Spring Training in Pittsburg, California
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| By Eric Marks (ericm@journalist.com) |
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| I can recall at age 10…or was it 11 -- |
| sitting on the mottled crab grass, watching my brothers play
baseball |
| and how I pestered my dad to get me baseball cards at the 7-11. |
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| “You got Alfredo Griffin!” noted my dad as I unwrapped the
treasure |
| from its green wax paper, crunching the stale bubblegum that |
| came with it. It was a great time to be an A’s fan. |
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| It was spring and we felt renewed. |
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| I can recall how Chuck, Dave, Shane and I “camped” out in |
| Shane’s yard, digging a hole, creating a fire with the Delta air |
| fueling it. Stupid us didn’t know too much about carbon monoxide
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| poisoning. We built a canvas tent over the flame figuring it would
keep us warm. |
| More rather, sick. |
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| It was spring and we felt renewed. |
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| I can tell you how Brandon and the gang recorded our newest hit
song “Rap is Crap.” God, did |
| we really do that? “Rap is crap/it’s not cool/it makes you want to
go poo.” Creative poets even then. |
| Damn and damned again, I can’t find that tape. Shane played
Falco’s “Amadeus” that scratched piece of vinyl entertaining us for
hours while we hit tennis balls to rhythm. |
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| It was spring and we felt renewed. |
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| We had to use tennis balls in that narrow court, we didn’t want to
break any windows. All day until our |
| working mothers intoned dinner time and even then did we not still
play? Man, didn’t we feel like Mark, Jose, Walt, Dave and Rickey? I
think we all felt that the game was called off due to a catastrophic
event. |
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| It was spring and we felt renewed. |
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| I can remember rubbing leather oil into my new glove, trying to
remove Candy Maldonado’s signature |
| Because I wasn’t a Giants fan. I played first base, just like
Mark. We used a car for a base. Then the ground gave. The Bay Bridge
collapsed, baseball was on hold. God, didn’t baseball save lives? |
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| I can remember rummaging through the tables of baseball cards,
climbing those rickety stairs of the Second Deck. I thought the 1989
Bowman’s were the coolest, I got a Jackie Robinson reprint and two
Julio Francos. God, was baseball life? That brand bridged a gap. |
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| In the field of dreams in my mind, Barquitine Court is up there. I
forgive the pavement for tearing my knees up. I was playing the game
as it should be played. I slid on the street. God, could Rickey do
that without whining about being traded? |
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| It was spring and we felt renewed. |
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| My dad used to point out the Sacramento River on the horizon. We
moved up the river in 1989, traded the house for a better job and a
better house. I’ve been with the same team for 23 years and refuse to
be traded. |
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| God, was baseball family? |
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April 22, 1999
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