The Bullpen

Dear Congressman,

Thought I would take a minute to tell a short story from my days in Southern California. I do not know if you are a baseball fan or n0t, but since the Bengals are so awful I have to believe that you must obtain your "sports fix" via the Cincinnati Reds.

Today I was reading a blog by a high school friend of mine, Scott Wheeler, who posted today about the "Best Job in the World". One of the jobs listed was for a bullpen catcher, which did seem very stress free as careers go.

Unless you were the bullpen catcher for the Detroit Tigers in 1986. Then it could be a little scary....

On a sunny day in the summer of 1986 I got a call from a friend that had tickets to the California Angels game that afternoon. He wanted to know if I was interested. I was.

We arrived at the park and proceeded to purchase the baseball prerequisites: a bland hot dog caked in mustard, nachos with melted american "cheese-food", and a tall plastic cup full of an nondescript American lager. Anaheim Stadium (as it was called in those days) was about half filled, and our seats were on the third base line in the outfield, about four seats over from the chain link fence that separated the crowd from the Tiger's bullpen.

One thing I must point out is that in the 80's when you attended a game in Southern California, whether it be the Angels or the Dodgers, about 1/2 of the crowd would be wearing a ballcap with the logo of the opposing team. This was due to the fact that a large amount of southern Cal citizens were transplants, and liked to take advantage of their childhood team coming to town. This day was no exception.

As I stated, we were four seats over from the fence to the bullpen, and a guy in a Detroit Tigers cap was shooting the breeze with the bullpen catch sitting in a chair next to him. I could occasionally catch a snippet of their conversation, which centered on a debate about which Detroit restaurant was better than which and what happened to the team since the 84 World Series win.

The "event" happened in the sixth inning. The Angels were at bat and Kirk Gibson was playing right field directly in front of us. I heard the guy sitting next to the bullpen catcher say:

"I betcha a baseball I can get Kirk to turn around."

The catcher looked at him. "Nah, man... Kirk don't turn around for nothing while playing. He's all focus, man."

After a short back and forth the catcher finally agreed to the bet. By this point everyone in earshot was listening and interested observe the outcome.

So the guy cupped his hands and shouted:

"HEY KIRK, I'M BACK IN D-TOWN NEXT WEEK. YOUR WIFE STILL WORK AT THE SAME PLACE?"

Kirk did nothing for a second as he was in "set position" as the pitcher was throwing a pitch, but as soon as the ball hit the catcher's glove Kirk wheeled around and drove a hard stare in the general direction of where we were sitting. I can honestly say to this day that the thirty or so people sitting within 20 feet of me did not speak, flinch, or make any sudden movements during that time as Mr. Gibson stared us down. Trust me, that 10-15 seconds felt like an hour.

Kirk finally turned back to the game, and I do not remember him turning around again for the entire game.

About twenty minutes after the incident the bullpen catcher slipped a baseball through the fence to the fan in question and said:

"Are you $(#@^ crazy. Don't ever do that again!"

Turns out that Mr. Gibson met his wife, JoAnn Sklarski, at a "gentleman's club" in Detroit called The Booby Trap.