By Donald G. Evans

*Note: This is the final installment in Don's Cactus League Trilogy.

I deliberately did not schedule our return flight home from Arizona on Monday, because I didn’t want to be in the air during Opening Day. Flights were too expensive over the weekend, and we didn’t want to cut short our trip too dramatically, so I pushed things back a day. I had this in mind: let the Cubs battle miserably cold and wet conditions in Chicago whilst I set myself up on the sunny patio in Casa Grande, with a front row view of WGN on the living room set beyond.

Then four days ago, as we snaked our way towards The New Season, my dad came home in a huff. He’d picked up the mail at the neighborhood mailbox bank (they don’t deliver directly to your house in their subdivision), opened his bills, and upon noticing a three-dollar a month upcharge drove directly to the cable company and canceled all but the most basic channels. WGN had been taken out back and shot.

I pleaded WGN’s case, though I knew it was a unilateral and irreversible decision. My dad is still without long-distance service due to a dispute over the definition of “local.” Had I been consulted, I’d have gladly donated $20 to cover the season, but it was too late for that now. As I scrolled through the channels it was mostly blackout broken up by paid advertisements and the Hallmark Channel.

The thing is, that’s what my parents do: watch TV. (Okay, they go to the casino once in a while, too, but predominately: TV). Not to be dismissal of their retirement years, but what’s left?

“You’re going to run out of Perry Masons,” I said.

“There’s a bunch I haven’t seen yet,” he assured me.

“Raymond Burr’s not coming back any time soon.”

Opening Day, growing up in Chicago’s Belmont-Cragin neighborhood, was an unofficial civic holiday. Most kids had their parents’ blessing, but it didn’t matter much one way or another: we were going. In those days, you got tickets at the game, and only on Opening Day would you even worry about getting there early to ensure admission. This was the most anticipated day of the year, barring Christmas: a day when hope preened and primped in sunshine not yet obscured by the clouds.

“Listen to it on the radio,” my mom consoled.

“Same issue,” I said.

A cigar, too: I was going to smoke a nice Rocky Patel I’d brought with me. Not anymore. I was fully into Plan B. It’s a household in which the TV is never off, from the moment my parents wake up until the moment they go to bed. I contemplated my dilemma to the soundtracks of Gunsmoke, Walker, Texas Ranger, and The Price Is Right. My mom and dad would take Dusty—that part was done. I’d borrow their car, if need be—good. Now, where to go?

“There’s a special Diagnosis Murder on tonight!” my dad exclaimed. “Hour and a half special.”

I held my bitterness. My dad, too, is a big Cubs fan, though to my knowledge he’s yet to witness a player, much less a manager, he thought would amount to anything more than a spectacular flop, Ernie and Billy and Ron and Randley excepted. I remind myself that when I’m 71 I’m going to pop for whatever is the going rate at that time, and I’m going to give these guys credit where credit is due.

“Try the 300s,” my mom said. “I think we get some stations in the 300s.”

A one twenty weekday start is eleven twenty here, and that presented the first problem. A sports bar—the prime candidate to accommodate my needs—might not open until lunch. Then I got the weather report from Chicago, and that presented my second problem. Wherever it was I wound up, I’d being paying rent in Guinness. Long rain delays could be costly in several ways, plus a bunch of Diamondback fans might want to switch off the channel rather than stick through This Week In Baseball reruns with me.

I made a call to the nearest sports bar: Famous Sam’s. I asked about WGN, and the woman on the other end responded as though I’d asked if I might bother her to turn on a public access channel from Borneo. But after several long pauses, and a multitude of conferences with Famous Sam’s workers and finally the manager, it turned out, indeed, they had WGN and would be willing to switch over to it for me.

Now to get the timing right. I was trying to write, while I had a rare opportunity of full-time babysitters at hand, but I obsessively checked weather reports and ESPN. It didn’t look as though the game would start on time, and the trick was to get to my barstool around first pitch and not so soon that I’d drink away six hours.

