In which your narrator tries to
turn this into a reference book.
I was at a game with my then-girlfriend, now-wife, with my dad and her grandfather. Cardinals at Giants at Pac Bell Park in 2002, and Albert Pujols was just starting to emerge as a superstar, so he wasn’t totally well known yet. Pujols is up, and the guys behind us take notice of Albert’s name and start saying things like “Poo holes? Poo holes? He’s a smelly poo hole! Stick it in his poo hole!” At first they were just sort of saying these things to each other and laughing. I thought, Well, Grandpa flew jets for forty years and doesn’t hear very well, maybe he’s not picking up on this. But now they’re getting louder and louder. Just as I start thinking of ways to excuse myself or maybe ask Grandpa if he wants to go get a beer with me, he leans over to me and says, very quietly, “I think I’d change my name.” Just killed me. I told this story at his funeral, and the mourners roared.
— ERIC SOARES, Oakland, California
THE CUBS MAKE THREE OUTS ON SIX PITCHES. DERREK LEE FLIES out to right, aramis Ramirez grounds out to short, and Jim Edmonds strikes out. I don’t see any of this. I am in the restroom, standing over one of those troughs, with my score book tucked under my left arm and my penis held with my right hand. These troughs are disgusting. I think I see someone’s finger is in there, along with a couple of teeth.
WHEN DAD COACHED, my mother kept score for all our Jaycee games, sitting in a lawn chair, drinking a wine cooler, which everyone was drinking at the time. (“Seagrams . . . Golden Wine Cooler . . . it’s wet and it’s dry! . . . Golden Wine Cooler . . . my my my.”) She used a leather-bound C. S. Peterson’s Scoremaster, the “Official Baseball & Softball Scorebook: A Complete Record Of Game And Player.” I loved the way my mom kept score. Because we were all eight or nine years old, there was no such thing as an error. If you hit the ball to the pitcher, who threw it past the first baseman, who threw it past the second, who threw it past the third, you had a home run. In eight-year-old baseball, this happens often.
Mom didn’t bother with the traditional scoring system: “5” for third basemen, “2” for catcher, so on. She would just write “GO” for groundouts, “FL” for fly outs, “FO” for foul outs and move on with her life. Scoring purists refer to this as “ghetto” scorekeeping, which I find offensive and repulsive and wrong. Mom kept all the old books, and we still have them in our attic. Sometimes I’ll visit Mattoon and go look at them. If I’m bummed out, I can hark back to my 5-for-5 performance in 1984 against Mitchell-Jerdan Funeral Home, and pretend it wasn’t because of five errors.
When I graduated from college, and entered the scary real world, I found myself drawn back to reminders of a time when matters weren’t simpler but felt that way. (Another example of this: this book.) So I decided to buy a score book. To my relief, C. S. Peterson still made the same score books, so I bought thirty, in case they ever went out of business. Each score book holds space for twenty-five games. So far, since I began in the summer of 1998, I’ve filled six.
Every game in the book is a memory, a straight-faced, stoic, impartial rundown of an event immortalized only by its chronicle. Every moment in a baseball game is imminently forgettable, until it isn’t. Every Major League Baseball game I attend, I bring my score book. I’ve sat in the crowded, freezing bleachers of Yankee Stadium, full of drunken people spitting, and I’ve sat in the fifth row of Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, wondering if they called a hot dog a “royale with relish.” I have forgotten my score book only once, and I turned around, drove forty-five minutes back home, and returned. I actually have nightmares about being at a baseball game without my score book, which is truly a lame nightmare. If there were a fire in my apartment, the first objects I would save—the first—would be my score books.
I feel sometimes like they’re the only way I’ll be remembered. Every email, blog post, or online column I’ve ever written will probably be obliterated when Skylab seizes control of Earth and enslaves the human race, and this book, like the others, will end up being sold for a penny on someone’s stoop somewhere. The score books—safely ensconced in the underground panic room, as specifically requested in my will—will be the only proof of where I was, of what I saw, of who I was with, of what happened.
They’re the only constant I’ve had. Since I started doing the score books, I’ve lived in three different cities, held fourteen different jobs, dated several unfortunate women. Through moves, through packing and unpacking, through the inevitable detritus that flows through our lives every day, the score books are the only tangible evidence that I existed, of who I am, of what I hope will live on long after I am gone. (They might be all that shows up in my will.) I wish my father had kept score books, and my grandfather had. Imagine a piece of paper that shows that William Franklin Leitch II of Mattoon was once in the same building as Stan Musial. It feels important. It feels like a document. The score books are the old sepia photos, graying, fraying, but lasting.
That is, at least, the plan. Each entry in the score book contains the following information, the most important information. Let’s take a look at the first entry in the book, as an example.
