This story is eventually baseball related, so bear with me.We took my Dad to Maryland to visit my oldest brother, Bob, and his wife in July 1994.
The trip was memorable for many reasons:
- My first visit to DC.
- My sister often stayed behind with my Dad in DC due to his lack of walking speed.
- Prince's yellow cloud guitar at the Smithsonian.
- Dad almost got lost on the Metro when he didn't pay attention as the rest of us exited.
- Jackie O died that year and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery next to JFK. Dad seemed to think it was appropriate to say aloud among dozens of other solemn and quiet onlookers, "I can't understand why they buried that witch next to him."
- The Rent-a-Wreck that my brother rented for the rest of them with no working AC as I rode ahead of them with Bob in his new Saab.
- Bob and I rode bikes around the Civil War battlefield at Antietam.
- Bob and I camped on the beach on Assateague Island where wild horses roam freely.
- Bob realized that my musical taste extended beyond Prince.
- My sister-in-law's awesome dinners at 9 o'clock at night.
- Dad admitted that he had another brother of mine take my cat to the Humane Society while I was out of town only to tell me he "ran away."
- The verbal beat down I unleashed after that admission.
- My first trip to Camden Yards, home of the Baltimore Orioles.
- Hall of Fame pitcher, Jim Palmer walked right in front of us as we left the stadium.
- My brother-in-law took the window seat in the plane on the way home and fell asleep, which prompted the quote, "I'll never be on a plane again in my life and that asshole took the window seat and fell asleep!"
I promised a baseball related embarrassment story and so it begins...
It's ingrained in my memory as though it happened 14 minutes ago as opposed to 14 years. We got tickets for the Orioles/A's game on Sunday, July 10, 1994. Fast forward, to the ninth inning. The A's were down by one run when the Orioles brought in their closer, Lee Smith, to pitch to Mark McGwire, who up to that point was 0 for 3. He was due.
Lee Smith was the closer for the Cardinals in 1993 and had two glaring, insurmountable drawbacks in the eyes of my father. Even though he recorded 15 saves in June and wound up with 43 in 1993, he lost four games somewhere during the course of 162. Dad didn't think a guy making $2.7 million should be allowed to do such things. More importantly, Lee Smith was African-American, which to a lifelong racist, was even more problematic than a career worst ERA of 4.50 and two, agonizing blown saves against the
Phillies.
Back to
McGwire vs. Smith.
McGwire came up in the top of the ninth with one on and none out. At that moment, my Dad uttered a foul phrase of racism that anyone within six rows could hear. "You watch. This big
n-word is gonna give up a home run to
McGwaarr." He glanced around as though he expected others to cheer his words.
Please note that I did not misspell McGwire. My Dad had the south St. Louis "ar" speech impediment. You know, farty-far, etc. It was the perfect complement to the south St. Louis racism.We turned away in embarrassment as if to say, we don't know this arse of a man.
Lo and behold,
McGwaarr took the very next pitch out of the Yard. As the pro-Orioles, thus silenced crowd, looked on in disbelief, Dad said "I told you that big
n-word was gonna give up a home run to
McGwaarr."
Those two phrases took much of the joy out of my first trip to Camden Yards and made me wish we hadn't gone to the game. But, whether he knew it or not, my Dad served to further reinforce the two "isms" that I never wanted to share: race and alcohol.
So there's the story.
