Summer, 1974. Vernal Utah. The grass was green, the sun was warm, and the ice cream truck never missed a beat. It was pure Americana.
I was playing my first season of organized baseball for a team called the Cardinals. At least I think it was my first season. I watched and played baseball for as long as I can remember though, so I could be wrong. In fact, when I was only three days old I was taken to my first baseball game. It was an all-star game that my brother was playing in. My mom took me and we sat in the grass just beyond the center field fence. You know that scene in Field of Dreams when Ray tells his daughter that the bedtime stories he was raised on were tales of Shoeless Joe Jackson? Well, that was pretty much me. My dad and brother told me a lot about guys like Willie Mays, Walter Johnson and of course, Mickey Mantle. So when I started that first season, like most kids, I dreamed of being the next Carlton Fisk, Reggie Jackson, or Johnny Bench. I wasn’t a Yankees fan though, so even I knew how great Mantle was, I didn’t necessarily have dreams of becoming the next Mickey. I just had dreams of some kid in the future saying, “I want to be the next John Pfeifer.”
Some dreams just aren’t meant to be though. My love for the game was only rivaled by my inability to hit for power (or average), run, throw, and catch. Nevertheless, I had heart. I wouldn’t give up, no matter how many times I struck out, how many games we lost or how many times a ball would ricochet off my head.
Game day was always something pretty cool. As early as I could get out the door, I’d ride my bike to the field and fuel up for the game by getting a hot dog and a snow cone from the concession stand and then wait for the rest of the team to show up. Soon after it was time for parents to show up. They’d take their seats hoping to catch a glimpse of their child's triumph. Or, in the case of the woeful Cardinals, their spectacular stumble into the outfield grass. Every game was a chance to begin my journey to the majors though. So I’d adjust my bright orange baseball cap and run onto the filed ready to play. Yeah, you heard that right. A bright orange baseball cap for a team called the Cardinals. Not red but orange. I suppose that should have been a clue as to how the season would shake out.
I played almost every position on the field that season and really loved playing third base. Not because I was a natural third baseman but because it wasn’t right field. As the season stretched on we actually won a few games and got to take our victory laps around the bases.
As it happens it wasn't so much the wins, losses, or snow cones that would come to define that first season. It was the bright orange cap baseball cap I wore. Now, I have absolutely no idea why what happened next happened at all. But for some reason a group of pro ball players visited my little town. They were to give a talk at the local junior high. Of course I had to go, and even though I wasn’t a Yankees fan, I was over the moon because one of the guys coming was none other than Mickey Mantle himself. I don’t remember much of what he or the other players said during the talk but I do remember one thing and that memory lives in vivid technicolor. Mickey Mantle signed my cap. Let me say that again, he signed my baseball cap. I’ll never forget it. Right across the bright orange bill, there it was. The name of one of the greatest stars the game would ever know. And it was mine all mine. For a little while anyway …
It was game day. Like every other game day I was up early, dressed and ready to put on my hat and ride to the field. My hat, where’s my hat I thought? My Mickey Mantle autographed hat. I looked all over and finally asked my mom. The very mother that took me to my first game when I was just a newborn, looked at me with a puzzled expression and replied, “I threw it away. Why did you let one of your friends write on it anyway?” Time slowed down after that, kind of like they say happens when you’re in a car accident, or a nuclear bomb detonates, or when you see your childhood dreams dissipate into the ether. I croaked, “Mom, but Mickey Mantle signed it.” To which she casually replied, “I don’t care which friend it was, you’ll just have to get a new one.” WHAT?????? That was like a called strike three, in the bottom of the ninth, with the bases loaded at the World Series. My knees buckled. Needless to say, I was crushed.
The sun eventually set on that season. Some losses, some wins, and a few errors. Many more seasons would follow and as you can surmise, I never become a Major League legend. Over all those seasons though one thing remained consistent. Mom. She was always there, in the grass beyond center field, being my biggest cheerleader. We never spoke of the Mickey Mantle incident (as it has come to be known by my wife and children) but years later Mom would give me a baseball card of Mark McGwire from the season of his record breaking home-run year.
Honestly, I was never really much of a McGwire fan but it was an extremely thoughtful gift and maybe kind of appropriate that he broke that home-run record while playing for the Cardinals.
