Does this ever happen to you in spring? An old song comes on the radio
and you flash back to the park. You remember the slang. You remember the
boy or girl you wanted to kiss. You remember that a clean uniform was all
right at the beginning of the day, but if it was dirty by nightfall, that
gave you credibility around the block.
A few kids were talking about these things yesterday in the Red Sox'
clubhouse. Well, they're not kids anymore. They are in their 20s and 30s
and 50s now. They are big leaguers, three days away from yet another
Opening Day. They still smile when you ask about the day they slipped on a
uniform for the first time.
''I was 8 years old,'' 29-year-old Tony Clark said. ''It was in Lemon
Grove, Calif., and my team was the Phillies. Man. Our uniforms were red,
blue, and white. Navy blue, actually. I remember our opening day, with the
banners and flags flying. I thought the stands were packed, but it was
really 30 or 40 people. All of them parents.''
Clark's father, Arthur, was the Phillies' manager. The manager made his
son the opening day starter.
''Oh, do I remember that,'' Clark said as he pulled on his long red
socks. ''I gave up a home run. I remember throwing it down and in, and the
lefty caught it and hooked it off the foul pole. I sat down on the mound
and started crying. I had never given up a home run before.
''My dad came out and said, `You can quit and let me bring somebody
else in here, or you can finish the job.' I finished the job.''
As Clark talked, workers ran around the clubhouse. Yesterday was the
Red Sox version of the last day of school. They are moving out of Florida
after six weeks of spring training. They will start the season and have
the same thoughts they had when they were small: How am I going to play?
And can we win it all?
Twenty-six years ago, a child in Maracay, Venezuela, had similar
questions. If a bat was lying around, Rich Garces would grab it. If not,
he'd find a piece of wood. He'd hit baseballs. He'd hit rocks. He loved
the pace of the game. The sound of it. The smell of it.
On opening day, he played for a team called the Coquitos.
''I'm not sure what that is,'' he said. ''It's some kind of animal.
Some kind of bug or something.''
The Coquitos wore red, white, and blue uniforms.
''I was 4 when I first played for them,'' the 30-year-old Garces said.
''I played all the positions, bro. I just loved to play. I couldn't sleep
the night before games, so I would be up real early, asking my mom to take
me to the stadium.''
When you love baseball that much, you see its art when others merely
see its white lines. Watch Garces on the mound. A lot of fans joke about
his size, but there aren't many stories about his intensity. You can watch
him and tell that he once was a 4-year-old boy who lost sleep over
baseball.
His current teammates now pay him the ultimate baseball tribute. They
wear his uniform. They all have Sox shirts in their lockers with Garces's
nickname (El Guapo) and his number (34).
If you walked away from Garces's locker here and made a right, you
could hear the moving trucks idling outside. The Sox' equipment was being
packed and transported back to Boston. Standing nearby was a man who helps
decide what men will enter Fenway Park and put on Red Sox uniforms.
''I was 3 years old the first time I put on a uniform,'' said
56-year-old Mike Port. ''My dad played with a church softball team in
Escondido, Calif. The uniforms were gray and blue. I was only a spectator,
but I remember being hit with a foul ball. I also remember being terribly
embarrassed about it.''
Fifty-three years later, Port is the Sox' interim general manager. Port
is full of baseball stories. He remembers listening to games on the radio
when he was supposed to be sleeping. He remembers thinking that Rod Carew
was an artist who happened to compose with a bat.
Baseball is a poet's sport. You understand what that means when you
listen to the baseball stories. The poetry is not in the numbers. It's in
the way young players and older coaches, regardless of their shapes,
proudly step into their uniforms on Opening Day.
They did that in 1949 in California. They did it in '76 in Venezuela.
They'll do it in Boston Monday afternoon.
By Michael Holley
This story ran on page D5 of the Boston Globe on 3/29/2002.
Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.