There is a scene in the 1989 movie Field of Dreams where Terence Mann (played by actor James Earl Jones) delivers a passionate speech about the meaning of baseball to Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner):
To many people, that is the essence of baseball.
As the 2016 Major League Baseball season begins, it’s the perfect time for some College of Charleston faculty members to reminisce about their own fields of dreams.
Calvin Blackwell
Calvin Blackwell, Chair of the Department of Economics
Little League position: Third baseman for the Pirates
What memories do you have of playing or watching baseball as a youth?
I got my first black eye playing third base – I was trying to field a grounder and the ball took a funny hop and hit me in the face. The next day at school all my friends thought I was pretty cool with my black eye!
Do you have a favorite pro baseball team?
My favorite team used to be the Cardinals. However, I was so disgusted by the rampant use of performance enhancing drugs in the late ’90s that I gave up watching any Major League Baseball.
Mike Flynn
Mike Flynn, Professor of Health and Human Performance
Little League position: Pitcher and shortstop for the Red Legs
What memories do you have of playing or watching baseball as a youth?
My dad took me to Fenway Park for my 10th birthday. I remember the “omigosh” feeling of awe when I first walked into the park … how vivid the Green Monster was (we had a black-and-white TV), how tall the left field wall was and the lush greenness of everything else. I get the same feeling every time I walk into Fenway, but nothing matches that first day. We sat in the bleachers. Sox played the Tigers. Bill Freehan hit a home run to beat the Sox in extra innings.
Do you have a favorite pro baseball team?
The Red Sox won the world series in 1918. My Dad was born in 1926. In 2004 Dad and I were up in Anderson, S.C., driving back to Columbia during the seventh game of the World Series. (Yes, the Anderson visit was important and could not be rescheduled, but that is part of another story.) We could not get the game on the radio while driving in the Upstate, finally were able to listen to a static-filled final few innings … and rushed into my friend’s house in Columbia to see the final put-out and the celebration. I remember seeing Jimmy Fallon kissing Drew Barrymore during that celebration. Weird, I thought … but I could not rectify the strangeness. I later learned the Farrelly brothers decided to reshoot the ending of Fever Pitch when the Sox made the Series. Jimmy and Drew jumped into the fray and improvised that ending, I suppose.
Being a Red Sox fan was downright depressing from ’18 to 2004. … Talk about diehards! I read that lots of people visited the graves of loved ones to “tell them” the Sox had won the Series. I am glad my dad lived to see the Red Sox finally win one (the last out, at least).
Jeri Cabot
Jeri Cabot, Dean of Students
Little League position: First base and left field for the Powderpuffs
What memories do you have of playing or watching baseball as a youth?
Two of my brothers played Little League for years. All their games took place a bike ride away at Katella park – the place to be and the place to be seen when you are a young teen looking to meet other young teens. This was Southern Cal, and back then it was still cool for surfers to like to play baseball. I still enjoy the sight of a lot of bleached blond hair sticking out of a ball cap.
Do you have a favorite pro baseball team?
DODGERS, DODGERS, DODGERS! Transistor radio on my sister’s bed. We had a strict bedtime, so we had to keep the volume down, or else! She was (is) a rabid Sandy Koufax fan – a very serious Koufax fan. (Yes, she is older than me.) Announcer: Vin Scully. I can recognize his voice anywhere and at any time. What a legend. I have been married, however, to a guy from the south side of Chicago for close to 40 years – I have watched a lot of White Sox games, too.
Joe Kelly
Joe Kelly, Professor of English
Little League position: Pitcher and third baseman for the Giants
What memories do you have of playing or watching baseball as a youth?
My most vivid memory: My dad was a Little League coach for my older brothers, which we thought was awesome because we carried around that big canvas bag full of bats and catchers’ equipment that smelled like dirt – clean, baseball infield dirt – in the back of the station wagon.
Life was so informal then that my dad would stick me into right field at the end of a game, even though I was too young to play – I guess that must mean I was in the first grade, because we joined the League in second. So, late innings one game, I’m out there, and CRACK! Out comes a low line drive. I start running in. It’s falling. I realize it will have to be a shoestring catch. But I can make that, easy. All eyes are on me. Glory! Underage and still about to make a spectacular catch! In perfect stride I reach down, ball hits glove, glove leaves hand, feet run past ball and glove, and – when I finally realize what’s happened – I look back to see the outfielder’s worst sight: white ball on green grass. And worse than the worst – the unthinkable – my own glove beside it, like roadkill with stiff legs pointing to the sky. If you would measure the humiliation that can pour out of a first grader’s heart, you’d need a big barrel.
Do you have a favorite pro baseball team?
Atlanta Braves. I grew up loving the Yankees – before George Steinbrenner bought them. But when we moved to Texas, I saw them as the world saw them, and I was disillusioned. So I rooted for the Astros, which meant a change from the American to the National League. I loved the ‘Stros – who were worse even than the Cubs – but every now and then they made the playoffs. Since moving to Charleston, we have become ardent listen-to-every-game-on-the-radio Braves fans.
Have you ever seen a MLB game in person?
Oh yeah, plenty. My youth: Yankees in the old Yankee Stadium – before the renovation, which was before the tear-down – and the Mets in Shea. Then, in high school, it was the Astros in the Astrodome, which is about the worst place to see a baseball game in the world, but it was so bad it was good. Gaudy displays of a cowboy shooting pistols. All sound disappeared into the dead air under the plastic-panel roof. And since then, of course, Fulton County Stadium (briefly) before Turner Field (built for the Olympics), which is now supposedly obsolete. Next year it will be three generations of Braves stadiums, which must mean I’m getting old. My kids will remember Turner Field the way I remember Yankee Stadium.
