Illegal Foreign Object

My dad took me to my first Major League Baseball game on June 26, 1987, a 1-0 Texas Rangers win over Frank Viola and the Minnesota Twins. That night, Bobby Witt and Dale Mohorcic combined to throw a one-hitter. The lone score was a first-inning RBI double by mighty mite shortstop Scott Fletcher that plated “The Governor”, second baseman Jerry Browne. The Twins went on to win the World Series that year — the little Rangers just went home. It would be nine more seasons before Texas made the playoffs for the first time, but on that night, my Rangers were the best team in baseball (to me). 

By then, I had been collecting trading cards for about a year, and I brought my card binder with high hopes of getting a few autographs. Unfortunately, like most things with Dad during those years, the schedule was fluid. Dad kept a lot of irons in the fire, and in those days, he wasn’t the best at prioritizing family. Still, we made it into Arlington Stadium about 15 minutes before the first pitch. I didn’t understand things like time then, only that I wanted to try to get some autographs. Dad didn’t like our chances but walked me over from the 3rd base side of the stands to beside the Rangers dugout on the first base side. There, he spotted Rangers manager Bobby Valentine.

“Hey, Bobby, it’s my kid’s first game. Any chance he can get you to sign his baseball card?”

Bobby popped out of the dugout, told Dad they weren’t supposed to be signing autographs so close to the game time, and then asked me for the card I wanted signed. “So, this is your first game,” he asked me while signing my card. “Yes, sir,” I replied, the first of many times being respectful would earn me a much-desired signature. “Stay here a second,” Bobby said while ducking into the dugout. He returned with a baseball, signed it (on the sweet spot, of course), and then asked me to hang on for one more minute. One by one, Scott Fletcher, Steve Buechele, Rubén Sierra, Oddibe McDowell, Darrell Porter, Curtis Wilkerson, Pete O’Brien (my favorite player at the time), and Geno Petralli (who became a good family friend) stepped out of the dugout, greeted me, signed the ball and a card, and walked back down into the dugout. Darrell Porter, five years removed from being named the MVP of the NLCS and World Series and seven years removed from checking himself into rehab for cocaine and alcohol abuse, took an extra moment to ask me if I read my Bible. Back then, I did, and he told me to be sure to look up the scripture he’d added with his autograph. Much of my Bible study has gone the way of the dodo bird, but I still remember this one:

Romans 10:9: That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

After the last player, Bobby waved and told us to enjoy the game. We thanked him profusely. I didn’t know it then, but that was the first of many interfacings with the mercurial Rangers manager. Those were tough times for the franchise, but Bobby Valentine repeatedly proved to be a stand-up guy during my years of roaming Arlington Stadium.

That night at the ballpark made a baseball fan for life, and the Texas Rangers have always been “my team.” Between 1987 and 1992, Dad and I saw around 250 games together (and after that first one, he never paid for another one).

Dad had a way about him — he existed on the favor system. If you did him a favor, he expected favors for life (and responded in kind). In 1990, when Julio Franco wanted a pair of ostrich cowboy boots, Dad got him a free pair from Cavender’s Boot City. If you’re wondering how, Dad knew the owner, James Cavender, a longtime childhood friend, and worked out a trade for some signed memorabilia for James’ kids in exchange for the boots. Later that summer, Dad and I brought the players three big baskets of East Texas peaches. Julio took note of the kindness — when he returned from the All-Star Game that season, he gave me two autographed baseballs (one from each All-Star team). There were thirteen future Hall of Famers on those teams (and four others deserving inclusion were it not for baseball having its head up its ass).

The following season, Julio gave me a signed bat (just because). Dad and I traded it to a guy at the concession stands behind home plate (where we always sat despite never having a ticket). That year, we ate all the free nachos and drank all the free Coca-Cola we could stomach.

During those years, the Rangers approached relevancy. After the 1988 season, General Manager Tom Grieve signed Nolan Ryan, traded for Julio Franco and Rafael Palmeiro, and the team looked, well, like an actual big league team. We all but lived at the ballpark between 1989 and 1992. We had a trading card and comic book shop then, and autographs went a long way to paying the bills. During the summer months, Dad would drop me off at the ballpark five hours before game time. I hoofed it the whole time, chasing down ballplayers in the parking lot, the field, and the hidden side entrance between the stadium and the visiting team’s hotel. I met Sparky Anderson on that hidden pathway — when he found out I was left-handed, he asked me if I could get the ball over the plate and said he could probably use my arm in his bullpen. Sparky was probably only half-kidding — his Detroit Tigers lost 103 games that season.

The night games were always a happy time — Dad and I sitting on the back row along the aisle behind the plate and Harlan and Joy Dotson sitting across the aisle on the right-hand side. If anyone had the audacity to block Harlan’s view of the field, he promptly leveled them with a “DOWN IN FRONT!” to get them out of his sightline. When the cotton candy guy walked down the aisle, Harlan made sure everyone within earshot knew that “THE BLUE COTTON CANDY IS MOLDY — STICK WITH THE PINK!” I swear, Dad got Harlan out of at least two dozen brawls.

