Journeys of Jack Tripper

He grabs his keys, pops the trunk, and jumps out of the car. From the trunk he grabs several items to complete his inventory. Mitt? Check. Magazine? Check: Last month's Fast Company.

The parking lot attendant squints at him, curious. By the time he's finished, the pockets of his khaki Gap shorts are laden with supplies, causing the bottom of his bright white #13 CRAWFORD jersey to bulge out comically. He takes inventory a final time, then folds the magazine into the webbing of the baseball glove and heads toward the towering, white, asymmetric edifice across the street.

Friday Nights at the Trop. Also known as College Night, they're about the only thing Tampa Bay Devil Rays ownership has managed to get right in the eight years of the team's existence. Bleacher tickets? Three bucks. Draft beer? A DOLLAR. Indeed, even after an authentic Nathan's hot dog, the costliest element of a Friday Night at the Trop is the parking -- which, as a veteran of ten Friday Nights at the Trop, I know is a rip-off at the official $10 lots. I've long ago found the $5 lot next to Ferg's Sports Bar to be nearly as close and, well, half as much.

Yet this isn't just any Friday Night at the Trop. Tonight is a bit more auspicious. First of all, it's the last College Night of the season -- a fact that will, presumably, not be lost on the area's college students. After all, if there's anything more stupefying and unbelievable than getting into a Major League Baseball game for three bucks, it's buying beer at said game for A DOLLAR. (That fact alone is astounding enough that it warrants the full capitalization.)

Furthermore, tonight starts the final series of the season, and initiates the end of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' First Reich, if you will. Sports radio has been screaming all day about the 6:00 p.m. press conference scheduled by Rays manager Lou Piniella, where he's expected to announce his departure from the organization. It's still not certain whether he's leaving on his own or if he's been fired, but his frustration with Rays ownership is well-documented. Fortunately, the end of the season is expected to bring the relinquishing of control by team owner Vince Naimoli -- an individual who has been compared, so far, to such illustrious characters as Ebeneezer Scrooge and Cruella DeVille -- and the beginning of a new regime for a downtrodden but promising team.

And on top of that, it's the last baseball I get to see in person until March.



I'm always late to the stadium. Regardless of how early I plan to leave, something always gets in the way of my intentioned 5:30 arrival time. Today, it was a Ford Explorer flipped on I-275 near the Dale Mabry overpass. It's not as if rush hour traffic isn't bad on that section of highway to begin with, and I find myself rushing through the gates in an attempt to catch the tail end of batting practice.

BP is an important event for me. Since I always sit in the cheap seats, BP is my opportunity to sit a bit closer to the field and take in the "baseball experience." Left field bleachers have been my home for most of my baseball-oriented life; be it at Wrigley Field, The Jake in Cleveland, or Cincinnati's gorgeous new Great American Ballpark. There's no place I'd rather be than behind the left field fence -- and batting practice brings out everyone with a glove and time to spare, hoping to snag a ball courtesy some right-handed slugger. Yet in all these years, in the dozens of games I've attended, and in the thousands of balls hit in batting practice, not one has ever even come near me. I'm on the verge of giving up the dream and spending my pre-game at the Budweiser Brewhouse instead of watching BP.

Despite my delayed arrival, I haven't missed Orioles batting practice. I take a seat six rows deep at straightaway left field, slip my dirty, worn glove onto my hand, and wait.


Waiting is a big part of baseball -- both before and during games. Looking around, you see a whole lot of people, standing, watching, marking time. Relief pitchers stand in the outfield, shagging flies and spitting brown tobacco juice into the green carpet. Ushers, rendered impotent to shuffle patrons to their proper seats until the conclusion of batting practice, stand at attention in their pink and cyan flowered shirts. Scattered throughout the outfield seats, a mix of ten-year-olds and old, sour-looking men in ill-fitting baseball caps sit waiting for a fly ball to carry over the fence and into their section. A significant number of the kids are wearing Boy Scout uniforms -- it is, apparently, "Scout Night."

A boy of five or six, wearing a nondescript purple t-shirt and accompanied by a grandfatherly-type figure, beckons to Orioles players, begging them to toss a ball his way upon every line drive to the outfield. He is ignored, but asks, relentlessly, after every pitch. With each fly ball, we rise from our seats in anticipation of a chance at greatness -- but most land harmlessly into the glove of a ballboy somewhere in center field. A few come our way, but bounce into other outfield sections where chubby men lumber clumsily over empty seats in pursuit of an elusive white ball. Several centerfield fans make great catches, and I yell, "Manny Ramirez could take some lessons from you people!"

Finally, Orioles third baseman Melvin Mora answers our prayers and launches a sky ball toward our section. An old man (I'm hesitant to call him that; he's probably my father's age, and if that's old, what does that make me?) in a white cap perched far too high upon his head snags it with his fancy black outfielder's glove, one he clearly purchased for this very occasion. He pulls the ball out, holds it above his head, and turns to the rest of us, gleaming.

