The Good News Bears
Daily Log of a Fresh-faced Graduate
April 21, 2013
After the epic voyage west, the six-hour jaunt to Bakersfield is a breeze. The only problem is that it’s a 2:00 game after a late night, so we’re up and huffing before the sun gets out, which I admit I can’t recommend to the saner of you. On the other hand, if you’re going to get up early, it might as well be for baseball.
Breakfast is a bagel and cream cheese and a cup of acid from the machine in a 7-Eleven just outside Yuma. Before you know it, we’re on Highway 8, heading toward San Diego.
Don-o is particularly silent as he drives. Annie’s engine is purring in the early morning overcast, a state of weather that’s just fine for the two of us, seeing as we’re red as boiled lobsters after braving the Hellfires of Texas. Don-o’s lack of vocular activity leaves lots of time to think, and right now I can only seem to focus on the economy, or lack thereof, when it comes to my personal well-being.
“You ever think about getting a job?” I ask Don-o.
The question seems to startle him. He runs his hand across a four-day stubble and scratches his head. “Naw,” he finally replies. “No future in it.”
That makes me snort. “I keep forgetting your Mama will take care of you forever.”
He shrugs, looping his left arm over Annie’s huge steering wheel. “Money don’t hurt, but it ain’t about that.”
Don-o and I go way back to early high school, so I know what he means. He’s a concentrated spirit, a man who knows no clock. “That’s why baseball is God’s game,” he once said. “You play it now.” Bottom line, you really have to know baseball if you want to understand Don-o. They are both simple on the outside and stranger than quantum physics on the inside.
“You thinkin’ about working?” he said.
“Well, I’m going to need some money before I die, but all I got outta this Russian history degree is a shot at Gram’s Grocery.”
Don-o shrugs again and grimaces as he bolts the last of his coffee. “Better than Wal-Mart.”
“So’s a freakin’ root canal.”
That gets him laughing.
But me, I just settle back into Annie’s passenger seat and stew until we hit San Diego and the junction to Highway 5.
“We could take a left and hit Tijuana,” Don-o says, his eyes wide. I shake my head, and Annie seems to carry us off to the north as if she was the one making the decisions now.
#
The Bakersfield Bears play at a place called The Chocolate Factory at Yum! Field. For all those words, the place is a bit rinky-dink. The left field fence is just an ad-plastered wall with no bleachers. They say they can pile up to 40,000 people into it, mostly on the towering sky deck behind the plate. It’s a configuration that makes it feel like you’re sitting on an aircraft carrier, waiting for the ballplayers to take off.
It plays like a pitcher’s dream, though – 410 to dead center and 390 to the left field gap. Left-handers can’t help but eye the short-ish left field porch, though. This is a place custom built for guys like Pat Lilly and Jude Pew, both almost certain Hall of Fame candidates. Lilly’s making $22 million this year and will turn free agent at its end. “Can’t see him playing nowhere else,” Don-o says as Lilly takes the field, but I look at the scoreboard flashing the Choco-Factory logo and understand things differently.
The good news is that these are not exactly your Tatum O’Neal Bears.
Bakersfield is the anti-Yuma. It’s a franchise that has never had a losing season. A team that can turn a profit while spending upward of $100 mil. Can you tell I’m fixing on money today? Anyway, they currently sit 11-6, a half-game behind Tempe in the Desert Hills division. Today, they are up against the visiting Kalamazoo Badgers, who we saw earlier.
The tilt starts right on time.
Stalwart Bear Desmond Barnes is on the hill and takes one from each item on the buffet – fly out, strikeout, groundout. At 28, Barnes is already in his 7th season. He’s a pro and a joy to watch because he’s one of those guys who gets more from his talent than maybe he should. Of course, the Yummi-Choco Factory has something to do with it, too. Whatever. The guy’s lifetime record is 73-53, which doesn’t suck lemon juice.
The Bears waste a leadoff walk in the bottom of the first, and we and the rest of the Sunday afternoon sellout crowd settle into that most perfect experience – the pitcher’s duel between Barnes and Kalamazoo pitcher Mike Brown.
It stays that way until the 4th, when Lilly leads off with a walk and steals second base. The dude never ran much even as a younger guy and has been literally stoic on the base paths since 2010, but he steals this base and scores when Carlos Guerera doubles. Sergio Vallejo follows that with a double of his own, and Bakersfield is up 2-0.
Kalamazoo scratches back one of those runs when Quincy van Tiggelen closed his eyes, swings a mighty swing, and blooped a lucky single into right that scored Álex Martínez. Seriously, a guy named van Tiggelen really needs to hit better than this dude. At $2.75M, this guy’s right arm has got to be the most expensive piece of meat on the planet.
The 6th would have passed without notice except that the dark clouds unleashed a torrent of rain that delayed things for an hour and knocked both Brown and Barnes out of the game. But the bullpens were up to the task. Juan Canó and Il-gyung Yi combined to hold the Bears scoreless the rest of the game, but Kalamazoo fared no better against a string of five Bakersfield arms, and super-closer Curt Peterson picked up his 5th save of the year (and appears to be well on his way to his 5th consecutive 30+ save season). At $3.5-mil through 2015, Peterson is probably a steal.
Despite the rain, Don-o and I agree it was a fine day for baseball and that the best thing about it was that a day game gives us the rest of the night to settle in. The only blight on the day comes in the form of news that Tempe has once again drubbed my Duluth Warriors 13-2, the ever-wondrous Dillon Hansen moving to 0-3. I can only imagine the wreckage he left behind.
