Lost Journal

Humor Column
by Tim Mollen
September 8, 2005

Bad Day for Bat Day

Journal Entry:  September 12, 1976 (age 7)

I got really excited a few days ago when Dad announced that the Mollens were going to take a road trip to see the New York Yankees play at Yankee Stadium.

I don’t really like baseball.  Sometimes pretend I do, though, so my five older brothers will talk to me.  I have memorized the names of a few players so I can join in conversations at the dinner table.  Anytime baseball comes up, I remind my brothers that Joe Rudi was the runner-up for Most Valuable Player in 1972 and 1974.  When I was 3, my brother Dan told me I had to have a favorite player.  “Mine is Tony Perez of the Cincinnati Reds, so you can’t have him,” he said.  I saw Joe Rudi of the Oakland A’s on TV, and decided he was as good as anyone else.

Despite my lack of knowledge about, or interest in, baseball, I was excited about going to Yankee Stadium and seeing a real live game.  But this morning my father broke the bad news.  There wasn’t enough room in the family station wagon for all six sons.  “You don’t like baseball anyway, Timmy, so you can stay here and keep Mom company.”  I cried, which puzzled my dad and amused my brothers.  This was a trip for the big boys, and they didn’t want any Joe-Rudi-lovin’ crybabies in the car.

So this morning I watched from my window on West End Avenue as the men of the Mollen family drove off on their adventure.  For a while, I sat in my room and practiced my new ventriloquism hobby with my Charlie McCarthy dummy.  Then I read Judy Blume’s Super Fudge for a while.  Mom felt sorry for me, so she said we could go to McDonald’s later.

Finally, I went to the basement to watch the game on TV.  Maybe I could spot Dad and the guys in the stands.  Near the end of the game, the phone rang.  Then Mom came in the room, with a weird little smile on her face.  Dad had just called to say they hadn’t been able to get into the game.  The six of them had just finished eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the Yankee Stadium parking lot and were coming home.

It turns out that today was not a good day for an unplanned trip to the ballpark.  Not only was today’s match-up against the Detroit Tigers a double-header, but it was also Bat Day at the stadium.  The first game of the double-header was being pitched by the biggest pitching phenom in the major leagues, Mark “The Bird” Fidrych.  And I was the only Mollen boy who saw the game.

I have added these facts to my tiny repository of baseball trivia, and plan to bring them up whenever “the men” start talking baseball.  Then I will steer the conversation back to more important matters, like who is the Most Valuable Sweathog on Welcome Back, Kotter.

© 2005 Tim Mollen

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