Parking Lot Encounters



A collage of self-portraits at St. Anthony's School in Dubuque

With Major League Baseball spring training underway in Arizona and Florida, an incident at a Catholic school inspires yet another reminiscence of my former career.

Our show on Monday afternoon was at St. Anthony's School in Dubuque. The children were a terrific group: well-behaved, receptive, and very cute. Afterwards, as we helped the crew load the set onto the truck, kids played and waited for rides in the parking lot. A few of them called out our names as they saw us in our street clothes. "Benjie! Courtney! Brian!" They waved as they called, smiling and continuing to run around in that joyfully aimless way that only children know. In the parking lot of this particular school on this particular afternoon, we were celebrities.

The experience brought me back several years to when I worked for the Cubs. After games, I would have to walk beside the players' parking lot on the way to my car. Fans of all ages waited anxiously by the fence, balls and pens in hand, hoping to catch a glimpse of their favorite players on their way home. If the fans were lucky, they would get a smile or even an autograph as a reward for their patience. Athletes can be more difficult to recognize when they are not in uniform, and I was always a little tickled in those rare instances when a fan would gesture at me to his or her companion and ask, "Is he a player?" As preposterous as that sounds, I swear that it actually did happen on a few occasions.

The funniest experience I had along these lines was at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. I had the misfortune of walking towards one of the airport-bound team buses in the middle of a crowd that included players like Mark Grace and Sammy Sosa. The plaintive cries emerged from the throngs of fans behind the security fence. "Mark! Sammy!" I was counting the steps to the entrance of the bus, hoping that I could make it on board without a fan embarrassing both me and him by trying to identify me as a player. A mere two steps away from safety, the call rang out like a shotgun blast. "Hey! It's Hideo Nomo!"

"No, silly," corrected another fan. "That's not Nomo. That's Hideki Irabu!" Never mind, of course, that neither player ever wore a major league uniform for the Cubs. Other fans within earshot, taking for granted the veracity of my accused identity, sang out, "Hideki! Hideki!"

Hoping that this lamentable incident wasn't noticed by anybody else, I stepped onto the bus and did my best to act as if nothing had happened. Alas, it was in vain, and I was greeted with raucous laughter from the first several rows of passengers. All I could do was smile and take the first open seat I could find. I vowed then and there that the next time someone called out to me in a parking lot, the person would know my name.

Five years later, I suppose I got my wish. But, instead of getting called out by a baseball fan at Dodger Stadium, I got identified by a 14 year-old in a Catholic school in Dubuque, Iowa. He got my name right, though, and I suppose that's a start.

Posted: Tue - March 1, 2005 at 08:01 PM      

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