When it came time to fill out All-Star Game ballots, I stacked up eight at a time, punched out all the Rangers, and then stacked up eight more. My goal was to punch 800 ballots per game. We watched a lot of good, bad, and ugly baseball in those days (and loved every minute of it). Sometimes, Joe Campisi and some of his family sat two rows in front of us. I loved it when he brought everyone food from his restaurant, the historic Dallas Italian eatery Campisi’s.

Often, one row up from us and a few seats to the left would be a couple of scouts from different major league teams. One of the guys, a former player and Minnesota Twins scout Jerry Terrell, took a liking to me. He called me “Stats” because of my love for baseball history and statistics. At the end of homestands, he gave me his scouting reports. Then, he told a few other scouts about me, and they gave me their reports. Before I knew it, I received regular reports from the Twins, Royals, Orioles, and Athletics. I treated these documents like gold and gave the scouts my word that I’d show them to no one. And I didn’t (not even Dad). Whenever scouts came to town, I talked shop with them. I received more than one double-take during those years.

George W. Bush owned a percentage of the team back then as well. One year on my birthday, we sent a piece of cake down to his seats by the home dugout. Eight days later, he was celebrating his birthday at the ballpark and sent cake up to us. We’d met him earlier in the year at Spring Training, and it was clear how much he loved the game. Feel however you want to feel about his presidency or politics — the man I knew back then was a good guy who enjoyed talking baseball (even with a punk kid like me).

Those were glorious baseball times, but times change. The Rangers’ move into the massive, fancier, but less-inviting (in my opinion) stadium in 1994 brought in more corporate dollars at the expense of true-blue baseball fans. The team priced folks like Harlan and Joy out of the market. That said, I’m sure the extra money helped build those first three playoff teams in ’96, ’98, and ’99, so you have to take the good with the bad.

When Dad and I moved to Costa Rica in late ’92/early ’93, it became difficult to keep up with the Rangers. The bootleg cable (Cable Color) available to us was just that — stolen cable. Cable Color basically jacked satellite feeds from all over the U.S. The result was a killer selection of channels from California, New York, and Colorado. That also meant the only Rangers games we saw were when the team played the Yankees, Angels, or on a national broadcast.

After high school, life got busy. Over the last twenty-five years, I have had times of disinterest and times of extreme fandom. Such is life — sometimes, “have to dos” get in the way of “want to dos,” but about ten years ago, I did something I’d always needed and wanted to do: I took Dad to a ballgame. It was a Frisco Roughriders game, the Double-A minor league affiliate of the Rangers. The following year, I took him to a Texas Rangers game, the first he’d been to in eighteen years. A few years later, I got him to Round Rock to see our old buddy Geno Petralli and the Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate, the Express. Those were the last live games he ever saw.

In early 2018, Dad had triple bypass surgery. It didn’t go well. He had a stroke during the operation and never walked again. Things got really tough — I struggled to care for him, and I’ll get into all that another time, but regardless of the issues that accumulated between us over the last five years, we always had Texas Rangers baseball. No matter where I was in the world, I always knew I could call Dad and talk “The Great Game.” Hell, he was the one who taught me that baseball is a “talkin’ sport” — its pace is meant to fuel conversation.

Last night, our beloved Rangers won the first championship in franchise history. After Texas recorded the final out, and relief pitcher Josh Sborz slammed his glove to the ground, triumphantly, I smiled so hard for so long that I actually gave myself a cluster migraine on the left side of my head. I am also happy to admit that I teared up. Thirty-six years, four months, and four days since Dad took me to my first live game, the little Rangers sit atop the baseball world.

I wish Dad could have seen it.

My dad died five days ago, the day after Adolis García’s Game 1 bottom-of-the-9th heroics. He was so far gone he didn’t even get to watch the game. I am okay with his passing — Dad was in a lot of pain. I just wish like hell he could’ve hung on for another week so that we could’ve shared one last baseball memory — the one we always wanted to share.

Or maybe he did see the games. Perhaps he was out there last night. Maybe he tapped Alek Thomas’ glove just enough to send that Jonah Heim base hit all the way to the wall, all but guaranteeing the World Series-clenching win. I don’t believe that, of course. It’s a nice thought though, isn’t it?

So, with a tear in my eye, I celebrate our beloved Texas Rangers. I celebrate Harlan and Joy, George W., and the Campisi family. I celebrate the drum-wielding Zonk, John Hunter, the mustachioed vendor who yelled “HAAAHHHTDAAAWWWGS” louder and longer than anyone in history, and Steve Buechele for giving me my first autographed bat on my ninth birthday. I celebrate longtime Arlington Stadium security officer “Big” Oliver Strickland, who once told my dad, after he got into a fight with a hostile drunk, “Mickey, please don’t hit him again because if you do, I’m gonna have to arrest you too and I know your fat ass is gonna go limp and make me drag you!” I celebrate all-stars like Nolan Ryan, Juan Gonzalez, Toby Harrah, Buddy Bell, and Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, and I also celebrate Fred Manrique, Brad Arnsberg, Geno Petralli, and Jack Daugherty. I celebrate Mark Holtz, Eric Nadel, John Blake, and Tom Grieve. Lastly, I celebrate the years of big wins, crushing defeats, historic moments, and all those scorching days in the Sun and nights under the stadium lights with my dad.

See you down the road, Pop. Save me a spot in the dugout between you and Mantle.