Chris Fragile
Chris Fragile, Professor of Physic and Astronomy
Little League position: Third baseman for the Bears
What memories do you have of playing or watching baseball as a youth?
My dad was the coach of my team when I was 8, 9 and 10. He tore his Achilles tendon during the first season (not while coaching) and had to miss the second half of the season. We finished as about a .500 team. After he returned the following season, the Bears didn’t lose a game for the next four seasons (he continued to coach the Bears for two more seasons after I moved up to the Red Sox). I can remember in the championship game the year I was 10, we were down 2 or 3 runs with only a couple innings to go, and my dad called us all together between innings and gave us a pep talk about going out and doing the things we knew how to do. He told us to battle while we were at the plate and not give up. We played about as well as a bunch of 8-, 9- and 10-year-olds could play in those last two innings ,and we ended up beating the other team (the Comets) handily. I still have the picture we took of the team after that game.
Do you have a favorite pro baseball team?
I used to follow the Rockies when I lived in Colorado, then the Giants when I lived in the San Francisco Bay area. I don’t follow any team too closely these days.
Have you ever seen a MLB game in person?
The Boston Red Sox at Fenway (saw Roger Clemens pitch), the Cubs at Wrigley, the Rockies at Coors Field, the Giants at what is now AT&T Park (during the peak of Barry Bonds’ career), the Oakland A’s at the Coliseum (saw Ichiro Suzuki hit a home run on the first pitch) and the Angels (California, Anaheim, LA, whatever you want to call them) at their stadium (watched Mike Trout crash into the outfield wall a few times – he failed to catch any of the balls he was going after that day).
Joe Hull
Joe Hull, Athletic Director
Little League position: Catcher for the Green Hornets
What memories do you have of playing or watching baseball as a youth?
In my first Little League season as a seven-year-old, I was so scared at the plate I rarely swung the bat. As an 11- and 12-year-old, I led the league in home runs and was League MVP.
Kendra Stewart
Kendra Stewart, Director of the Joseph P. Riley Jr. Center for Livable Communities
Little League position: Catcher – I liked having all the protective gear on
What memories do you have of playing or watching baseball as a youth?
I wasn’t a particularly talented player, but had a good time. In fact, my team nicknamed me “the fairy” because of the way I “ran” around the bases. My style was very similar to Fred Flintstone’s bowling technique. Reflecting back, it is quite surprising I played softball – I was the child who was generally picked last in PE for the kickball team (which didn’t upset me in the slightest). However, my father’s love for baseball and lack of sons inspired him to sign me up for the local rec league, and the fun I had playing with my team encouraged me to continue for a few years.
Do you have a favorite pro baseball team?
My parents were big Cubs fans, so my family spent many evenings glued to the TV watching them lose. My mother is very passionate about baseball – especially the Cubs – so some of the first curse words I ever heard were connected to baseball games. Growing up in Florida we also occasionally attended spring training games for various teams.
Have you ever seen a MLB game in person?
One night while I was in college at a bar with some friends, we decided we should road trip that week to see a Cubs game. So, a few days later, the four of us packed into my car and drove from Orlando to Chicago and attended a game. We were shocked at how packed Wrigley Field was in the middle of the afternoon of a workday when the Cubs were not having a very good season. But they won that game and, most importantly, we got to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh inning stretch with a cold Old Style beer and Harry Caray announcing.
Bernard Powers
Bernard Powers, Professor of History
Little League position: Center field
What memories do you have of playing or watching baseball as a youth?
I remember watching Major League Baseball with my mother, and she would get so excited that my brother and I knew better than to sit directly next to her because she could slap you by mistake as she cheered the team on – particularly after a spectacular hit or catch!
Do you have a favorite pro baseball team?
Not now but it used to be the Chicago White Sox. I watched them play in old Comiskey Park.
Philip Jos
Philip Jos, Professor of Political Science
Little League position: Third base
What memories do you have of playing or watching baseball as a youth?
The first MLB game I ever attended was in 1964 at Shea Stadium in New York. It turned out to be one of the longest games in Mets history. In 23 innings, the Mets lost to the Giants.
I remember many games at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore between 1966 and 1973, Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell, Paul Blair and all the pitching that the Orioles haven’t quite been able to put on the field since then.
I remember, in excruciating detail, getting pounded in my one and only Little League pitching start.
I can remember leading a caravan of townies from Bowling Green, Ky., to a softball game in a hay field in Allen County, reviving a softball tradition at the Flying Frog Farm.
Scott Peeples
Scott Peeples, Chair of English Department
Little League position: Outfield
What memories do you have of playing or watching baseball as a youth?
My dad used to play the organ for the Charleston Pirates at College Park back in the ’70s, so I would get in free with him and watch the games from the organ box, which was great. Mickey Mantle came to the park to sign autographs when I was about 10 or 11, and I still have the signed 8×10 glossy of the Mick hanging on the wall.
Do you have a favorite pro baseball team?
St. Louis Cardinals. Lou Brock and Bob Gibson were my boyhood heroes.
Have you ever seen a MLB game in person?
I guess I average about one MLB game a year. I’ve probably been to more in Baltimore (Memorial Stadium and Camden Yards) than anywhere else.
