A little superstition never hurt baseball ~ October 22, 1987

David Heiller

“Let’s see, I’ll wear the red checkered shirt, and my green pants, and my good tennis shoes. What T-shirt? Here’s the one from T & M Athletics. Last time I wore my Camp Courage T-shirt, but T & M should be just as good. Yeah, that’ll be O.K.” I stuffed my Homer Hanky in the right rear pocket.

It was so fun going to those games
in 1987. We went to one playoff game
 and one series game. I still have the
 beloved homer hanky. 

As I dressed myself Saturday morning, my mind fell into a habit as old as mankind, or at least as long as mankind has played the game of baseball. Baseball is a game of habits, and of superstitions. Ever notice how Kirby Puckett crosses himself as he steps up to the plate each at bat? It’s a habit, and it helps him hit .330 and make those catches in center field.

The way I dress to a Twins game helps too. I wore that red checkered shirt to the Twins first play-off victory this year. Those green pants, they helped Dan Gladden tie that game on that close play at the plate against the Tigers in the eighth inning. So without thinking, I dressed in the same clothes for last Saturday’s opener of the World Series. Luckily for the guy next to me at the stadium, the clothes had been washed. I’d have worn them if they had been rank.

Cindy and I drove to downtown Minneapolis shortly after five p.m. Saturday night. As we approached the stadium, along with streams of other people, we passed people standing on the corners with fingers held up, one finger, or two fingers, like someone from the sixties giving us a peace sign. They weren’t interested in peace now. They wanted Twins tickets. One guy stood in front of the stadium with a sign around his neck: “Need tickets, $ no problem.” I thought back to when I had pleaded with Cindy to buy the set of eight tickets offered to the Askov American for a mere $404. She had answered, “What if we can’t get rid of the extras?” Last Saturday night, we could have sold our tickets for several hundred dollars. Each.

We entered the Metrodome a full hour and a half before the game started. The stands were already one third filled. Banners draped the upper deck railing, things like “The Cards are stacked” with a drawing of some sickly birds piled on top of one another. In center field, I spotted a simple one: “Frank (Sweet Music) Viola.” Some kid had hung that bed sheet there 16 times this year, and the Twins had won all 16 games. Frank Viola heard before Saturday’s game that the kid couldn’t get tickets. Frank found him some tickets. Frank was pitching that night.

Baseball is a game of habit and superstition.

The noise of the crowd built as the field was cleared, the batting cage dismantled. When the announcers called out the Cardinal players by name, a few people booed, but most of us mumbled and rumbled. It sounded ominous in the stadium, like Moby Dick coming up for air. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the Minnesota Twins,” the announcer called. Moby Dick exploded. The announcer’s voice was completely inaudible. They players came out, the cameras panned their face, but no one could hear a thing.

When the Twins took the field, Cindy decided the time had come for her first trip to the bathroom. She hadn’t even drunk her first diet Coke yet. That’s excitement. Dan Gladden played catch with the pitching coach in front of us. The crowd started cheering for Dan, because the left field gang knows what a nice man Dan is, and they wanted that baseball in his hand. Sure enough, as the game was about to start, Dan tossed the ball into the left field bleachers. It sailed toward me, and I mean right toward me. Then it hooked to the left. I leaned over, but the guy in the seat next to Cindy’s empty chair grabbed it.

“Cindy, you’ll never guess what happened,” I said when she returned. The guy on her left pulled out the baseball and laughed.

“I never would have got it from him,” Cindy said. “Yeah, but at least you could have deflected it to me,” I answered.

The highlight of the game, as you may recall, came in the fourth inning. The Twins loaded the bases, then nickeled and dimed three runs across, without a single out. Dan Gladden stepped up. Kathy and Dave Weulander, from Askov, sat in the upper deck left field seats. “I never get to see a grand slam,” Kathy said. (I couldn’t hear at her at the time—Dave told me later.) The next pitch Dan sent into the left field seats again, this time with his bat. Cindy didn’t catch this one either, but it didn’t matter. That’s when the decibel level hit 118. We waved our hankies too.

After that inning, I stood up and visited the bathroom myself, and bought a couple hot jumbo pretzels. They look good on their rack, but they taste like something my son makes with flour and water at the day care center. On the way back to my seat, I ran into Jerry DeRungs, from the Moose Lake Star Gazette. Jerry had an attractive woman on his right side, and another looker on his left. He looked like he was enjoying the game too. I wondered if he had seen the grand slam.

The Twins went on to win the game, 10-1, as you may know.

As the game ended, I shook hands with Bill Paulson, a newspaper publisher from Mountain Lake, Minnesota, who sat next to me. “I went to the World Series in 1965,” he said.

“Yeah, too bad they lost,” I said.

“Yeah, it was, but I got the nicest souvenir,” he said. “You see those red, white, and blue buntings over the dugout? After the game, I took one of them, and I’ve still got it.”

“I was 11 years old then,” I said to myself more than to Bill. I wondered if it would be another 22 years before my next World Series. And I wondered if I would be sitting next to a young newspaper publisher and his wife, and telling him about my near miss of Dan Gladden’s baseball, or my Homer Hankies, or the 118 decibels, .002145 of which were mine.

There won’t be any “Yeah, that’s too bad,” when we recall the series of ‘87. Not this year. I’ll see you then, and maybe sooner.

Just look for the guy in the red checkered shirt and green pants.