If you ignore the towering home runs hit by the home team, the highlight of the evening could well have been the 1-6-5-4 double play that came out of nowhere on a 3-and-1 count in the fifth inning with either the Nashville Sounds shortstop or their harmonica player at the plate.
Or, quite possibly, it might have been the double steal triggered by the third-base coach for the Salt Lake Bees when he signaled the base runners by sending his fingertips on a whirlwind tour from the bill of his cap to his left elbow to his belt buckle and back to the bill of his cap before dealing with an obvious itch and clapping his hands.
There’s really nothing quite like spending a relaxed evening at the old ballpark watching the chess match that is baseball with an unfiltered wheat beer, a fistful of peanuts, and visions of “turning two” dancing in your head — especially when the setting features the stunning Wasatch Range as backdrop.
Sometime between the last Pacific Coast League ballgame I attended down in the valley and the one last week, the marketing department for the Bees had struck up a ballpark naming-rights deal with a Salt Lake City-based AT&T authorized dealer that calls itself Spring Mobile.
So now, where Franklin Covey Field once roamed along 13th South, we have Spring Mobile Ballpark. I know, I should really try and keep up with all the changes going on, but it’s so much easier to just whine about the passing of that to which I’ve gown accustomed after the fact.
I mean, although I love the newer ballpark (what’s it been, 15 years?), I recall my irritation when I first heard they were going to tear down Derks Field. But if I had my way, of course, the L.A. Dodgers would still be playing in the Coliseum, Art Durante would still be slinging insults from his Main Street Hardware store, and the Park City Muckers would still be playing rugby on summer Saturdays at City Park.
Meanwhile, back on the field, for the catchers, pitchers and infielders on both sides, the true excitement came from dodging the splintered shards of maple bats that flew like shrapnel when sawed off by horsehide buzzsaws hurled from the pitchers mound, 60 feet 6 inches away.
The “horsehide” part is just an old habit picked up by those of us who inhaled Dizzy Dean’s colloquialisms back during early television baseball broadcasts. Baseballs in those days did actually feature a stitched-on horsehide cover but it was the way Dizzy drawled the syllables that stuck to our ribs. In 1974, due to rumored arm twisting from the equine set, cowhide became the cover of choice.
The exploding-maple-bats syndrome, however, is very much with us in the here-and-now. Barry Bonds fueled maple’s popularity when he began using them to routinely send the aforementioned “horsehide” spheres into orbit.
The more flexible ash bats crack delaminate, if you will — while maple bats snap. You can often see a hitter arrive at first base with only three or four inches of the bat handle still gripped in his batting glove. Ash has been in use since early in the 20th century due to its strength-to-weight ratio but now is under forest-wide attacks from encroaching boring insects. Birch might well be the bat’s future.
If it weren’t for the obvious danger to infielders — not to mention those in the dugouts, attempting to deal with a batted ball and an array of projected wooden daggers at the same time — the improvisational dance steps involved would be hilarious.
As it is, however, something needs to be done about maple bats. The players union, of course, will have none of it unless there also appears on the bargaining table an equal concession of some sort from management. Who knows what that would be? A four-day work week with additional time off for good behavior, perhaps?
The Bees return from their current road trip to begin a brief four-game homestand against the Las Vegas 51s this Saturday night. With only four additional home games remaining thereafter, a regular-season-ending series against the Sacramento River Cats, the joint should be jumpin.’
Hopefully, in the near future, maple can join horsehide as part of baseball’s past. In the interim, take in a ball game! With each pitch, a sense of rebirth. Magic is in the air. Bring your glove and snag a foul ball. The universe as we know it is in balance. As Ernie Banks used to say, “Let’s play two!”
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio, among other pursuits. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.