JASON CASTRO’S 2ND 8/24 HR HITS IN SABR SEATS: Herb Whalley (top center) and Bill McCurdy (top right, with “H” cap) watch the pursuit.
The easiest remembered moments at a baseball game are not always the walk off homers in the bottom of the ninth or the strike out of the other team’s big hitter with two outs and the sacks loaded with the tying runs on base in the top of the final stanza.
Sometimes it’s just the little moments that bring the game we’re watching close to us personally in a way that sticks in our conscious minds forever. I may have added two or three of those memories to my own rather full, but grateful pail of happy times at the old ballpark site this past Saturday from my seat in the right center field stands at Minute Maid Park in Houston.
I was sitting with several members of our SABR chapter members after our annual meeting at the ballpark, a meeting which provided most of us with the opportunity to meet and hear from new Astros President Reid Ryan for the first time – and that one was a baseball-memorable moment in itself, but not quite on the everyday thing level I’m talking about here.
The above picture from Sunday’s 8/25/13 Houston Chronicle shows fellow SABR member Herb Whalley and yours truly simply watching the descent of Jason Castro’s second homer of the game into the grasping hands of fans sitting in front of us. We never had a shot, but now we have the memory – helped along by an e-mail from our SABR Chair, Bob Dorrill, that this photo made the papers.
Other memories for me on Saturday included:
(1) The little toddler dressed in Astros gear who got passed for holding time to about ten adults in the apparent close family group that was attending the game together;
(2) SABR member Herb “The Quiet Man” Whalley as he religiously kept score of the game. Herb is keeping score of games for a very special reason this season, but only he is free to divulge his motives;
(3) Those two Castro home runs that landed to the left and right of me, just in time to remind me of the time in 1950 I tried to catch a long foul ball in the Knothole Gang at Buff Stadium with a mustard-heavy hot dog in my glove hand – only to end up with a lost ball, a memory, and no meal;
(4) The confectionary vendor who both sold me the Cracker Jack box I purchased and then soulfully blessed it as guaranteed fresh by his powers as a “Reverend”; and,
(5) The row of six or seven ladies down near the rail who performed synchronized arm dance routines every time the loud speakers blared out loud rock music as player introductions; they were having a good time as performers – with acts that included movements that ranged from fisherwomen pulling in fish to some moves that looked like very serious palates sequences.
That’s only five for me, but think about it. If you could attend all 81 Astros home games and pick up 5 new memories each time, that would multiply up to 405 new memories for that season.
Of course, you could also save your money by dreaming up the whole thing from an easy lawn chair as you listened to the game’s radio broadcast in your own backyards, but you’d have to imagine the blessed baby, the blessed Cracker Jack, the rain of homers, the dancing girls, and also do the scorekeeping – all by yourself.
Have a nice Stormy Monday, everybody!
The Pecan Park Eagle 
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