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The Daily Dose/April 16, 2011
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around the Human Experience...
Editor's Note: A long time ago, in a press box far, far away, Gaylon was a radio announcer with a now-defunct minor league baseball team in a now-defunct independent league. Doug Greenwald, now the voice of the Fresno Grizzlies, was his partner. As he has in the past, Gaylon scammed a press pass and visited Doug for an official Pacific Coast League game in Las Vegas.
Same Time Next Year: Some things never change. Like last year, I was able to scam my way out paying for parking at Cashman Field. Now, usually I am entirely too shy to assert something like this, and it certainly isn't a question of money, because I have $5 in my pocket should it come to that, but as a credentialed member of the media, it's a matter of principle. I shouldn't have to pay for parking.
The attendant charged with collecting parking fees is amenable to my spiel. He asks which newspaper I write for and I tell him I'm rolling with the Fresno Grizzlies radio crew tonight. He considers that for a moment before announcing my parking fee has been upped to eight dollars, which got a hearty laugh not only from yours truly, but from the other parking attendants as well.
The spread in the press box isn't too bad, hot dogs and hamburgers. Last year when Doug came through I wasn't eating meat so I was obliged to pass, and we don't eat too much meat anymore, but tonight we are refreshingly open to some lousy nutrition.
This is all right, but pales next to the pizza and hot dog buffet the San Diego Chargers put out at halftime, and the all-you-can-eat Dodger Dogs in the Dodger Stadium press box.
Get Your Official Writer's Shack Policy Right Here: Still though, we are not officially whining about pregame hot dogs and hamburgers. It is better than pregame nothing.
Dry, Tecnical Matter: It's Opening Night here at Cashman, in what has to be one of the latest Opening Night's in professional baseball this year, although some rather boring research shows several other professional teams are having home openers tonight.
6:50pm: Doug is on the air. This is Fresno's first road game of the year. Though Triple-A teams usually fly for road trips, airplanes must not fly between Vegas and Fresno because te Grizzlies bussed in last night, getting into town at about six Friday morning, a mere 13 hours before the first pitch. The Grizzlies also bus home when they conclude a road trip here in Vegas.
Uh-Oh: Technical difficulties rear their ugly head a couple of minutes into the pregame show. Doug is on the phone with his engineer back at the station and he just switched the mixing console off and on, a sure sign he doesn't know what the hell is going on.
Just Making Sure: Discreetly I check to make sure I didn't unplug some cords with my feet. You can never tell with me. Fortunately, the answer is no.
Whew: Five minutes before game time, while pregame introductions are still going on, Doug is back on the air. He elects to go with his recorded pregame interview with San Francisco Giants minor league pitching coordinator Bert Bradley. Privately, I question this because the game is about to start, but I don't know how long the interview is, and I think Doug has to go to the can anyway.
Shows What You Know: This is probably why I am no longer in radio, because it's a pretty smart decision, actually. Not only do introductions have to finish - and they're announcing everybody but me tonight because it's the home opener - but the umpires have to have the plate meeting and the home team has to take the field and whatnot.
Whew II: As it turns out, Doug's timing is perfect. He gets the interview and last pregame commercial break in right as 51's starting pitcher Willie Callazo finishes his warm-up tosses.
Now We Know: The answer to the question "What's in those white boxes on the field near the expensive seats?" is answered immediately after the national anthem: a rather large quantity of white doves, who immediately fly off to the west.
Warm, Personal Remembrances: We haven't been good for too many Opening Days over the years. Ages ago I took my dad to Opening Day at Dodger Stadium. They were playing the Giants, and it was so long ago it was still customary to write the team, include a check, and they would send you tickets. All I really remember was Steve Sax of the Dodgers led off the season with a home run.
A little research shows that was on April 4, 1988. The same research also show this was the Dodgers only run, as they lost to San Francisco that day, 5-1.
The only other Opening Day we can remember going to was the San Diego Padres home opener in 1987. As we note in this column only every chance we get, that is the night the Padres became the first team in major league history to lead off a game with three home runs, as Marvel Wynne, Tony Gwynn and John Kruk homered off Roger Mason.
Seamless Transition: It was kind of nice watching something that had never happened in the big leagues before, and even though we don't go too often anymore, this is why we still enjoy coming to ballgames: the chance to see something that either doesn't happen all that often, or has never happened before.
You Can Put Your History Books Away: It doesn't appear anything historic is going to happen tonight, unless this game goes 40 innings, which, frankly, we're OK without seeing. A fairly routine professional baseball game is in progress, a it's 2-1 Fresno in the fifth, making a double perfect game out of the question,
TOKEN ON THIS DATE ACTION: Dr. Jack Kervorkian performs his first assisted suicide on this date in 1989. Initially he is charged with murder, charges that are later dropped. Later, Kervorkian would serve eight years of a 10-25-year sentence following a second-degree murder conviction when a tape of him giving a lethal injection to a ,man who wanted to die airs in a television show.
More Get Your Official Writer's Shack Policy Right Here: If people want to die, the law should accommodate that. We should stop getting worked up over it.
Thought For The Day: "I don't know what's going on here." Doug Greenwald, to engineer back at the studio, during technical difficulties during Fresno Grizzlies radio broadcast, April 15, 2011.
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The Congressional Budget Office was formed in 1974.
Today's Stumper: Of the six original Pacific Coast League cities in 1903, how many currently have major league baseball teams and how many are still in the PCL? - Answer next time!
Comments? Recipes? Complaints? Email the Writer's Shack here!
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