With Opening Day gone by, a visitor to the recent spring-training camps can expect to keep no more than a handful of memories of the short season, such as a low line-drive homer in Tampa by the Yankees’ new import, Hideki Matsui, intensely annotated by a horde of visiting Japanese media; or a Mo Vaughn sailer at Port St. Lucie, over the right-field fence and into a sandpit, where it was excavated by an exclaiming pack of boy archeologists; or Renee Conley’s birthday party in Lower Box 105, Row D, at Scottsdale Stadium, in Arizona. Renee and four slender, well-tanned friends of hers—Laura McDermott, Angie Ray, Angie Cronk, and Ann Chaillie—were dressed in jeans, tank tops, and a scattering of forward-facing baseball caps, and their occupation of this sector, close behind the backstop screen, a bit over toward the visiting-team dugout, brightened the afternoon almost as much as the sun, which had been hiding behind chilly rain clouds for the past couple of days. The women put out the news that this was Renee’s twenty-first birthday, and Renee, bowing and blushing a little—she had cropped dark hair and a nice strong nose—accepted the good wishes of the old fans and kid fans around her but then said, well, no, she was thirty-one today. This seemed to put her about in the middle, agewise, in her bunch, who turned out to be servers from the nearby Bandera restaurant. “The best margaritas in town,” said Laura, who is a bartender there. “Only don’t go today, because all the staff will be rookies.”
The game began—the Giants were hosting a split squad of Seattle Mariners—but the young women were distracted by party-favor comical cardboard eyeglasses, with a jagged “Happy Birthday” in exuberant colors above the frames. Putting these on could be done only by reversing the caps, and once this was done, to cascades of laughter, it was time for a round of Bud Lights and the first of a dozen or so group shots, with the girls hugging up in a tight bunch and showing their perfect teeth to each helpful, “cheese”-urging neighbor fan wielding a borrowed camera. Fan parties can turn into a royal pain if you’re there for the game, but, c’mon, this was spring training, and it was a kick to see how rarely this part of Row D ever actually looked at the field.
By the time the women had slipped on pacifier-sized candy rings (more snaps), you began to pick up some of the conversations and sort out the principals. Angie Ray had serious crimson lipstick and wore a cap with “Alien Workshop” over the peak, while Laura’s cap said “Lucky Brand” in script astern. Angie Cronk was the one with a cluster of small silver rings in her right ear and a lavender silk scarf fashionably twisted around her short, white-blond hair. She looked a bit like Jean Seberg. One of her friends said, “Angie, your ring matches everything—God, you always look so great!”
“Ooo, look, the bases are loaded,” somebody said—we were in the fifth by now—but Rich Aurilia’s grand slam over the left-field fence was more or less missed because the friends were so busy with the birthday cake: two Hostess cupcakes, side by side, with a candle “3” stuck in one of them and a candle “1” in the other. Renee instantly blew them out, to a screaming that became part of the wild game noise as Barry Bonds, the next man up, delivered a monster blow over the berm in right. Nobody ate the cupcakes.
Not all the hitting was on the field. When a tall, not-so-young volunteer cameraman regrouped the friends for another album shot, he made lifting motions with his hands and said, “Come on, ladies, gimme some cleavage. In Venezuela, you’d be wearing way too many clothes.”
“This is the U.S. of A.,” Renee said.
Ann Chaillie, who had crinkly blond hair and was wearing a fetching straw cloche hat, had by now moved down front, in the hope of snagging a discarded game ball, and, after one was gently rolled her way across the roof of the visiting-team dugout, she screeched and danced. When a towheaded eight- or nine-year-old boy in a red T-shirt said, “If I gave you a hug and kiss, would you give me that ball in return?,” she said sure. More balls were found and the hug-and-kiss barter system was quickly established, to heavy local applause. These women were not Yankee Stadium types, you saw at last. No cursing, no dishing, and a lighter coat of cool. Laura McDermott said, “Well, if you can’t find an older man, go for the younger ones,” and she moved down with Ann and the kids too.
All that remained was the next stage of the party. Because of the anticipated beers, the young women had parked their cars at Renee’s place and safely biked to the park. The last party treat was a drawing of slips with various possible post-game destinations inked on them, including Zorba’s Adult Shop, on Scottsdale Road, and a long-shot Las Vegas. “We could totally do Vegas,” Angie Ray announced, but they all had to be back at work tomorrow. Laura was holding down three jobs between Thursdays and Tuesdays each week. Renee’s party would soon end, possibly wrapping up at Billet Bar, a nearby biker joint, with adjoining tattoo facilities. When the friends had last been in there, a bouncer said, “Next time, ladies, back your bicycles into the rack. That way you’re real bikers.” The ballgame was running out—it was 7–3, Giants, in the end—though nobody wanted it or the sunshine and hurrying warm clouds to go away. The night before, President Bush had announced that Saddam Hussein had two more days in which to depart or face war. But this was still spring training, where nothing counts. We had this one coming.
Talk, April, 2003