It almost happens every Spring!

You’ve hear of the old saying: “Each Spring a young mans fancy turns to thoughts of love”, or something like that? Well maybe they should also add baseball to that fancy. Anyway, last weekend I made my semi-annual journey to Anaheim Stadium and witnessed the Angels playing the Detroit Tigers. It was a great game, with the Angles’ coming from behind in the 8th and winning 6 to 5.

I like to watch the home plate action so we were sitting directly in back of the batters' box. I expected, as usual, to see the same old, scratching, spiting, and hangover looking ballplayers that made baseball America’s favorite pastime. Or at least the dumpy, wisecracking, know-it-all, over-the-hill ballplayers who always seem to coach at 1st and 3rd bases.

Was I in for a surprise, I must have been in a vacuum or in hibernation for some time. Because now, all professional baseball players look like a young Steve Garvey, before he went Hollywood. They are young, good-looking, well fed with vitamins, cold sober, well built with designer haircuts and most of them look like a stockbroker on the way to the bank. Anyone of them would pass for an actor on “Real People”.

Not one player had a beer-belly hanging over their belts. Not one of them had that hard-hungry, professional look that Catfish Hunter and Johnny Bench had. I couldn’t even detect any chewing tobacco stains on their pants or shoes.

Don’t get me wrong, these bubble-gum chewing professionals are just as good, if not better than those heroes of my youth and the game now is probably played better and is just as exciting.

The final shock of the night was when the plate umpire appeared in a RED SHIRT. Can you believe it, a red shirt on a home plate umpire. They might as well have instant replay of balls and strikes. How can you be tough when someone kicks dirt on your shoe in a red shirt. A red shirt might be OK on a fireman, but not a home plate umpire.

Back in Maude, Oklahoma, we took our baseball seriously. I had some uncles by on my mother’s side of the family who had a family baseball team. Every brother had a special position that they played until aches and pains slowed them down, and then their sons took their places. Personally I was never much of a baseball player. I was always the last player to be selected when we choose up sides for a game.

The first professional major league game that I ever attended was in 1948 when the World Champion Cleveland Indians were playing an exhibition game with their Texas League Farm Club, the Oklahoma City Indians. Satchel Page started the game and Bobby Feller and another guy finished up. Needless to say I was very impressed. I also remember that these ‘World Champion’ guys didn’t look like ‘Fortune 500’ pin-ups. They were just average ballplayers with hangovers and alimony, like the rest of us.

I really shouldn’t complain about what the player look like now. The game is the same and I enjoy it as much as I always have. Computers haven’t changed the rules. You still get three strikes before you are out. Where else in life can you get a guarantee like that.