FINAL SCORE: San Francisco Giants 5 (1–0), St. Louis Cardinals 3 (0–1)
DATE: 26 May 1999
LOCATION: Busch Stadium, St. Louis
WINNING PITCHER: Kirk Rueter
LOSING PITCHER: Kent Bottenfield
HOME RUNS: Giants: J. T. Snow, Rich Aurilia; Cardinals: Fernando Tatis, Shawon Dunston, Joe McEwing
ATTENDEES: Brian Barker a coworker at the time, someone I’ve long lost touch with. I think he called me a “fag” for bringing a score book.
The attendees are the most important. I always make sure to include it, whether it’s my dad, a girlfriend, an old coworker I’ll never see again, or just some random fella I bought an extra ticket from. Even with the wonders of Facebook, I can’t recollect the names of half the people I went to high school with. Accompanying someone to a baseball game is a sacred thing: It deserves to be remembered.
A look back through the last ten years of score books is a look back at my life, at your life, at everyone’s. In case the fire eats the score books before I can get to them, I better write it all down while I have the chance.
(Note: Originally, this chapter included EVERY baseball game in my scorebook. Unfortunately, my editor informed me that it took up about 32,193 pages. What follows, thus, are just the most memorable games. Trust me, my editor did you an enormous favor.)
FINAL SCORE: St. Louis Cardinals 3 (1–1), San Francisco Giants 2 (1–1)
DATE: 27 May 1999
LOCATION: Busch Stadium, St. Louis
WINNING PITCHER: Heathcliff Slocumb
LOSING PITCHER: Jerry Spradlin
HOME RUNS: Cardinals: Mark McGwire
ATTENDEES: Self
When I worked for the old Sporting News in St. Louis, I had the night shift, 4 P.M. to 2 A.M., so I had to sneak in afternoon games like this one and still be a half hour or so late to work. It was the first of many McGwire homers I saw, this one in the season after 62, the game, the homer, that changed the world of baseball, the one that healed so many wounds, the one that helped Roger Maris’s family absolve the baseball world of all its sins against their late father, the one where McGwire hugged his son, and families everywhere bonded and wept, the one where a classy kid named Tim Forneris gave up a million dollars to do the right thing, the one that no one ever talks about anymore, the one we all pretend never happened.
FINAL SCORE: Chicago Cubs 4 (1–0), St. Louis Cardinals 3 (1–2)
DATE: 29 May 1999
LOCATION: Wrigley Field, Chicago
WINNING PITCHER: Felix Heredia
LOSING PITCHER: Rick Bottalico
HOME RUNS: Cubs: Glenallen Hill
ATTENDEES: Mike Cetera
These were some mediocre Cardinals teams—it was right before Pujols arrived—and the only real reason to watch was McGwire. Unfortunately, he had the day off, and Joe McEwing—a classic scrappy fan favorite; when McDonald’s sponsored “Big Mac Land” in the upper deck of Busch Stadium for McGwire homers, they added a “Little Mac Land” in the lower bleachers for McEwing, which gave everyone in the stadium a free order of small fries if he hit one out there—was thrown out stealing in the ninth inning with the Cards down a run. Mike spent most of the game agonizing over whether or not to get back together with Joan during a brief hiatus. He did.
FINAL SCORE: New York Mets 7 (1–0), Arizona Diamondbacks 6 (0–1)
DATE: 21 May 2000
LOCATION: Shea Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Rick Reed
LOSING PITCHER: Randy Johnson
HOME RUNS: Mets: Joe McEwing (2), Mike Piazza, Edgardo Alfonzo, Robin Ventura. Diamondbacks: Steve Finley, Travis Lee
ATTENDEES: Heather Benz
My first visit to a New York stadium, where I realized quickly that even though Rudy Guiliani had transformed most of the city into a Disney-fied tourist playground, he hadn’t quite gotten around to Shea, which vaguely resembled the Thunderdome with surface-to-air missiles. McEwing, my beloved middling middle infielder, had a reputation for being able to hit off Johnson—at the time the most dominating pitcher in baseball—though his lifetime .250 average against the Unit belies that. On this day, though, my Midwestern Cardinals buddy welcomed me to Gotham with a homer and two doubles, and this city seemed vulnerable, conquerable.
FINAL SCORE: Chicago White Sox 10 (1–1), New York Yankees 9 (0–1)
DATE: 17 June 2000
LOCATION: Yankee Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Cal Eldred
LOSING PITCHER: Jake Westbrook
HOME RUNS: White Sox: Chris Singleton (2), Magglio Ordonez. Yankees: Bernie Williams
ATTENDEES: Chris Jenkins
Now that the old Yankee Stadium has been torn down, we remember it as a cathedral to baseball’s epic history, but we forget that after the hideous seventies renovation, it mostly looked like a dated ode to urban blight. My first trip broke my heart, though. Before I moved there, I had always thought of New York as a haven for artists, writers, thinkers. I imagined the baseball games would feature recitations of Bart Giamatti poems between innings. Turns out, they sang “Cotton-Eyed Joe” like the idiots back home.
