I saw a photo of Steve Garvey and Tony Gwynn in Padres uniforms and my reaction was a feeling that I translate to “I miss loving baseball.” So this little post is just an exercise in thinking through that emotion.
To be sure, I’m not even a Padres fan. I suppose I could be considered a “fan” of Steve Garvey and Tony Gwynn as players—not in the sense of cheering for them or anything, but more to have enjoyed watching them play and collecting their baseball cards.
I’ve been a Giants fan most of my life and a lukewarm A’s fan as well. I grew up at a time when the Bash Brothers—Mark McGuire and Jose Canseco, Ricky Henderson, Dave Stewart, and Dennis Eckersley all played for the A’s. Will Clark and Kevin Mitchel played for the Giants in the days before Barry Bonds joined Matt Williams in the lineup. I remember Bobby Bonds’ son Barry playing for the Pirates until one day he became a free agent and signed with the Giants.
I went to numerous games every year, mostly in the Bay Area. My parents were even good enough to take us to a few double-headers. I was even present for a few memorable games, like Daryl Strawberry’s debut for the Giants. Bonds was batting third, Williams fourth, and Strawberry fifth. Bonds and Williams hit back-to-back homeruns, and Strawberry hit one over the fence only to be robbed of his homerun. The 49ers were hoping to keep Deion Sanders and it what was (or seemed) like obvious collusion with the Giants, Deion was traded to San Francisco. The day was uneventful other than the crowd being unhappy with Sanders. I was in Anaheim watching the Angels play the Twins when Joe Niekro was caught scuffing the ball. That was my early-age introduction to aerodynamics.
Truthfully, I was never a die-hard baseball fan. I liked it, sure. Football, hockey, and wrestling were more my sports interests, but the culture of baseball was very meaningful to me. I loved collecting baseball cards. This was before there was a craze about card collecting and they became a false currency that eventually bottomed-out. I loved the designs of Topps, Fleer, and Donruss cards and the bits of information they’d teach you about the players (mostly stats). Before the accessibility of the internet, these cards were like tradable versions of online player profiles.
TV had fewer channels and we would have to wait until the box scores were published in the newspapers to see who won the previous nights and how that impacted the standings. As a kid, I have vivid memories of my dad working in the yard or on a house project with the Giants game playing on KNBR. After moving to Los Angeles, I would also rejoice in the rare cold evenings when I could pick up KNBR 680 on the radio all the way from Northern California.
There was something fun about the culture of baseball that I miss. Maybe it is still there in some way or in a different way. This isn’t a post about how our present culture is a shadow of our past—plenty of time for me to rant about that in other posts. I just miss being young and enjoying the culture of baseball. Perhaps it was because we had less information and so needed to participate in the activity, filling in the blanks with our imaginations. Maybe our lack of imagination is the greatest flaw of our severely flawed age.
I miss loving baseball, and I’m not sure how to love it again.