A Bird's Eye View of the Alumni Game
by Steven Herce
(Special to the BLOG)
Mark Anderson asked me to give an insider’s perspective on the 2008 Rice Baseball Alumni Game. Rather than construct a narrative I thought I’d share a few stories from the day in no particular order. Of course, in keeping with the cloak and dagger clubhouse rules of baseball, the juicy stuff stays at Reckling and the State Grille…
Jon Skaggs and I spent a few hours at Reckling the night before the game setting up the check-in station, organizing the old jerseys our alums wore, dividing up the teams and throwing each other batting practice in the indoor tunnel. I met up with a few guys from my era in the Village for a few beers afterward and had an interesting exchange with Clay Reichenbach.
Reichenbach: “So, are there even going to be enough guys playing to make it a game?”
Herce: “We’ve got about 50 guys that want to play.”
Reichenbach: “I signed up to play but I don’t know. I don’t want to play unless it’s going to be a game.”
Herce: “Just play Reichenbach.”
Reichenbach: “Are any young guys going to play?”
Herce: “(Sigh) Yeah, Reichenbach, there are going to be young guys on the field.”
Reichenbach: “All right, I guess I’ll play. But I might not.”
Reichenbach, for those of you that didn’t attend the game, hit a grand slam. He crossed home plate and changed back into his shorts, done for the day.
As soon as introductions concluded, my four year-old son, Jimmy, and my one-year old son, Teddy, joined me in the dugout. My one year-old has flaming red hair (kind of like mine used to look before I got married and had two kids…). He draws a crowd on account of this and, well, he’s pretty dang cute. Each time one of my fellow alums asked, “Who’s this little guy?” Teddy would grip his shirt and wait for me to say, “Show him your belly button.” A big grin grabbed his face, he pulled up his shirt, and pointed to his belly button. He was a big hit. When he wasn’t flashing belly button he was picking up all the trash on the dugout floor for me to hold. Kids!
Jake Baker, who graduated the year before I matriculated, was catching hell (actually “heck” – those Bakers don’t curse) from his brother-in-law, Lance Berkman. Lance wanted Jake to enter the home run derby. I told Jake it was fine by me but that he would need to recruit another guy from the current team so the teams would be even. I don’t think Jake really wanted to swing in the derby so he just told Lance, “Herce won’t let me.” I reckon the flu dulled Lance’s notorious sense of humor because he looked a little irritated with me. Hey Lance, it’s not my fault Jake was scared of Luna!
Skaggs, Will Ford and I hung around after the game cleaning up the check-in station and throwing each other batting practice in the tunnel. It was so much fun we’re going to talk Coach Graham into letting us host “Batting Practice for Breakfast.” We’ll all get together and take hacks, play ping-pong, shower up in the locker room and head off to work. At least, this is the adrenaline-induced scheme Skaggs and Ford hatched. Those of us with young kids are probably out on this one.
A lot of people asked me why I didn’t toe the rubber. I would say I didn’t want to kill anybody since I haven’t taken the hill since March 2005 but I don’t throw hard enough any more to even hurt anyone, let alone kill a batter. But, ask Skaggs about the round of BP I threw him: down the middle, down the middle, in the dirt, down the middle, down the middle, behind his back, down the middle, at his head, down the middle, a foot outside…
My favorite new alumni friend has got to be Glenn Fuller. Glenn was the, ahem, older gentleman that played 3rd base much of the afternoon. Glenn lost out on first pitch honors to Bob Willard by one year. Glenn graduated in 1950 and came all the way down from Minnesota to play in the Alumni Game. And when I say “play”, I mean PLAY. He was on Coach Prather’s butt from the first pitch wanting to know when he was going to get in. Glenn made a few stabs at 3rd. Here’s hoping I can do anything but get hit in the teeth by a grounder when I’m 80 years old!
Finally, dinner at the State Grille was the most fun I’d had in a long time. True, it was mostly younger alums in attendance, but there was a loud and proud contingent of ‘70’s era players that stayed until all the beer was gone. I might miss a few but Don “Wheels” Loveless, Tom Smart, Bryan Boyne, Ted Nowak, David Ownby, Jeff Hays and Shible “Skate” Simon and their spouses commandeered a corner table and had a great time. Skate is particularly a character. I much enjoyed his stories of being Lebanese in the Southwest Conference in the’70’s.
We had a great time and we hope you did, too.