"Hey! That kid in the purple shirt wants that ball!" a voice behind me yells. The boy, only steps away from the "old man," looks up, pleadingly.
"Yeah, well this kid in the white shirt caught it," the man replies, and turns back to the field.

Asshole.

Several left-handed hitters follow, and we settle back into our seats. Frustrated, the boy in the purple shirt is led back into the concourse by the grandfatherly-type figure. He'll forget about his failed attempts and cheer up in about two minutes, face buried into a heap of cotton candy. At least I hope so. I crack open my copy of Fast Company and read an article about organizational structure. Way back on Opening Day, I learned Rays games tend to be a bit boring, and bringing outside reading is strongly suggested.

A video featuring Lou Piniella plays on the Jumbotron. He's talking about being a "good fan," urging us to refrain from foul or inappropriate language, and, above all things, to STAY OFF THE FIELD. I always get a kick out of this video, played nightly as fans trickle into the stadium; Lou's a scary enough figure that any chance of my misbehaving is quashed immediately. Yet at this very moment, Piniella is downstairs somewhere, speaking to the press, and formally announcing the end of his affiliation with the Rays. His authority, I reason, is lessened by this act. Why should his players listen to the orders of a lame duck manager? Why should I, the fan, follow his behavioral advice?

My thinking is interrupted by the crack of Miguel Tejada's bat. My eyes flash past pink and cyan shirts, past the Boy Scout uniforms, past the orange v-necked pullover jerseys worn by Orioles players. A baseball, white and barely discernable against the grey Tropicana Field roof, floats calmly, soaring, and my limited outfield experience indicates it's headed right for me.

Orange v-necked pullover jerseys.



I wasn't much of a baseball player in my day. Sure, I played four years of Little League -- the last three as a "Good Field, No Hit" third baseman in the vein of Duane Decker's Johnny Madigan -- but I was more of a tennis player by nature and genetics. I wanted to be great at baseball, but I just didn't have the skills. In my first year of organized baseball play I rarely saw action -- and when I did, it was in dreaded left field, repository for the truly talentless.

Unlike other town Little Leagues, our team names reflected not those of corporate sponsors like Dilly Door or Rick's Sports Bar, but those of actual major league teams. I played for the Orioles, and our uniforms mirrored those worn by current Baltimore players during batting practice -- orange, pullover, and v-necked.

I was nine when I learned baseball's most important (and grammatically incorrect) lesson. Stowed away in left field, with my team comfortably up by seven runs in the bottom of the sixth and final inning against our avian rival the Blue Jays, I folded my body into the "ready position" I'd learned from Mickey Mantle's instructional video, one I made my parents rent on a monthly basis. I knew it was unlikely a ball would head my way, but if one did, I'd make a great play on it and prove to Randy, our coach, that I was worthy of more than "garbage time."

Ping.

Off the bat of my best friend, ten-year-old Javan Kline, came a frozen rope to left-center. Like Mel Hall, the left fielder of my favorite team, the Indians, I took off in a sprint. I envisioned a diving catch, the style of which kids of a later generation would refer to as a "web gem."

The ball began its descent and I realized a diving catch wouldn't be necessary -- I'd gotten such an instinctual jump on the ball that it would be a routine running catch. Stretching out my arm, brown glove raised to snag the fly that would make the third out and end the game, I ran at full speed toward the ball and my first great defensive play.

Instead, I ran full speed into Craig Castillo, center fielder and fellow nine-year-old. My white-and-orange cap with the cartoonish Oriole thrown askew, thick plastic-framed glasses bounced from my nose, and pride injured more than my body, I joined Craig (who was, thankfully, as physically sound as me following the incident) in searching for the ball as it rolled toward the fence. We managed to toss it into the infield, where my best friend stood on third base, doubled over laughing.

That was the day I learned "I got it." And Randy played me at third base from that point on.



Into the air I raise my left hand, surrounded by a worn, brown, cracked leather glove that is the only one I've ever owned. The ball starts to fall from its place against the ceiling, and my eyes narrow to follow it as it heads toward me.

I got it.

My lips part as I whisper the words and eighteen years of baseball anxiety settle into my duodenum. My right hand cups the outside of my glove -- just like Mickey Mantle taught me -- as I watch the ball slam into it, snapping my left wrist backward violently.

But I hold on.

A smattering of applause follows, just as it did for every other would-be outfielder who snagged a BP ball. Like Steinbeck's Kino, I open my glove to reveal not a giant pearl, but a dirty white baseball.

It might as well be as valuable.

Yet I have a deeper mission, one I decided on a few minutes ago. Turning to the nine-year-old boy wearing a navy Scout uniform and sitting four seats to my right, I hold out the ball.

"Want it?"

His eyes grow wide.

"Really?" he asks excitedly.

"Sure, I've caught plenty of these," I lie.

He grabs the ball and the gentleman standing beside him (presumably his father) shakes my hand. "Buy you a beer?" he asks.

I smile, nod, and turn to the old man in the front row, in the ill-fitting white hat, who holds his prize and awaits the chance for another.

I sneer.