Noel's First Game

I was having lunch with Mark and Josh last week when Josh started talking about the first time he went to a ballgame. Josh saw the Yanks, and Mark went to the Giants. I sat there and listened – embarrassed. No Giants or Yanks for me. I grew up in upstate New York, Rochester to be exact. That is about as Upstate as you can get. The North Pole was closer than any Professional sports team. Technically we had the Buffalo Bills in Football and the Braves in Basketball. The Braves are now the Clippers, and the Bills were drafting O.J. with the first pick in the 1969 draft. These were not good teams.

Rochester did have a AAA minor league team, the Red Wings. Their parent club was the Orioles. My first game was 1970 (about 9 years old) at Silver Stadium. We had box seats. My father took us. I was with two of my older brothers. The Wings had great teams. Doug Decinces, Al Bumbry, Don Baylor, Bobby Grich, Johnny Oats, Richie Coggins, Enos Cabel, (we called him Enos StirngBenos) and the manager, for all you Giants fans, was Joe Altobelli. Man, the Orioles used to stock those teams. We were always in first or second every year.

Silver Stadium might have held 5,000 people – not a bad seat in the house. The box seats had painted name plates on them. I thought that was the coolest thing. My Pops worked for Cutler Mail Chute. I thought he was very important. A couple of things that I can remember like yesterday: getting Italian Sausages that were cooked on huge barbeques. We ate so many of those greasy, nasty, bad boys – and they were great. The other thing that I will never forget was my father giving each of us a sip of Genesee Beer, with the obligatory “don’t tell your mother”. Man, was that beer good. I felt like I was 13.

I don’t remember much of the game that day. It was more the peripheral things. Fans chanting “We want a hit”, foul balls, arguing with my brothers about how to keep score, peanuts, Pops telling us about Mickey Mantle. What a day. Much like Josh and Seth my father also passed away when I was young. I love taking my daughters to the see the Giants.

Josh, thanks for reminding me of that. Life is good!