FINAL SCORE: Atlanta Braves 6 (1–0), New York Mets 4 (1–1)
DATE: 29 June 2000
LOCATION: Shea Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: John Burkett
LOSING PITCHER: Rick Reed (1–1)
HOME RUNS: Braves: Andres Galarraga
ATTENDEES: Fellow employees of Novix Media, a hot dot-com company that was going to make us all rich (and employed us all for precisely forty-four more days)
This was the triumphant return to Shea Stadium by Braves closer John Rocker, who, just six months earlier, had said he hated going to Mets games because of all the “queers with AIDS” and “Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?” Mets fans worked up all their bile . . . and Rocker still shut down the Mets to earn the save. It was probably the last highlight of Rocker’s troubled career. Years later I interviewed him and his black girlfriend in a bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and he drank lots of Red Bull and talked about running for national office someday.
FINAL SCORE: New York Mets 4 (2–1), St. Louis Cardinals 3 (4–4)
DATE: 29 July 2000
LOCATION: Shea Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Rick White
LOSING PITCHER: Mike James
HOME RUNS: Mets: Mike Piazza (2), Mike Bordick; Cardinals: Ray Lankford (3), Jim Edmonds
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch, Sally Leitch, Jill Leitch
My family’s first visit to New York, timed of course to a Cardinals visit. The Leitches did not immediately take to New York. The oppressive heat, the intrusive crowds, the sudden awareness of millions of minorities . . . it was all stacked against the Mattoonians. A highlight of the visit: the family, overheated and exhausted, screaming at one another in Times Square. Right when my sister was about to shiv my eyeball, Cardinals outfielder J. D. Drew walked right past us on the street. We all stopped, looked at one another, said, “Hey, look, J. D. Drew,” and then reconvened the screaming. Later, we all had dinner at a T.G.I. Friday’s and agreed not to talk about it.
FINAL SCORE: New York Yankees 9 (2–1), Seattle Mariners 7 (0–1)
DATE: 17 October 2000
LOCATION: Yankee Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Orlando Hernandez
LOSING PITCHER: Arthur Rhodes
HOME RUNS: Mariners: Alex Rodriguez, Carlos Guillen; Yankees: David Justice
ATTENDEES: Erin Franzman
My first postseason game, I decided to pretend to be a Yankees fan for three hours. By that, I mean, “just assume, no matter what happens, your team is going to win.” (This was 2000, at the end of the Yankees Dynasty, when this was a perfectly logical strategy.) David Justice hit a huge (and largely forgotten) three-run homer in the seventh inning, and the Yankees were off to the Subway Series. I hadn’t even lived in New York a year and had no idea what that meant. Mostly, I learned that Yankees fans had no idea how the rest of the world lived. One guy noticed my Cardinals hat and asked if the “STL” stood for “Scranton.”
FINAL SCORE: New York Yankees 7 (3–1), Tampa Bay Devil Rays (0–2)
DATE: 29 June 2001
LOCATION: Yankee Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Roger Clemens
LOSING PITCHER: Bryan Rekar
HOME RUNS: Yankees: Tino Martinez, Alfonso Soriano
ATTENDEES: Mike Bruno
To be honest, I spent the last four innings of this game drinking tequila and smoking cigarettes in one of the terraces in the upper tier. Now that new Yankee Stadium requires you to take your shoes off before you enter, I can’t believe you could once smoke in the old one. Despite the tequila, I still kept my score book updated.
FINAL SCORE: New York Mets 4 (4–2), St. Louis Cardinals 3 (4–6)
DATE: 23 April 2002
LOCATION: Shea Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Jeff D’Amico
LOSING PITCHER: Matt Morris
HOME RUNS: Cardinals: Albert Pujols
ATTENDEES: Tim Grierson
Most notable for being the first time I saw The Great Pujols in person. People forget how he was just a gift for the Cardinals dropped from the clouds. He hadn’t even been a heralded prospect, and the only reason he made the team out of Spring Training in 2001 was because Bobby Bonilla was hurt. (Seriously.) He must have known I was there and witnessing him for the first time: He hit a two-run homer in the first inning.
FINAL SCORE: St. Louis Cardinals 5 (5–6), Houston Astros 4 (0–1)
DATE: 23 May 2002
LOCATION: Busch Stadium, St. Louis
WINNING PITCHER: Jason Isringhausen
LOSING PITCHER: Octavio Dotel
HOME RUNS: Cardinals: Jim Edmonds (2)
ATTENDEES: Brian Doolittle bachelor party
As you’ve probably guessed by my simpering, effete tone, I’m not much of a strip club guy. This was the perfect bachelor party: bleacher seats at Busch, a Cardinals victory, and enough Bud Light to kill a Clydesdale. I plan on doing this for all five of my eventual bachelor parties. Albert Pujols was playing third base in this game.
