Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers
out there. And in keeping with the theme of the day, I would like to take an
opportunity to tell you a little bit about my late mom (she passed away in
2013) and share a baseball memory I have of her. She was born in Scotland back
in 1942, in a village on the outskirts of Glasgow. She lived there until the
early 60s when her father moved the family (along with his wife and ten of
their 14 children) to Australia. My mom’s oldest brother stayed behind in
Scotland and her three oldest sisters had already moved to Canada. She, herself
moved to Canada along with another one of her six brothers in 1968.
While exposed to the fanatically
Glasgow Rangers FC soccer fans during her time in Scotland, my mom really
didn’t care much for any North American sports except baseball. Hockey had too
much fighting, football didn’t make sense and I don’t ever remember her saying
a thing about basketball.
The first baseball game my mom
ever went to was on a Friday night back in 1989, July 14th to be
precise. The Toronto Blue Jays were hosting the powerful Oakland Athletics at
the brand new SkyDome in the first series after the All-Star Break.
Dave Stieb started on the mound
for Toronto while Bob Welch countered for Oakland. But the ire of the Jays’
fans’ wrath was being directed at one of their own players. Left-fielder George
Bell was being booed vehemently when the starting line-up was announced and
then when he took his position in the outfield. Bell always had a love-hate
relationship with the Toronto fans and on this night, it was clearly hatred.
Toronto scored first in the
bottom of the first when Tony Fernandez scored on a sacrifice fly by Kelly
Gruber. After Bell flew out to end the inning, the loud chorus of boos started
to gather momentum again. It quickly changed in the top of the second. Dave
Parker led off the inning for Oakland and drove a high-fly ball to deep left
field. If it wasn’t going to be a home, it was going to be a double, or even a
triple. Bell ran back to the edge of the warning track and turned around. He
leapt as high as could, extended his glove and grabbed the ball before his back
slammed into the wall.
With one remarkable defensive
play, Bell was a hero again and the cheers rained down on him. He even made
them louder when he doubled in Gruber in the fourth and then later scored
himself on an Ernie Whitt single. It was a remarkable night for the most
popular/hated player on the team.
You’d think that it being my
mom’s first game, she would have remembered George Bell’s night. But no, for
years after the game all she could talk about was the A’s left-fielder—Rickey
Henderson. After the booing of Bell stopped, Toronto started to direct their
anger towards the stolen base king, serenading him with chants of “Rick—ey,
Rick—ey” all night.
From that night on, whenever
watching a game on TV and Henderson came up to bat—even when he played two
months with the Jays in 1993—my mom would always chant “Rick—ey, Rick—ey.”
She continued to watch the Jays
on TV for many years after that. She went to approximately a half dozen games
at the SkyDome and kept all her tickets in her purse. I don’t remember much of
the other games I went with her but the fond memories of the 1989 game against
Oakland and the “Rick—ey, Rick—ey” chant will always be with me.
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