It was a sentimental journey when thousands of dads and their sons and daughters took in the ballgame at Seaman Stadium on Father’s Day.
It was my dad who got me interested in baseball back in the Summer of Love. Back in 1967, when fans were rooting for Drysdale, Aaron, Mays and an aging Mickey Mantle, my heroes were Fregosi, Repoz, Brunet and Knoop. We lived in Pasadena, California, and rather than head to closer Dodger Stadium we were off to Anaheim to cheer on the then California Angels.
It made sense.
Dad didn’t like the Dodgers. One of my parents’ first arguments was during their honeymoon in the Ozarks. Dad was cheering for the New York Giants, my mom the Brooklyn Dodgers during a one-game playoff in 1951. They lost reception with the Dodgers ahead in Tennessee or something.
They later found out at a gas station the Giants had won with Bobby Thomson’s shot heard around the world. Baseball was a Campbell thing right from the words: “I do.” It was great to see the young kids talking and taking pictures of the Dawgs after the games. I recall Camera Day in 1967. I had my photo taken with legendary Halos Roger Repoz and George Brunet (both of whom are in Jim Bouton’s classic Ball Four). More importantly than being in a best-selling book, pictures of Brunet and Repoz with a scruffy haired smiling eight-year-old is in that kid’s scrapbook. That eight-year-old grew up to be a sportswriter read by tens.
We would later move to Denver, before coming to Calgary. I would get autographs of my favourite players, — catcher Bruce Look and third baseman Graig Nettles then with the Denver Bears.
Of course those autographs from more than 40 years ago, would never survive my ‘Where are my keys?’ filing system.
What did survive are the memories. Those memories are no different than the ones young Dawgs fans are forming with their dads at Seaman Stadium.
Not everyone was happy with the trip to see the Angels in 1967. My sister would pout every time because you could see Disneyland in the distance. But Disneyland is a small world after all. Baseball will last a lifetime.
