Non-Baseball Moments

Memorable moments that have nothing to do with baseball:

·      Walking into the cold spring MU baseball pressbox and having the chatter go dead silent. Apparently there aren’t a lot of middle aged women or really anyone near 40 who hang out in there to train as datacasters.

·      Listening to the collegiates chatter about sports and realized I really did make the right decision years ago to change majors. Those kids know so much already at age 21, like how the new bats are supposed to slow down the college game.

·      The speed of college games. Baptism by fire for a new datacaster trying to learn the ropes.

·      One of my earliest games, on an April election date, the super quiet stats guy next to me turns and say, ‘Do you like my shirt?’ It read: Scott Walker Sucks.

·      Skip Erwin asking if I wanted a button to promote Mike Shannon for the Hall of Fame, because “You’re a nice, friendly girl” (spoken in a NY accent).

·      Finally meeting a 5-year old commonly referred to as the Boy Wonder; the son of a reporter/college acquaintance.
·      At pre-game dinner in media lunchroom, meeting the stadium ops guy who'd worked there 55 years, since age 17. Then during the game at 11 pm promptly, some of the lights went out randomly. Happened twice. (He retired this year, thrilled the Cards won for his sake. Great way for him to go out.)

·      Discovering one of the other 2 gals in the box had graduated with my best friend from a small town high school 20 years ago; then rushing to the park to commiserate over this fact, only to discover she wasn’t there—and that she’d be gone for awhile due to a 2^nd recurrence of breast cancer. (She’s doing well.)

·      An AP stringer, my seat neighbor, tossing me a Rams schedule as he sat down (I was almost always already working when he arrived just as the game started). He covers the Rams & Cards.

·      Another AP stringer who gave me a piece of candy on a really bad day. Hard to believe such a little thing could mean so much—the gesture, not the candy.

·      The MLB.com writer who passed out homemade brownies before Game 7.

·      Finding a favorite new restaurant in walking distance with 30+ craft beers on tap.

·      Walking behind Don King and his entourage down a tunnel; he to the field, me to eat (not a surprising choice given the previous bullets, now, is it?)

·      Listening to the Japanese conversations behind me during the Series, sounding like they probably were pitching stories. (Thought process: Bucket list: Learn Japanese someday. Also, start a bucket list. Why bother? I’m already working in the Cards pressbox working a World Series. Bucket list: done.

·      Phillies' PR guy asking me how to pronounce "Lumiere Place," and I didn't know--and told him that I'd come to realize that I know very little about my hometown anymore. Like where to get a bite after 11 pm. Or how to pronounce things. Ok with that--but it's my hometown, not my home.

·       “We get a little bit demented around here—“ Stats guy #1

·      “This job wouldn’t be hard if it weren’t for the technology” – Stats guy #2

·      “Oh please. You thought they were over too, and so did Tony, he just couldn’t say so, but you could see it on his face.” Reporter/editor during the NLCS, after I’d given him a hard time for believing the season was over after Sept 22 blown lead (he virtually stopped covering Cards games the last regular season weekend).

·      Birthday dinners for me, Bob, mom, dad, Mother’s Day. Only missed Father’s Day because folks out of town. Previous years I may have hit one of those, max.

·      My Cubs-loving husband admitting that he had in fact seen the Cards game won by the Cubs’ wild pitch, rather than doing yard work as he’d originally claimed when I called post-game.

·      Watching MU-OU game in my parents’ basement the night of that Cubs game, with the pastor/professor who married us, along with his son. Oh, and my parents’ close friend Roger Wehrli, telling golf stories (he once got a hole-in-one but couldn’t tell over the hill; thought it was in a trap. Don Shula suggested he look in the hole first—and there it was!)

·      Having my stats pal call to tell me about the pre-Series party, then rushing around to be able to go.

·      Discovering in the course of conversation with a Columbia, Mo business leader that an MLB.com exec has ties here, was an editor of the local paper and married a Columbia gal. His in-laws live in a well-known nice house on a main drag in town. (How small the world continues to become!)

·      In the spring before I started the season, still worried I wouldn't be allowed in the park, having our favorite chef, self-taught and a James Beard semifinalist, hear about my position and say, "So when it slows down in the kitchen, and I have a second to check the game on my phone, and it's slow and gets stuck, it's you?!"