Warming Up The Future Managers

[Farr Be It]

Update to previous posting:

Below is an updated version of a post I made a couple weeks ago after the Nats won the World Series. Put it in the category of... "Obnoxious Forest Gump Moment" if you must, but I thought it was a cool story to share with some of you baseball types...



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Back in the mid-nineties, my brother interned for the SF Giants while getting his Masters from SF State. As timing would have it the Giants started their public relations "Ball Dude" program, employing senior citizens to patrol the foul territories for foul balls.

As you could anticipate, hilarity ensued....

Being an "insider" my bandwagon-Niner-loving brother was able to get my dad in as one of the original Ball Dudes.

Dad had some of his greatest memories getting to know the players, then-Manager Dusty Baker, and especially the announcers Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow, who would tease him mercilessly, as he displayed his, ...ahem... skills on the field. I've got some great stories I could tell, maybe another time.

But one of the cool stories I wanted to tell today actually involves the new World-Series Champion Washington Nationals.

Dad enjoyed 13 years as a ball-dude, and once was featured on ESPN Plays of the Week, you got it, for doing a full face-plant. Chris Berman slowed down the footage and did his best Cosell, "Down goes Frazier!" as they showed my poor dad's face bouncing off the Pac-Bell grass.

Well, when the Giants left Candlestick for Pac-Bell in 2000, PR Director Sue Peterson opened up the Ball Dude program, including allowing the old dudes to work with their sons.

As a Dodger fan, it was a bit nauseating donning the Giants uniform, but the experience was awesome! I did a 3-game series against the Texas Rangers July of 2000 with my dad.

I was able to talk to JT Snow for a while, and tell him his dad Jack was one of my first Ram heroes. JT, of course, is a Rams fan, by the way! So we talked some Rams, as they were newly crowned SB champs at the time. (This was July 2000)

Dusty Baker was another guy I was able to talk to about the old Dodger teams. Dusty talked baseball with my dad a lot. He later remembered my name and said "Hi, John." after just meeting him the day before. I was pretty blown away.

Anyway, I was working the second game of the series down the visitors side (first base) and sitting on my little stool. Between innings the bullpen catcher had to run out from the main dugout and warm up the right fielder. The design of that stadium is pretty crappy, and the bullpen consists of a small dugout cage. Guys only come out there if they are actually warming up.

Around the 4th inning the Rangers bullpen catcher approached me with a ball, and said, "Hey man, do you mind warming up my right fielder?" I jumped at the chance. "Sure, no problem!" So for the next 5 innings, and the whole next game, between innings, I got to warm up....

Newly crowned World Series Champ, Manager Dave Martinez!

And for a couple innings - when the Ranger left fielder was slow to get out there, the center fielder flagged me down to toss him a couple balls. That was a pretty long throw, too! But I was still in pretty good shape and able to make those throws. I even overthrew him once and he had to run to the fence to retrieve the ball.

And who was the center fielder? None other than the new SF Giants manager....

Gabe Kapler!

It was a pretty cool experience at the time, but little did I know, I was warming up two future MLB managers.

 

[Dodgersrf]

Great story.
I completely enjoyed reading it.

 

[Farr Be It]

Great story.
I completely enjoyed reading it.

Thanks man. It was a good time. Keep in mind it was a year before 9/11. My dad and I would get there early and talk to the players, and I would even roam the outfield during batting practice and shag balls. It was actually pretty lax.

After 9/11 it got really tight. They checked out IDs more, and cut off most of our contact with the players.

But that same series in 2000 when I thought I got pretty tight, talking Rams with JT Snow, I had a kid approach me from the stands with a ball and ask me if I would have Snow sign it.

The game had already started and I initially said “no. I can’t talk to the players during the game.”

Then, like an idiot, I relented and grabbed the ball and sharpie from the kid. “I’ll see what I can do”. It was i night game in SF, so, freezing, and I was wearing an ugly, smelly Giants jacket. I squirreled the ball away in my jacket.

Well, at the end of one inning I was standing near first base talking to the ump, and JT was the first guy out of the dugout. The other infielders were still grabbing their gear, and JT was waiting. I thought I had a window. Then, I pulled the ball and pen out of my pocket said the dumbest thing of my life:

Farr Be It: Hey JT, would you sign a ball for this kid up in the stands?

(the moment it left my lips, I knew it was insane. I was asking a player, DURING A GAME, to sign a ball for a fan.)
-Gulp-

JT Snow: Man, get out of here! Are you serious?! I’m playing a game. (Shakes head and mutters, ‘what a dick!’)

Farr Be It: (now in full retreat and panic mode shoving the ball into his jacket) sorry man! I’m sorry! (Walks back to his little ball-dude stool humiliated, pulls the ball back out) Here kid....I told you they can’t sign after the game starts! (Really that scolding is not directed at the kid but at myself)

That incident was probably the only dark cloud in an otherwise Field of Dreams- like experience. But even that had a bit of redemption. I approached JT again after the game and apologized, and he seemed to not be so upset.

“It’s ok. No worries” he said. And I felt a bit better. Maybe he remembered all the things I said about watching his dad when I was a kid, and how I used to be Jack Snow playing out in the street.

Or maybe he just walked away muttering, “What a loser...”