Saturday, July 9, 2011

I was there when...

Everyone is talking 3,000 hits because of Jeter. Congrats to Jeter. He won the game for NY today. It was a great back-and-forth game. It is a big deal for sure to get to 3,000. There had been as many guys tally 3,000 as there are outs recorded by a pitcher in a perfect game - 27. Now there are 28.

Reminds me of a story.

In high school I had one of the greatest job a high schooler can have. I sold dippin dots ice cream at Rays baseball games. Well, they were the Devil Rays then but same thing. I could get into the games (well, I had to be there) 30 minutes before gates opened to the public so I got to watch part of the Rays batting practice in a pretty empty stadium. Sometimes I would go down close and talk to the guys or get an autograph. Fred McGriff was nice and so was Wade Boggs. The one guy I couldn't stand and who was never nice was Jose Canseco (probably not a huge shock to most people).

So I worked the game when Boggs was at 2,999 hits. I worked out in the food court area with another person who didn't care as much and let me run into the nearest section to watch each time Wade came to bat. It was electric in there. I remember well standing there with another food vendor and predicting the home run. Sure enough. Home run. The crowd went wild. I don't think I really appreciated it at that age but it was pretty cool to watch live a guy get his 3,000th hit.

Now there are two guys who hit home runs for their 3,000th hit. I wasn't in Yankee Stadium today but I was there when Boggs jogged around the bases for his moment in history.

No comments:

Post a Comment