(Special to the BLOG)
Mark Anderson asked me to give an insider’s perspective on the 2008 Rice Baseball Alumni Game. Rather than construct a narrative I thought I’d share a few stories from the day in no particular order. Of course, in keeping with the cloak and dagger clubhouse rules of baseball, the juicy stuff stays at Reckling and the State Grille…
Jon Skaggs and I spent a few hours at Reckling the night before the game setting up the check-in station, organizing the old jerseys our alums wore, dividing up the teams and throwing each other batting practice in the indoor tunnel. I met up with a few guys from my era in the Village for a few beers afterward and had an interesting exchange with Clay Reichenbach.
Reichenbach: “So, are there even going to be enough guys playing to make it a game?”
Herce: “We’ve got about 50 guys that want to play.”
Reichenbach: “I signed up to play but I don’t know. I don’t want to play unless it’s going to be a game.”
Herce: “Just play Reichenbach.”
Reichenbach: “Are any young guys going to play?”
Herce: “(Sigh) Yeah, Reichenbach, there are going to be young guys on the field.”
Reichenbach: “All right, I guess I’ll play. But I might not.”
Reichenbach, for those of you that didn’t attend the game, hit a grand slam. He crossed home plate and changed back into his shorts, done for the day.
As soon as introductions concluded, my four year-old son, Jimmy, and my one-year old son, Teddy, joined me in the dugout. My one year-old has flaming red hair (kind of like mine used to look before I got married and had two kids…). He draws a crowd on account of this and, well, he’s pretty dang cute. Each time one of my fellow alums asked, “Who’s this little guy?” Teddy would grip his shirt and wait for me to say, “Show him your belly button.” A big grin grabbed his face, he pulled up his shirt, and pointed to his belly button. He was a big hit. When he wasn’t flashing belly button he was picking up all the trash on the dugout floor for me to hold. Kids!
Jake Baker, who graduated the year before I matriculated, was catching hell (actually “heck” – those Bakers don’t curse) from his brother-in-law, Lance Berkman. Lance wanted Jake to enter the home run derby. I told Jake it was fine by me but that he would need to recruit another guy from the current team so the teams would be even. I don’t think Jake really wanted to swing in the derby so he just told Lance, “Herce won’t let me.” I reckon the flu dulled Lance’s notorious sense of humor because he looked a little irritated with me. Hey Lance, it’s not my fault Jake was scared of Luna!
Skaggs, Will Ford and I hung around after the game cleaning up the check-in station and throwing each other batting practice in the tunnel. It was so much fun we’re going to talk Coach Graham into letting us host “Batting Practice for Breakfast.” We’ll all get together and take hacks, play ping-pong, shower up in the locker room and head off to work. At least, this is the adrenaline-induced scheme Skaggs and Ford hatched. Those of us with young kids are probably out on this one.
A lot of people asked me why I didn’t toe the rubber. I would say I didn’t want to kill anybody since I haven’t taken the hill since March 2005 but I don’t throw hard enough any more to even hurt anyone, let alone kill a batter. But, ask Skaggs about the round of BP I threw him: down the middle, down the middle, in the dirt, down the middle, down the middle, behind his back, down the middle, at his head, down the middle, a foot outside…
My favorite new alumni friend has got to be Glenn Fuller. Glenn was the, ahem, older gentleman that played 3rd base much of the afternoon. Glenn lost out on first pitch honors to Bob Willard by one year. Glenn graduated in 1950 and came all the way down from Minnesota to play in the Alumni Game. And when I say “play”, I mean PLAY. He was on Coach Prather’s butt from the first pitch wanting to know when he was going to get in. Glenn made a few stabs at 3rd. Here’s hoping I can do anything but get hit in the teeth by a grounder when I’m 80 years old!
Finally, dinner at the State Grille was the most fun I’d had in a long time. True, it was mostly younger alums in attendance, but there was a loud and proud contingent of ‘70’s era players that stayed until all the beer was gone. I might miss a few but Don “Wheels” Loveless, Tom Smart, Bryan Boyne, Ted Nowak, David Ownby, Jeff Hays and Shible “Skate” Simon and their spouses commandeered a corner table and had a great time. Skate is particularly a character. I much enjoyed his stories of being Lebanese in the Southwest Conference in the’70’s.
We had a great time and we hope you did, too.
posted by my kid's sports pics at 3:25 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home