ESPN.com reported that Zambrano had retired the Brewers in order in the first, and I made my break. Famous Sam’s is less than a mile, and with only one full day left in Arizona I didn’t want to relinquish an opportunity for a nice walk, though I was anxious about time. I hurriedly got to the dirt path that ran parallel to Florence Boulevard, a route that allowed me to duck the unsightly and unending conveyor of new developments, chain stores, and traffic. It was farther than I’d remembered, adding urgency to my walk, but finally I spotted the dollar store I remembered being next store to the bar. I walked the final few steps: huge car detailing shop.

I come once a year, and so it had been that long since I’d last been here. Things were changing rapidly in the dessert, but why hadn’t Famous Sam’s given me a heads up? Why hadn’t my dad? I flagged down a guy with a newly clean car and inquired after Famous Sam’s. He said he’d never heard of it, which made me think Famous Sam’s might be a misnomer. I was prepared to call my dad with scorching criticism on a variety of topics; I actually had my phone in hand to make the call. It rang.

“It’s on here,” my mom said, as if indoor plumbing had just come to Casa Grande. “We got it right here.” Actually, I was as excited as though for the invention of indoor plumbing. My original plans, minus a few innings, were going to be carried out, after all.

Hurrying back the less scenic way, I passed Famous Sam’s—I’d overshot it-- and then another dollar store—do you really need two dollar stores on the same two-block strip? No matter, I had to get back to that patio. I was no longer enjoying the walk, and in fact it was beginning to seem a little fucking hot for my tastes.

“They were playing, but they stopped,” my mom reported.

For some unknown reason, Fox Sports had decided, apparently, to give free access to all its broadcast stations this Opening Day. I waited out the rain delay. I prepared my spot. Play resumed, with me out there on the patio, puffing away at my Rockey Patel, sipping a cup of tea, the weather just right, and for the next two hours I reveled in the pitcher’s duel. Then came the three-run ninth, in which Kerry Wood plunked the leadoff hitter and proceeded to give up three runs, a scenario which seemed to indicate that this year, in fact, was no different than all those years past.

My dad, at this point, was full rant: the curse that is Kerry Wood, the waste of space that is Felix Pie, the laziness of Aramis Ramirez and the idiocy of Lou Pinella. I couldn’t totally track it all, but I was in no position to disagree with all my dad’s conclusions. Then it happened. Eric Gagne fell behind to D. Lee and served up a belt-high fastball that he hit for a single. Then he missed badly on four pitches to A-Ram to put the tying run on base. Up stepped Fukodome, not yet a single game’s major league experience under his belt and already, with two hits and a walk, ascending to icon status. He worked the count to his favor. He hit it. Hard. And Far.

TIE GAME! TIE FUCKING GAME! See, this is why you don’t miss the opener; you want to be on this ride from the very beginning, when all the angel dust is just beginning to pollinate, when everything is possible. You want to see it real time—there’s no way a replay or newspaper account could give you the same rush. You want to say you were there when history was made.

Ten minutes later, and it was over. The home run had been a tease, and The Cubbies were 0-1 and eerily about the same as their last 100 predecessors. I sat stunned in the Arizona gloom. My mom stuck her head outside, and said, “You still watching this?”

“Put on whatever you want,” I said, and then I heard, “Get ready for ANOTHER episode of Murder, She Wrote.

Donald G. Evans, author of Wrigleyville sports gambling novel Good Money After Bad, is the Lovable Losers emcee. His stories have appeared in StoryQuarterly, Pinyon Review, The Journal and Narrative Magazine, among others.

By Donald G. Evans

*Note: This is the second installment in Don's Cactus League Trilogy.

Here we are, awash in the light of a strong Tempe sun, on the base of the sloping lawn facing the Chicago Cubs’ bullpen and with the right field stands just behind us. Maybe this picture is the only good thing to come of the day, the only reason, in fact, to be there. My mom, 70 yesterday, with her replacement left knee, struggles to rise from her sitting position; my dad, adult diabetes cramping the circulation in his lower extremities, likewise needs a hand up; four-year-old Dusty, hungry and tired and sunburned, whines; me, down sixty bucks for twenty bucks worth of tickets bought against all principle off Craig’s List, also, in my own way, whines.

