The youngest I remember an interest in baseball, I was 7. I was never that into it I guess. I liked collecting the baseball cards and was intrigued to understand the stats even though I never really did. I was more curious about the sport than passionate, but I still loved to go to a live game.
Around the mid 90’s my Dad would take me to see the Shreveport Captains play at Fair Grounds Field. It was a pretty awesome memory. I’d start asking myself questions and that turned to asking my dad questions.
Can we sit at the top of the bleachers?
Can we get peanuts and crackers jacks?
When will these guys play the Yankees?
He’d explain to me they’d never play the Yankees as they were a ‘farm’ team for a professional baseball team way out somewhere in CALIFORNIA.
His vague detail and subtle annoyed emphasis gave it a sort of hinted mystery. What was this far off California land? Why have we never accidentally ended up there? It must be so far no one dare ever need to go to this hidden lost place. For the most part these feelings and thoughts where kind of buried and ignored. I never gave them much more of a thought or care. It would stem to place California as a very remote and far off land that “little is known off”; at least with regard to the culture in my mid 90’s childhood family of Northern Louisiana.
Fast forward about 20 years. I’ve been living in San Francisco for about 6 months. Enjoying a beer at one of my new favorite bars in my new neighborhood. That bar was ‘Mad Dog in the Fog’ in Lower Height. I went to the curb to smoke a joint where a random old man joined me at some point. This was one of the several times I’d learn the responsibility of wearing a Giants hat in SF. You are guaranteed a conversation about baseball. If you don’t know shit about whats going on in tonight’s game, others will know. You’ll feel the weight of the unanticipated responsibility you didn’t realize you consented too. Alas, I was in another conversation about baseball.
Shortly after failing to answer this mans inquiry about who’s pitching tonight. It quickly changed to ‘Where are you from’. After responding with ‘Shreveport’ the man lit up and said, ‘Ah… The Shreveport Captains”. i was shocked. So many memories came flooding back. I don’t think I’ve even talked about the Captains once since the 15 or so years I’ve been out of North Louisiana. Yet here I was in the middle of San Francisco with the topic front of the conversation with some random person.
I ask, “How the hell do you know the Captains?”
The man would reply, “Oh they where a farm league for the Giants back in the 90’s.”
I’m right back in that moment with my Dad. Telling me about that far off land of California. In a moment I’m still that kid. I’m still so far away from this unknown place. Then in an instant the reality of life comes flooding back. I see what it really is. I’m now in that ‘some town out in California’.
Not only have I’ve found something unique about my past that is relatable to this new place, but also overwhelmed with a sense of having arrived. An experience where my growth was unavoidable.
Baseball is a magical thing. How else can a game that is mostly pretty boring still drive the imagination of our young. Creating bonding moments shared between and across generations. Providing random strangers from random backgrounds an instant point of common ground.