FINAL SCORE: St. Louis Cardinals 3 (6–7), San Diego Padres 3 (0–2)
DATE: 1 July 2002
LOCATION: Busch Stadium, St. Louis
WINNING PITCHER: Woody Williams
LOSING PITCHER: Oliver Perez
HOME RUNS: Padres: Ray Lankford (5); Cardinals: Jim Edmonds (3), Albert Pujols (2), Miguel Cairo, Woody Williams
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch, Sally Leitch, Jill Leitch
I begin a yearly homesick tradition of spending one weekend in St. Louis, preferably one against an inferior foe. The starting third baseman this game was Mike Coolbaugh, the minor-league first base coach who was killed by a line drive in a minor-league game five years later. He went 0-for-4 in this, one of his three starts that season, his last in the major leagues.
FINAL SCORE: Houston Astros 5 (1–1), Montreal Expos 3 (0–1)
DATE: 3 August 2002
LOCATION: Olympic Stadium, Montreal
WINNING PITCHER: Octavio Dotel (1–1)
LOSING PITCHER: T. J. Tucker
HOME RUNS: Expos: Brad Wilkerson; Astros: Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio
ATTENDEES: Amy Blair
Three observations from my lone trip to baseball abroad to see the sadly lamented Expos:
I miss the Expos. Don’t you?
FINAL SCORE: St. Louis Cardinals 5 (9–7), Philadelphia Phillies 1 (1–2)
DATE: 18 August 1999
LOCATION: Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia
WINNING PITCHER: Matt Morris (1–1)
LOSING PITCHER: Vicente Padilla (1–1)
HOME RUNS: Phillies: Bobby Abreu (2); Cardinals: Edgar Renteria (2)
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch, Sally Leitch, Jill Leitch
After the game, we took Philadelphia’s amusing impersonation of a subway system back to my uncle’s home. It was a blistering summer, and my sister was wearing a tank top, which caught the attention of some teenagers on the train. Little did they know: Jill was going through a collegiate rebellion phase at the time, listening to a lot of Ani DiFranco and Tori Amos, and she had stopped shaving her armpit hair. When the train hit a bump, she raised her arms to grab the strap above. You could actually hear the guys go “Awwwwwww!!!!” from twenty feet away. She has since shaved the armpits.
FINAL SCORE: Baltimore Orioles 2 (1–0), Boston Red Sox 1 (0–1)
DATE: 5 April 2003
LOCATION: Camden Yards, Baltimore
WINNING PITCHER: B. J. Ryan
LOSING PITCHER: Chad Fox
ATTENDEES: Matt Pitzer, Kate Pitzer, Tyson Kade
I was trying to come up with a metaphor for the odd experience of Camden Yards feeling dated and derivative of all the other new stadiums even though it was the template and the rest are rip-offs. Best I can come up with? M*A*S*H (the TV show) seems incredibly mawkish and awkward now, in the wake of shows that took what it did and refined it, but at the time, it was thought revolutionary. Plus, both M*A*S*H and Camden Yards feature George Will shooting Koreans.
FINAL SCORE: Oakland A’s 5 (1–0), New York Yankees 3 (5–2)
DATE: 3 May 2003
LOCATION: Yankee Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Keith Foulke
LOSING PITCHER: Juan Acevedo
HOME RUNS: Yankees: Jason Giambi; A’s: Eric Chavez
ATTENDEES: Greg Lindsay
This game was about two weeks before Michael Lewis’s revolutionary bestseller Moneyball came out, confusing Joe Morgan and changing the game of baseball forever. I wonder if Billy Beane knew what he was in for on this lazy May afternoon. In my memories, Bill James was umpiring this game, and he was smoking a pipe.
FINAL SCORE: New York Yankees 5 (6–3), St. Louis Cardinals 2 (9–8)
DATE: 13 June 2003
LOCATION: Yankee Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Roger Clemens (3–0)
LOSING PITCHER: Jason Simontacchi (1–1)
HOME RUNS: Cardinals: Jim Edmonds (5); Yankees: Raul Mondesi (2), Ruben Sierra, Hideki Matsui
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch, Sally Leitch
Only the siren song of the Cardinals playing at Yankee Stadium for the first time since 1964 (when my father was fifteen years old and four years away from meeting my mother) could bring the Leitches back to New York. As luck would have it, their visit would coincide with Roger Clemens going for his three hundredth win and his four thousandth strikeout. He notched them both and came on the field afterward to roaring, relentless cheers that never, ever stopped. “I’m sad the Cardinals lost,” Dad said, “but I’m glad we got to see this. Clemens seems like a class act.”
