What a way to cap off a belated anniversary celebration!
Norma and I had just returned home yesterday from our three-days-late celebration of our January 25, 1986 wedding to find a nice card and gift from Darrell and Susan Pittman at our front door.
What could have touched the heart from and to a diehard Astros fan more? It was 4″ high bottle of dirt – dirt extracted from the played fielding field at Dodger Stadium after the November 1, 2017 Game 7 got settled on a 4-3 play at 1st in the bottom of the 9th. It could have been dirt taken from the same infield area of the batter’s box from which George Springer launched his 2-run homer off Yu Darvish of the Dodgers to make it 5-0 Astros early – forever this night finally breaking the spirit of the Dodgers and elevating the Astros to the winning side – and forever, forever, forever pointing out the Houston Astros as the 2017 new World Series Champions.
I wasn’t aware that this MLB authenticated field dirt package was even available until it arrived as a gift from the Pittmans. Darrell says it was advertised by MLB over the Internet fairly soon after the World Series was done, but that’s all I know. If you are interested, you may want to check on these field dirt bottles and their ongoing availability with MLB.com.
The only other dirt field sample I’ve ever previously owned still sits in its own small bottle at my I-10 Houston office. It came from our Pecan Park Eagles sandlot home in the East End – a place called Eagle Field.
Eagle Field was small, but our dreams were big.
Now comes another small bottle. And this one contains the fulfillment of one dream that’s been alive since the days of Eagle Field.
Houston is now champion of the baseball world!
Thank you again, Darrell and Susan, for this eternal reminder.
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Bill McCurdy
Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher
The Pecan Park Eagle