DustyDusty does not approve of ballpark food selection (there is no pizza, much less chicken nuggets, at Tempo Diablo Stadium); I don’t approve of its prices. (Okay, all jokes aside, a glass of lemonade—mostly ice, mind you—is fucking $5.75. This for two cents worth of powdered sugar and free water; you do the math). My mom and dad would prefer to watch the game in the comfort of their own living room.

So here we are, sitting just a few feet behind Kerry Wood, Carmen Pignatello and an unidentified pitcher who took over Jeff S amardzija’s Number 50 when he was sent back to the minors. Wood has signed a baseball that an Angels minor league outfielder tossed to Dusty at the practice facility behind the ballpark just a few hours before. The players are taking the field. All seems well. But, really, the heat and the crowds and the accumulative effects of an hour drive to the park, another hour running around the practice fields, and a third hour waiting in line for good lawn seats, plus the all-day heat, have gotten to us all.

We need a picture.

A Cubs fanatic toting a well-organized photography book she uses to collect player signatures, and whom refers to all the players by first names, volunteers to take our group shot for us. We huddle together. She peers through the tiny viewfinder of my 15-dollar Angels “souvenir” camera. Dusty puts aside his discontent long enough to flash a charming smile. My mom and dad forget their pain long enough to turn enthusiastic faces to the camera. I genuinely, for the moment, forgive the unforgivable prices.

Snap.

Here it is: all four of us. My dad, a Cubs fan since he migrated with his family from rural Alabama to the North Side in 1952. My mom, born into a Cubs crazy Polish family in a two-flat around the corner from the old Riverview Amusement Park. Dusty, who’s too young yet to really appreciate, much yet love, Our Team, but who wants to come because Daddy wants to come. Me--Daddy, Donny, father, son--with memories of going to Cubs games with my dad when I was a boy not much older than my son is now.

The picture turns out fine—as good as it gets for a disposable camera. This trinket is nothing now, just a minor amusement that passes in the time it takes to look at the developed print. It’s real value lies years in the future. There will be a time, distant from now, when Dusty looks at these pictures with his own son or daughter, and recalls little bits and pieces of his childhood experiences in Arizona, when we were all there.

I’m sitting now, with Dusty in my arms. He’s cradling the Kerry Wood-signed ball like a Teddy Bear. I ask him what was his favorite part of the day, and he says, “When that guy threw me the ball.” Maybe the Cubs have little to do with it. Maybe they’re just an excuse to rise up on an otherwise ordinary day and do something, together, that has some significance beyond the pale.

Did the Cubs win or lose? Who knows? It’s only spring training.

Donald G. Evans, author of Wrigleyville sports gambling novel Good Money After Bad, is the Lovable Losers emcee. His stories have appeared in StoryQuarterly, Pinyon Review, The Journal and Narrative Magazine, among others.

By Donald G. Evans

*Note: This is the first installment in Don's Cactus League Trilogy.

The sign on the Ticket Window said, “Today’s Game Is Sold Out.” Fans stood in three jagged lines behind each of three ticket booths. I stood near the curb. I tried to align the concepts of “Sold Out” and “Ticket Line,” and in doing so figure a way to get into the Giants-Cubs game that started in a little more than an hour. I got in line. Somebody near the front said “they might release some tickets” and as the crowd of ticketless fans grew behind me I relayed the message, and they relayed the message, until there was a swarm of us planning our days around information overheard from a woman in an Easter Bunny-sized straw bonnet with smears of white sun screen slashed across her cheeks and proudly displaying a big foam Cubs index finger. Reliable Source didn’t seem to sum her up.

A gimpy man stood in front of me in line. Almost from his first words, it was as though he understood us to be co-conspirators and not, as it seemed to me, total strangers. He wore a San Francisco Giants hat. “I’m ‘onna see what’s out on the street,” he said. “I find something worth getting, I’ll get two.” Very nice of him, and I wasn’t saying no, but it took just seconds for the price of this lunch to avail itself. “They open the windows, you get me a ticket?” He reached into his pocket for cash, but I didn’t know the price of admission, plus there were 50 people behind me who, if it came to that, would gladly take a ticket off my hands. I waved him off. This, it seemed, officially sealed our partnership; he smiled, and caned off toward a scalper fanning out lawn tickets like a magician showing his cards.