FINAL SCORE: New York Yankees 13 (7–3), St. Louis Cardinals 4 (9–9)
DATE: 13 June 2003
LOCATION: Yankee Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Andy Pettitte
LOSING PITCHER: Matt Morris (1–1)
HOME RUNS: Cardinals: Tino Martinez 2 (2); Yankees: Jason Giambi 2 (3), Raul Mondesi (3), Ruben Sierra (2)
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch, Sally Leitch
In the midst of the rainiest summer in record New York history, the Leitches were faced with the fiercest test yet of their fervid Never Leave A Game Early mantra. That is to say: The Yankees took a 4–0 lead in the first inning before a dreary two-hour rain delay. During the delay, I took my parents on a tour of the stadium. When the Bleacher Creatures noticed the Cardinal-red-clad fans looking at them, they began chanting “DAR-YLE KI-LE! DAR-YLE KI-LE!” at us, in mocking memoriam of the beloved pitcher who had died a year earlier. Welcome to New York, Leitches. The Cardinals fell behind 13–2 after the rain delay, but we stayed until the last pitch anyway.
FINAL SCORE: New York Mets 13 (6–4), St. Louis Cardinals 5 (10–11)
DATE: 3 August 2003
LOCATION: Shea Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Jeremy Griffiths
LOSING PITCHER: Garrett Stephenson (0–2)
HOME RUNS: Mets: Tony Clark 2 (3); Cardinals: Bo Hart (2)
ATTENDEES: Aileen Gallagher, David Gaffen, Kathie Fries
Since I started the score books, this was the last time the Cardinals were within one game under .500. The 2000s were probably the Cardinals’ best decade in their storied history. Their record in games I attended? 26–35.
FINAL SCORE: New York Yankees 6 (9–3), Kansas City Royals 3 (0–1)
DATE: 19 August 2003
LOCATION: Yankee Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Andy Pettitte (1–1)
LOSING PITCHER: Kevin Appier (1–1)
HOME RUNS: Yankees: Alfonso Soriano (2), Bernie Williams (2), Karim Garcia
ATTENDEES: Mike Bruno, Liz Zach, A. J. Daulerio
The years of losing, nonstop, unrelenting losing, have disguised the fact that Kansas City is one of the best baseball cities in the country. Kansas City has the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and great baseball writers like Joe Posnanski, Bill James, Rob Neyer, Jeff Passan, and Rany Jazayerli developed their love of the game watching the Royals. George Brett’s a civic hero. It’s a wonderful place to watch baseball. They’ve had one winning season in fifteen years. If the Royals ever become relevant again, no fans will have earned it more.
FINAL SCORE: Chicago Cubs 4 (3–1), St. Louis Cardinals 2 (10–13)
DATE: 2 September 2003
LOCATION: Wrigley Field, Chicago
WINNING PITCHER: Mark Guthrie
LOSING PITCHER: Jeff Fassero
HOME RUNS: Cardinals: Jim Edmonds (6); Cubs: Sammy Sosa
ATTENDEES: Mike Cetera, Joan Mocek
The aforementioned Best Man game. Jeff Fassero should never be allowed to pitch to Sammy Sosa, under any circumstances.
FINAL SCORE: Boston Red Sox 9 (1–2), New York Yankees 6 (9–4)
DATE: 15 October 2003
LOCATION: Yankee Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Alan Embree
LOSING PITCHER: Jose Contreras
HOME RUNS: Red Sox: Trot Nixon, Jason Varitek; Yankees: Jason Giambi (4), Jorge Posada (3)
ATTENDEES: Amy Blair, Erika Croxton
This was Game 6 of the 2003 ALCS, the game before Grady Little’s Pedro Martinez brain cramp and Aaron Boone’s crushing homer. I sat in the bleachers with thousands of drunk, freezing fans giving me wedgies for keeping my score book. But I still didn’t miss a pitch. Afterward, my friend Amy, devastated that she didn’t see her Yankees clinch a World Series, punched a Red Sox fan in the face. The Red Sox–Yankees rivalry terrifies me.
FINAL SCORE: Toronto Blue Jays 5 (1–0), Baltimore Orioles 4 (1–1)
DATE: 24 April 2004
LOCATION: Camden Yards, Baltimore
WINNING PITCHER: Kerry Ligtenberg
LOSING PITCHER: Mike DeJean (1–1)
HOME RUNS: Orioles: Miguel Cabrera; Blue Jays: Carlos Delgado
ATTENDEES: Matt Pitzer
The Orioles lineup this night: Brian Roberts (mentioned in Mitchell Report’s steroid blacklist), Melvin Mora (openly rumored to have taken steroids), Miguel Tejada (Mitchell Report), Rafael Palmeiro (tested positive for steroids), Javy Lopez (openly rumored to have taken steroids), Jay Gibbons (Mitchell Report), David Segui (admitted to having used human growth hormone), Luis Matos (apparently clean), Larry Bigbie (Mitchell Report).
FINAL SCORE: New York Mets 4 (8–4), Colorado Rockies 0 (0–1)
DATE: 23 May 2004
LOCATION: Shea Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Tom Glavine
LOSING PITCHER: Shawn Estes (0–2)
ATTENDEES: Greg Lindsay
For any true seamhead, the holy grail of any trip to the ballpark is a no-hitter. This was the closest I ever came. Tom Glavine shut down the Rockies for seven-and-two-thirds innings before a hooking line drive from someone named Kit Pellow just eluded Shane Spencer’s grasp for a double, the Rockies’ lone hit. I’ll never make it farther than that, I fear. I wonder what would have happened if Glavine had finished this off, completing the Mets’ first-ever no-hitter. (It’s crazy the Mets have never had a no-hitter, by the way.) Glavine was ultimately run out of town by the Mets, and the mere mention of his name causes Mets fans to stab themselves in the head. But four outs more, and he would have been a Mets legend. Every game, every pitch counts, forever.
