Again that is a lot of baseball cards.

As I mentioned before my dad, my mom and I made lots of memories at Drillers Stadium in Tulsa. I am proud to say that my wife Brandy and I also made some good memories there as well. We seen Troy Tulowitzki play for the Drillers one year before going to the World Series with the Colorado Rockies. My wife and I also had nicknames for some of the players that we liked. For example there was Joe Koshansky who was given the name "Taco Joe" because he hit a home run and won everyone in the stadium a free taco. Then there was Joe Gaetti who was the son of former major league star Gary Gaetti. Joe was given the name "Taco Joe #2" because he had done the same thing as Koshansky. Then there was Juan Morillo who we could never remember his last name so we called him "Don Juan". We seen other future Colorado Rockies stars such as Ubaldo Jimenez and Ian Stewart. I will also never forget what we call the "Cold Game" It was opening night at Drillers stadium on one April evening. The Drillers were set to play a double header because the night before had to be canceled due to cold weather. We came to the game unprepared (my fault) for the cold that was to come later that night. As the sun started going down so did the temp. The temperature started to dip into the 30's and a very cold north wind was blowing in our faces. We ended up leaving before the end of game one.

One memory that also stands out being a die hard Texas Rangers fan and a huge Nolan Ryan fan was the time I realized I was just given a baseball with Nolan Ryan's autograph on it. I had a family member who went to a Houston Astros game and got Nolan Ryan to sign a baseball when he still pitched for them. Knowing that I was a big Nolan Ryan fan they sent me the baseball. I was called into the dinning room by my parents who handed me the ball and said it was signed but didn't say by who. I stood there holding the ball in my hands thinking I had seen this signature before. Like a bolt of lightening I ran to my room and compared the signature on the ball with a fake one that was on a poster of Nolan Ryan that was cut out of a newspaper. I then realized I was holding a Nolan Ryan autographed baseball in my hands! With such excitement I ran back to the dinning room to proclaim who the autograph was from, of course my parents all ready knew.

Then there was what I call my "Sandlot" moment. You have to see the movie to understand. At a Drillers game in either 1989 or 1990 my dad bought me a baseball that was signed by the entire 1989 Drillers baseball team including Juan Gonzalez and Sammy Sosa for about 8 bucks. Knowing that those two players were going to be big stars one day we put the ball in a case and put it on a self. At the time I had started going down to a local school's field and playing baseball often time just by myself. One day I ran out of baseballs and just before I left the house to go down to the field I grabbed the 89 Drillers team signed baseball thinking I would be easy with it as to not to ruin it. Well eventually the signatures all were smeared and I ended up losing the baseball in the woods that was near the field. Juan Gonzalez and Sammy Sosa went on to be huge stars in baseball and there was no telling how much that ball would have been worth.

People always ask me why I love baseball so much. I guess my answer would be that baseball is more than just a game. Baseball is a time capsule. I was not born yet when the likes of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays graced the diamond but their memories and their legacy still lives on. Baseball takes all the memories of the players from yesterday and today and it takes all the memories of every game either watched on TV, heard on the radio or attended in person and seals them up for you to look upon and remember and to share them with future generations. Baseball is about kids and their fathers. Watch the movie Field Of Dreams to see what I mean. My dad and I may have had a rocky relationship later in life but I will never forget all those games we went to or all the cards we collected. I will never forget each and every time that we played catch. That is why I love baseball. It is more than just a game.