At the Ballpark: Some Therapy and My First Bench-Clearing Brawl, By Chuck Strom

Vogelsong_on_the_mound[1] — Ryan Vogelsong on the mound

Last week, feeling overwhelmed by life, I e-mailed my brother in San Francisco. “I need a Giants fix,” I told him. “How about a game?”

A few minutes later he e-mailed back, “Funny you should ask. The company tickets are available on Sunday. Are you interested?”

God bless having a member of my immediate family with connections. I could hardly type my acceptance fast enough. The next day he told me where our seats were: lower deck, just behind third base about halfway up—better by far than any I’d had previously at AT&T Park. Just what the psychiatrist ordered.

Before the first pitch the 2002 Giants came onto the field for a reunion, with Giants announcers Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper introducing Bonds, Kent, Snow, and almost all of the other regulars from the team that came within a late-inning Game 6 collapse of winning a World Series championship. Even Dusty Baker put on a Giants jersey and joined the festivities before returning to the visitor’s dugout as manager of the Cincinnati Reds.

Dugouts_emptied_in_the_sixth[1] — Dugouts emptied in the sixth

The game itself turned out to be one of the best I’ve seen. With Ryan Vogelsong on the mound I had liked the Giants’ chances for a win, but with their usual challenges at the plate the outcome remained in doubt to the end. The Giants had a one-run lead in the ninth, but their closer Santiago Casilla coughed it up with three straight hits and had to escape a bases-loaded none-out jam to keep the score tied. The Reds returned the favor in the bottom of the inning, with Reds right fielder Jay Bruce losing track of the wall and allowing Angel Pagan’s fly ball to drop behind him to score Buster Posey from second and end the game.

And I got to see my first bench-clearing brawl. In the bottom of the sixth Vogelsong tried to bunt a runner over to second with the scored tied 2-2. Both Vogelsong and the Cincinnati pitcher Bronson Arroyo had hit batters earlier in the game, and Arroyo’s first pitch knocked Vogelsong onto his back. A couple of pitches later Arroyo threw another one high and inside. Vogelsong, known for his intensity on the field, slammed his bat onto the plate and started in on Arroyo. At that point the dugouts emptied, presumably to keep prized starting pitchers from hurting themselves. I couldn’t tell if there were any actual fisticuffs; most of the players just milled around in a crowd in front of the plate until the umpires sorted things out and shooed them back to the dugouts. Perhaps chastened by the experience, Arroyo threw his next pitch over the plate, which Vogelsong bunted successfully. Later I heard that they talked after the game and patched things up; it turned out they had been teammates some years ago in Pittsburgh.

I felt much better afterwards. Very good therapy. Cheap, too, even after informing my brother that his money was no good at the concession stands. It was the least I could do for him, after all.

– Chuck Strom