FINAL SCORE: Boston Red Sox 10 (3–3), New York Yankees 3 (12–6)
DATE: 20 October 2004
LOCATION: Yankee Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Derek Lowe (1–1)
LOSING PITCHER: Kevin Brown (2–1)
HOME RUNS: Red Sox: Johnny Damon 2 (2), David Ortiz (2), Mark Bellhorn
ATTENDEES: Heather Benz
Yes, I was at Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, when the Sox finished that ridiculous comeback against the Yankees. This is less exciting than it sounds: Again, if you’re a fan of neither team, the game is merely about spectacle, and this game had little. It was essentially over after the second inning when Damon hit a grand slam to give the Sox a 5–0 lead. I spent the entire game warming in the glow of Jim Edmonds’s NLCS Game 6 homer, which I’d watched at a bar across the street from Yankee Stadium right before this game started, and looking up at George Steinbrenner’s skybox to see if he’d jumped out. I don’t know why I don’t just move back to St. Louis already.
FINAL SCORE: San Diego Padres 5 (2–3), St. Louis Cardinals 4 (12–16)
DATE: 7 May 2005
LOCATION: Busch Stadium, St. Louis
WINNING PITCHER: Adam Eaton (2–0)
LOSING PITCHER: Chris Carpenter (1–1)
HOME RUNS: Cardinals: Albert Pujols (7), Larry Walker
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch, Sally Leitch, Jill Leitch
Thanks to her recent chemotherapy treatments, my mother had lost her hair and looked a little too much like my uncle for everyone’s tastes, particularly my father’s. She wore a hat for two innings before throwing it at me. “It’s too fucking hot,” she said. “I’ll just make the beer man piss his pants, I don’t care.” They gave us free beer the whole game.
FINAL SCORE: New York Yankees 6 (13–6), Pittsburgh Pirates 1 (0–2)
DATE: 16 June 2005
LOCATION: Yankee Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Randy Johnson (1–1)
LOSING PITCHER: Oliver Perez (0–2)
HOME RUNS: Yankees: Hideki Matsui (2); Pirates: Michael Restovich
ATTENDEES: Self
If you want to know what my life was like in June 2005, witness me going by myself to a Yankees-Pirates game simply because it was interleague and both pitchers were tall.
FINAL SCORE: St. Louis Cardinals 4 (14–17), San Francisco Giants 2 (3–4)
DATE: 20 August 2005
LOCATION: Busch Stadium, St. Louis
WINNING PITCHER: Matt Morris (2–2)
LOSING PITCHER: Kevin Correia
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch
My last series at the old Busch Stadium. After the game, my father and I ran into Cardinals reliever Al Reyes, who was in the midst of his best season. He spotted us at a bar, wearing our dopey red Cardinals gear, and said, “Hey, Cardinals fans, lemme buy you a shot!” And he did. Two-and-a-half years later, Reyes punched a police officer at a Tampa bar and was tasered twice. He earned the win for the Rays the next night. Al Reyes is awesome.
FINAL SCORE: San Francisco Giants 4 (4–4), St. Louis Cardinals 2 (14–18)
DATE: 21 August 2005
LOCATION: Busch Stadium, St. Louis
WINNING PITCHER: Jason Schmidt (1–1)
LOSING PITCHER: Jeff Suppan
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch
Fittingly, the last game I ever saw at the old stadium, they lost. Pujols had the day off, someone named Scott Seabol batted fifth, and I spent the last inning on a train to the airport to catch my plane. Just a dreary day all around. I grew up at Busch Stadium, and I left it for the final time like it was a boring opera I couldn’t wait to see end. I’ll never forgive myself for this.
FINAL SCORE: Los Angeles Dodgers 3 (1–0), San Francisco Giants 1 (4–5)
DATE: 15 April 2006
LOCATION: Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles
WINNING PITCHER: Odalis Perez
LOSING PITCHER: Jason Schmidt (1–1)
ATTENDEES: Mark Pesavento
I’m not sure enough people appreciate just how gorgeous Dodger Stadium is. Somehow, in the middle of downtown Los Angeles (which might be the least appealing urban center in the country), there’s a lovely, leisurely, isolated baseball stadium where it feels like it’s 1960 and everyone’s wearing fedoras and pretending they’re Don Draper in a Hawaiian shirt. It’s pure baseball pleasure, and that’s even without hearing Vin Scully’s voice piped through the bathrooms.
