Living the Dream

This past week or so has brought a tiny ripple of excitement to my life: a number of people have commented on my Sudoku blog entry (and since it doesn't go without saying, commented positively). Naturally, I always have a number of people respond to what I write, but this is one of the rare occasions that the number was greater than zero.

The danger in receiving affirmation, of course, is that I might revert to the state I described in one of my earliest postings -- if I do something someone likes, I have to figure out exactly what made it enjoyable, and then try to duplicate that exactly. But of course, that way lies madness.

It did make me reflect on the event itself, as well as the other times I've engaged in a public contest of some sort. I have already alluded to my spelling bee debacle... well, perhaps debacle isn't the right word. How about "soul-scarring experience"? And while I was writing about my shipboard obsession with karaoke, I failed to mention that I was equally hooked on the trivia contests held frequently (especially after I won the first one I tried, which as you know is exactly like when crack dealers give out free samples).

As much fun as that was -- although it would have been better if the prize had been an upgrade to an outside stateroom, rather than a plastic trophy-- the contest I look back on most fondly was Broadcaster for a Day.

At the time we were living near Albany and the Yankees' AA minor league affiliate was located in the area as well. When they announced a Broadcaster for a Day contest, I nearly jumped out of my skin. If it would have helped, I probably would have slept on the sidewalk like one of those knuckleheads looking for a PS3.

As with almost any other mental illness, to understand my reaction you really need to understand my childhood. I fell in love with baseball at a really early age, but as a realist from nearly as early an age, I understood I was probably not going to get to live out that dream. If not, I probably got a subconscious hint from my own fantasies: like many kids I wanted to pretend to be a ballplayer, particularly a Met. But whom to identify with? A couple of the best players were black, and while I'm certainly no racist I am extremely literal-minded. This also let out all the left-handed guys and the pitchers. Bud Harrelson was close -- small & skinny and not a great hitter -- but a switch-hitter, and besides I knew they'd never let me play shortstop. So I ended up with ... Don Hahn. I have to tell you, if you can't dream any bigger than Don Hahn, you probably shouldn't bother dreaming at all.

However, I was primarily learning to love baseball through the voices of Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy, and Ralph Kiner, the Mets' radio/TV broadcast team. And although I eventually tumbled to the fact that baseball broadcast jobs are even scarcer than baseball playing jobs, it's always been my answer to the question, "If you could have any job in the world...?" . Of course, the flames were probably fanned by the fact that almost any native English-speaker (and a few members of the animal kingdom) would be more coherent than Ralph Kiner.
So naturally at the appointed hour I showed up at the local mall to do my thing. The test would be to sit in front of a TV playing a game tape and pretend to do play-by-play. I was a bit embarrassed to note that among the competitors was a handful of boys, probably 9 or 10 years old; I wasn't sure how I felt trying to beat kids. I felt a little better when one of the kids went up and his performance consisted of, "It's a ground ball. (long pause) And he's out." Clearly I would be saving him from embarrassing himself -- although it's true that Phil Rizzuto did pretty well for himself with a smiliar level of detail.

All I remember about my turn is that the tape was of a Yankees game (of course). It was the 9th inning and Tim Leary was pitching. Actually, he wasn't; he was mostly pacing around the mound sighing -- which was depriving me of "action" to describe while my precious minutes ticked away. I did know that his career at that point was kind of on the skids, so I said, "He's probably afraid to throw the ball -- lately they've been coming back at him faster than they went in."

In any case, it was enough to win the day, and on July 16, 1991, I stepped into the pressbox at Heritage Park (a big step up, literally as well as figuratively, from the summers I worked the concession stand there). When I got there, it turned out that "Broadcaster for a Day" really meant "Broadcaster for an Inning" ... but I whined and fussed and convinced the regular play-by-play guy that they really promised me the whole game.

For nine lovely innings I got to live the dream... and along the way, I began to think to myself, "Hey, maybe if I really impress this guy, he'll invite me back." Of course, the thing about most broadcasters is that they love the sound of their own voice, so he was always going to be a one-man booth if he had any say in it... yeah, that's it. That must be why. If he hadn't been so jealous of his airtime, I'd be in the booth right now.

Well, not right now, it's pretty cold out there. And not there, because the team moved about 10 years ago. But you get the idea.

It's been a long time and I frankly don't remember anything much about the game itself. I do have it on tape, but I haven't listened to it in years. I wonder if hearing the game again would have that same powerful memory effect that music does -- to bring you back instantly to the spot. What I do remember is that I tried valiantly to soak it all in, to absorb every minute of the experience and the thrill. I had limited success with that, as I think is almost always the case, but I do know it was one of the most exciting things that ever happened to me.

The Yanks' AA affiliate is in Trenton, NJ, now, and there are only a couple of minor league teams within 100 miles or so... but if anyone involved with those teams (or any others) are reading this thing -- hey, give me a call, I work cheap.