The scene disturbed me. Here we were, a cluster of hot, agitated people who couldn’t get a ticket to see two teams practice. And make no mistake: that’s what it was. This was my fourth straight spring training trip, and I’d seen Cubs lineups that would encourage a wayward Babe Ruth team. I’ve seen Greg Maddux pitch and leave the park, showered and dressed, in under an hour. I’ve seen line drives scatter players running wind sprints in the outfield grass—during the game. I’ve seen tie games stopped after nine innings and I’ve seen tie games stopped after ten innings. I’ve seen light rains send hot dog vendors packing. I’m waiting to see them run out of balls.

My new ally returned one, twice, three times, with grim reports. “Guy over there had three—they were gone before I could get there.” “They’s having a party over in left field—fifty dollars but that includes all the beer you can drink.” “Guy down the block’s asking thirty for lawn.”

There were three cashiers readying themselves for a workday, which meant that unless balancing a drawer was a new form of taunting there must be tickets. Sure enough, the windows opened. I waited my turn, and quickly traded thirty-eight dollars cash for two tickets, turned to reclaim my new friend, and walked with him toward the entrance. We had two seats together.

“Don’t have to sit in them seats,” the man advised. “These are just to get us inside.”

I followed. The man introduced himself as Roger. He was 70 years old, a native of The Bay area, where he’d crossed and recrossed the bridge to see A’s and Giants games. He’d been in Arizona 15 years and now mostly followed the Diamondbacks, but had a son my age in Seattle--so throw the Mariners into the mix. Who knew but that Roger might someday soon, with the addition of a few grandkids, cover the whole of major league baseball, like a roulette player putting down chips on EVERY number. We sat side-by-side in second-tier seats just above the handicapped section, to where we would move if legitimate handicapped people did not arrive in good time. As Roger explained all this, he watched the field; as I nodded agreement I did the same.

A knee replacement had caused Roger to walk with a cane; that cane, it turned out, was our Hall Pass. With a cane, crowds parted and doors opened and you almost never heard, “Hey Hopalong! Where do you think you’re going?” I observed Roger. True, he had a noticeable limp, but he got around fine, making his handicap status a touch dubious. My status as aid was more dubious still, but as the game began and the handicapped seats were entirely unused we moseyed down and settled; I thought, “Okay, I can be Nurse Don for nine innings.”

The seats were right behind home plate, high enough to get an angle on the pitcher and fielders but low enough to hear cowhide thump against leather. It soon became obvious that it was standard practice for the able-bodied to take over the handicapped section after a reasonable time, and soon we were surrounded by a father-son combo, a few Gray Panthers, and even a drunk 25-year-old who nodded off between loud, indecipherable heckles. I even came to resent a few of the younger, healthier handicapped denizens; hey, give my charge a little spreading out room!

Sean Marshall was on the mound, and the sun in the blue blue sky was so perfect and round it looked like a child artist’s rendering. The gloomy, snowy, frigid weather reports from back home bolstered my spirits further. Was I getting my money’s worth or was I getting my money’s worth?

Popularity has its price, and as I’d stood in front of Scottsdale Stadium thinking about steep admission prices, irritating crowds and general inconvenience, I’d thought the whole concept of spring training had become something else, that for me this was no longer a satisfying experience. But on this day, with the casual baseball pace outcasualling itself, I listened to all Roger’s stories—seeing a Minor League Mays in his first spring training appearance, collecting pins that would go on his collection of a hundred baseball caps, shaking hands with Ernie Banks—and thought, “No, this will be okay for a little longer. At least.”

Donald G. Evans, author of Wrigleyville sports gambling novel Good Money After Bad, is the Lovable Losers emcee. His stories have appeared in StoryQuarterly, Pinyon Review, The Journal and Narrative Magazine, among others.