FINAL SCORE: St. Louis Cardinals 8 (15–21), Atlanta Braves 3 (3–1)
DATE: 19 July 2006
LOCATION: New Busch Stadium, St. Louis
WINNING PITCHER: Chris Carpenter (2–1)
LOSING PITCHER: Jason Shiell
HOME RUNS: Cardinals: Jim Edmonds (9); Braves: Brian McCann (3)
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch
Five minutes before game time, in my first visit to the Cardinals’ new park, St. Louis was hit with a tornado. Remember when the spaceships attack the cities in Independence Day? When everything’s fine, and then all of a sudden the black green clouds converge, and everything is dark and still? That’s what it was like. A friend sent me a text message, tongue-in-cheek: “Beware the clouds of death!” The grounds crew brought the tarp onto the field, though it wasn’t raining yet. I grabbed a beer and started chatting with the lady who sold it to us. I looked on, curiously, as the American flag waved one direction, then whipped back dramatically in the other.
And then: WHAM. Within a matter of seconds, chaos reigned. The beer tent we were standing under imploded, sending—no!—beer flying everywhere and people scattering in all directions. A television camera fell from just above me. Everyone ducked for cover; one guy ran around with his daughter, screaming that she had a bad heart, though he seemed a lot more scared than she was. I think I heard Joe Buck cry. It was absolutely surreal.
FINAL SCORE: New York Mets 4 (18–10), St. Louis Cardinals 2 (15–25)
DATE: 18 October 2006
LOCATION: Shea Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: John Maine
LOSING PITCHER: Chris Carpenter (2–2)
HOME RUNS: Mets: Jose Reyes (2)
ATTENDEES: Kristen Pettit
Given the opportunity to possibly see the Cardinals clinch the World Series—they came into this NLCS Game 6 up 3–2—I couldn’t turn it down, despite the enemy territory. But after the Cardinals lost, and after hearing everyone around me do backflips while I was in misery, I knew, for Game 7, I needed to find some Cardinals fans. Dewey’s Flatiron in Manhattan, and twenty-four hours later, I had about a hundred new best friends, all of whom I had licked champagne off.
FINAL SCORE: St. Louis Cardinals 4 (16–24), Detroit Tigers 2 (0–1)
DATE: 27 October 2006
LOCATION: Busch Stadium, St. Louis
WINNING PITCHER: Jeff Weaver (1–1)
LOSING PITCHER: Justin Verlander
HOME RUNS: Tigers: Sean Casey
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch, Sally Leitch
I might have mentioned this game. If you’re host to a World Series–clinching game, you drop the “new” from your name, that’s for goddamned sure.
FINAL SCORE: St. Louis Cardinals 5 (17–24), New York Mets 3 (19–11)
DATE: 26 June 2007
LOCATION: Shea Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Brad Thompson
LOSING PITCHER: Scott Schoeneweis
HOME RUNS: Cardinals: Brendan Ryan; Mets: Paul Lo Duca
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch, Sally Leitch
It was around this point of the season that we realized the Cardinals weren’t going to repeat as World Series champions—the cleanup hitter was Juan Encarnacion—and just began hoping everyone on the Cubs, who looked light-years better, would start randomly snapping hamstrings. By the way: No worse time for my mother to be wearing a Yadier Molina jersey at Shea Stadium than the Cards’ first visit to Shea since the 2006 NLCS. By the end of the game, her hair, now grown back, was 64 percent chewing gum.
FINAL SCORE: St. Louis Cardinals 5 (18–26), San Diego Padres 0 (2–4)
DATE: 9 August 2007
LOCATION: Busch Stadium, St. Louis
WINNING PITCHER: Joel Pineiro
LOSING PITCHER: Chris Young
HOME RUNS: Cardinals: Rick Ankiel
ATTENDEES: Brian Doolittle, Amanda Doolittle, Brian Desmet
The story of Rick Ankiel is an amazing one, sure, but to Cardinals fans, it’s not a miracle or a life-affirming tale: It’s just the story of a wayward nephew who, finally, seems to have backed away from the abyss and is able to stay clean . . . for now, anyway. This was Ankiel’s first game as an outfielder—he was called up from Memphis before the game—and his seventh-inning homer was one of the great sporting events I’ve ever witnessed. In the dugout, Tony La Russa, who barely budged a muscle when the Cardinals won the World Series, leapt, hooted, and hollered like he’d won the lottery, or the FDA had permanently banned canned meat. He understood. He knew this was about more than just baseball. Anywhere else, Ankiel is roadkill, long forgotten. In St. Louis, he’s a permanent part of the skyline. No matter what else happens.
FINAL SCORE: Los Angeles Dodgers 2 (3–1), St. Louis Cardinals 1 (18–27)
DATE: 10 August 2007
LOCATION: Busch Stadium, St. Louis
WINNING PITCHER: Joe Beimel
LOSING PITCHER: Adam Wainwright (1–1)
HOME RUNS: Dodgers: James Loney
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch
Watching my father work his way up the Busch Stadium ticket food chain over the years has been a unique pleasure. When I was a kid, he was in the upper deck. Then to the bleachers. Then the middle tier. Now he’s one spot away from box seats: “In a coupla years, I wanna get those seats where you can just push a button and they just bring you beer.”
