George Mitrovich: Flag waving & baseball playing at 80 – The San Diego Union-Tribune

If you are 80 years old, as I am, and still play baseball, as I do (San Diego Adult Baseball League), and have written a baseball blog five days a week, 24 weeks a year for four years, resulting in more than 384,000 words about baseball, a logical person might conclude, Mitrovich must be serious about baseball.

Yes, I am.

My adoration of America’s Game began on a May night 74 years ago. My father took me to Lane Field, a ballpark at the foot of Broadway built by the Works Progress Administration, a creation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to counter unemployment during the Great Depression.

George Mitrovich
/ Diane Bell

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The Padres of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League were playing the Hollywood Stars, and Ed Vitalich was pitching for the Padres. My dad wanted me to understand, at age 7, Serbs could play baseball (my paternal grandparents, Stephanie and Velo Mitrovich, had crossed the Atlantic from Yugoslavia to find refuge in America, where they would have nine children, including seven boys, six of whom served in World War II).

And through 10-inch ball at McKinley Elementary School, softball at Roosevelt Junior High, three years of high school (Hoover and Helix), American Legion, and winter league baseball, plus 40 years playing 12-inch softball on Capitol Hill as a Senate staffer and as player/manager in San Diego’s municipal leagues, with 30 years of Mitrovich 4th of July All-Star Softball Classics, plus over-the-line thrown in, and, now, for the past 15 years with the Marston Mets in the SDABL, yes, Serbs can play baseball — as I have for 70 years.

But when I tell people I still play baseball, almost always they respond, “Baseball? You play baseball?” “Yes, baseball.” “You mean, you play hardball?” “Yes, hardball. Little white ball, weighs 5^1/2 ounces, has 108 red stitches, and if it hits you it will hurt you — and I’ve been hit and it hurts, that kind of baseball.”

But, while it was the game that drew me in, it was also ballparks, where teams played or play, from quirky Sulphur Dell in Nashville to Sicks Seattle Stadium, from AutoZone Ballpark in Memphis to Isotopes Park in Albuquerque. The places where teams play fascinate me. I cannot explain why. It just is; and it’s been that way since eighth grade at Roosevelt Junior High, where in Mr. Dillahunt’s mechanical drawing class, the only thing I ever drew were ballparks — almost all of which resembled Lane Field.

No surprise there, it’s where I spent a lot of my teen years watching the PCL Padres play — a 10-cent trolley ride from our home on Redwood Street in North Park to Santa Fe Depot, where a short walk and 25 cents got you into the ballpark. Or, you could stand across Pacific Coast Highway, and wait for Max West or Jack Graham, Harry “Suitcase” Simpson or Luke Easter, to clear the right field fence during batting practice, as they hit ball after ball over the wall and onto PCH. If you were quicker than your pals in running one down, free passage into the bleachers was assured. (The Padres’ owner, Bill Starr, upset at losing revenue, finally put up a net in right to keep batting practice balls in the park.)

I’ve witnessed a few truly memorable baseball games, from Steve Garvey’s dramatic home run against the Cubs in ’84 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, to Busch in St. Louis, where the Boston Red Sox in ’04 ended 86 years of waiting to claim a World Series title. (I was with Boston friends that night, and the emotions displayed were quite unlike any I have ever seen at a sporting event.)

But the most memorable game I have ever seen didn’t happen at a major league ballpark, but at Lane Field in the first game of a Sunday double-header in ’49 between the Padres and Oakland Oaks. (The Padres’ manager was Bucky Harris, just two years removed from managing the ’47 World Series champion New York Yankees.)

Going into the bottom of the ninth, before an SRO crowd, the home team was down 12-10. There were two outs and two on, with Max West coming to bat.

West, a former National League All-Star, had already hit two home runs. The crowd was on its feet, anticipation was high, as West stepped into the batter’s box, and promptly crushed a third ball out of Lane Field, down the right field line. Just foul. The roar faded as West stepped back into the batter’s box. The Oaks’ pitcher threw another fastball. Wham, West drove another ball out of Lane Field down the right field line. A second time, just foul. The crowd was stunned.

Again, the great West, stepped back into the batter’s box. There was visible fear now on the face of the Oakland pitcher. He looked at the crowd. He looked at West. He looked to heaven, as he did the sign of the cross (surprising, because he wasn’t Catholic). Finally, in what seemed an eternity, he threw the ball, West swung mightily, bat and ball connecting at the bat’s sweet spot, and, amid mounting delirium, the ball rose higher and higher and higher, again down the right field line, again over the wall and out of Lane Field, bouncing across Pacific Coast Highway.

Fair!

It was fair!

West had homered a third time! It was fair and the Padres had won, 13-12!

And the big bell they rang for runs scored by the Padres rang 13 times!

Hysteria broke loose, as shouts of joy from the 12,000-plus delirious fans filled the air, the crescendo rolling out of Lane Field, up Broadway, past the train station, past Horton Plaza, past 16th Street, up the hill to 25th.

Have I slightly embellished that moment? Have I have taken the kind of literary liberty my late friend, George Plimpton, often took in the stories he told? No, I haven’t. (OK, the “crescendo rolling up Broadway,” maybe a tiny exaggeration.) But I saw it happen. And while it may have been 67 years ago, the memory is still vivid in my mind.

I often say baseball is America’s Game. That is no idle claim. No game is more representative of the American spirit, more reflective of our souls.

One might argue that Dr. David Bentley Hart in his magnificent essay in First Things, was slightly over-the-top when he wrote, “but, until baseball appeared, humans were a sad and benighted lot, lost in the labyrinth of matter, dimly and achingly aware of something incandescently beautiful and unattainable, something infinitely desirable shining up above in the impyrean of the idea.” But if he was, he wasn’t by much.

Baseball is also the game that changed America. That happened the day Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was a seminal moment, not just for baseball, but for America. And while his fight for equality and acceptance still goes on, we are at an infinitely better place than we were before April 15, 1947.

Lastly, as the All-Star Game nears, when today’s greatest players gather on the green at Petco Park, July 12, you might want to consider this:

In the vast expanse of history, from cave markings in ancient Mesopotamian to cloud storage in Silicon Valley, no human endeavor has received greater documentation than baseball — not even the Bible.

Happy All-Star Game, San Diego!

George Mitrovich is president of two public forums, The City Club of San Diego and The Denver Forum, as well as chairing for the Boston Red Sox, The Great Fenway Park and Great Washington Writers Series.