FINAL SCORE: St. Louis Cardinals 3 (21–27), New York Mets 0 (21–12)
DATE: 27 September 2007
LOCATION: Shea Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Joel Pineiro (2–0)
LOSING PITCHER: Pedro Martinez (0–2)
ATTENDEES: Aileen Gallagher
I apologize to Mets fans in advance here, but this was smack in the middle of the Mets’ collapse, the worst collapse, according to Baseball Prospectus, in the history of the major leagues. When a baseball team falls apart down the stretch, it’s worse than anything else in sports, because it happens in slow motion. First it’s one, then two, then a spot win, all’s fine, then another two losses, then another, then oh my god this cannot be happening. Would you rather die by shotgun or by Chinese water torture? The Mets die by Chinese water torture. Shoot them in the head, please. Be kind. Be merciful.
FINAL SCORE: St. Louis Cardinals 5 (22–28), Milwaukee Brewers 3 (2–1)
DATE: 10 May 2008
LOCATION: Miller Park, Milwaukee
WINNING PITCHER: Russ Springer
LOSING PITCHER: Eric Gagne
HOME RUNS: Cardinals: Chris Duncan; Brewers: Prince Fielder
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch, Sally Leitch
Eric Gagne career path, with salaries:
2003: Cy Young winner, Los Angeles Dodgers, $550,000
2004: All-Star reliever, Los Angeles Dodgers, $5 million
2005: Mostly injured pitcher, Los Angeles Dodgers, $8 million
2006: Pitches total of two innings, Los Angeles Dodgers, $10 million
2007: Ineffective, hated reliever, Boston Red Sox, accused of taking HGH in Mitchell Report, $6 million
2008: Awful reliever, Milwaukee Brewers, $10 million
2009: Starting pitcher, Quebec Capitales, Can-Am League, $25 per diem
FINAL SCORE: St. Louis Cardinals 9 (23–28), Boston Red Sox 3 (3–5)
DATE: 21 June 2008
LOCATION: Fenway Park, Boston
WINNING PITCHER: Mitchell Boggs
LOSING PITCHER: Daisuke Matsuzaka
HOME RUNS: Cardinals: Rick Ankiel (4), Troy Glaus, Aaron Miles; Red Sox: J. D. Drew
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch, Sally Leitch, Alexa Stevenson
How badly did my parents want to see Fenway Park? Bad enough that I coughed up $250 apiece for four halfway-decent seats. Bad enough that, for the first time in our lives, my family took a flight together to make sure they saw the game in time. (When I was growing up, nineteen-hour drives were the norm.) Bad enough that my endlessly patient girlfriend bought Cardinals socks that lighted up. Was it worth it? My dad: “Fenway smells like Ted Williams thawed out and everyone’s too afraid to say anything.”
FINAL SCORE: New York Mets 7 (23–12), St. Louis Cardinals 2 (23–29)
DATE: 25 July 2008
LOCATION: Shea Stadium, New York
WINNING PITCHER: Mike Pelfrey (2–0)
LOSING PITCHER: Mitchell Boggs (1–1)
HOME RUNS: Mets: Carlos Delgado (4), Argenis Reyes
ATTENDEES: Julia Furay, Mike Ryan
My final visit to Shea Stadium ended like so many had before: With the Mets stomping on the Cardinals’ larynx. I always thought Shea got a bad rap: Sure, it was ugly and dated and a ratty urban coliseum, but it always had the feel that something important was happening there. The place raised its game when it mattered. At Citi Field, the new place . . . it feels like a nice place to go have dinner.
FINAL SCORE: St. Louis Cardinals 18 (24–29), Atlanta Braves 3 (3–3)
DATE: 22 August 2008
LOCATION: Busch Stadium, St. Louis
WINNING PITCHER: Adam Wainwright (1–1)
LOSING PITCHER: Charlie Morton
HOME RUNS: Braves: Greg Norton
ATTENDEES: Bryan Leitch, Sally Leitch
My favorite tidbit from the biggest Cardinals blowout I’ve ever attended? Not that the Cardinals didn’t hit a single homer en route to scoring eighteen runs. Not that Jason LaRue played left field. Not that the game was still over in under three hours. No, my favorite tidbit was that Joel Pineiro, a starter, managed to earn a save in an 18–3 game.
WHICH BRINGS US TO TODAY.
WHEN I RETURN TO MY SEAT, with more beers, Mike taps me on the shoulder and shows me his left arm, which is partially covered in ink.
“Lee flied to right, Ramirez grounded to short, and Edmonds struck out on a check swing. I figured you’d need that for your scorebook.”
I did. Thank you. One more half-inning for the historians.
KNOWLEDGE YOU NOW HAVE