Your First Major League Baseball Game

[Flivver]

With the Red Sox home opener happening tomorrow, I couldn't help thinking back to the first time I attended a major league game. It was in August, 1960 and I was nine years old. My next door neighbors invited me to join them on a trip to Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox play the Kansas City A's. It was an evening game, under the lights. We went in their brand new 1960 Ford Falcon.

I don't remember who won because we left in the eighth inning "to beat the traffic". But I remember being in awe of actually being at Fenway Park and watching my favorite team. And I got a great Red Sox pennant and a game program that I still have.

What was your first major league baseball game and what do you remember about it?

 

[TaxMan1]

I don't remember the date like you, but it would have had to been around 1960, too. Connie Mack Stadium. Philadelphia.

 

[LizzieMaine]

August 16, 1970 -- Fenway Park, the Red Sox versus the Minnesota Twins. My friend next door talked her father into driving a bunch of neighborhood kids down to see a game, so we all got out of bed at 5 AM to pack into his 1953 DeSoto for the four-hour drive down to Boston.

We sat in Section 6 in right field, which were actually pretty poor seats, but they had two big advantages: they only cost $2.75 each, and they afforded a clear and unobstructed view of Tony Conigliaro's rear end. My friend and I were in full agreement that this was the best of all possible vantage points.

Gary Peters started for the Sox that day, and Luis Tiant started for the Twins. (Little did we realize what the future would hold for him...)

There were lots of homers, most of them, alas, by the Twins -- including a monster shot by Harmon Killebrew that hit the whiskey billboard deep beyond left-center, and sent a group of hippies who were sitting on top of the sign scrambling for their lives. For the Sox, Tony C didn't disappoint us by hoisting one into the left field screen, and Reggie Smith also hit one out. But the best of all possible moments came in the bottom of the eighth when rookie catcher Jerry Moses pinch hit. As he came to the plate I stood up and screamed, in my annoying little seven-year-old voice, HIT A HOMER JERRY! And sure enough, he did. I left that game amazed by this great power I seemed to have to influence the outcome of events.

Wasn't enough for the Sox though -- they lost 9 to 6.

On the long drive home, the muffler fell off the DeSoto, and we had to spend an extra hour and a half waiting at a Midas shop in Saugus waiting for it to get fixed. We went to supper at a Lum's restaurant nearby, and enjoyed Hot Dogs Steamed in Beer, a rare delicacy I never knew existed. And then I slept all the rest of the way home....

 

[Rosie]

I don't remember the date but, I guess it was 1985 or 1986 because it was before the Mets won the World Series. I was a big Mets fan as a kid, because my Daddy was one and he and my brother would always go to games leaving me behind because I was too little. Now that I'm thinking of it, it was definitely '86 because I was 8, an "official" big girl. I have no idea who the opposing team was but my Dad bought me a white dog wearing a blue Mets cap and a little wooden bat which I still have.

 

[vonwotan]

Can't remember the date either, but at the time, Dave Kingman was playing for the Mets and knocking 'em out of the park. Neighborhood kids used to wait outside Shea during games to retrieve the balls... He wasn;t with the Met's (or any team) for very long so it had to be before '77.

 

[Flivver]

As a postscript to my first visit to Fenway park, I remember that upon returning to our car, my neighbors noticed that someone had removed the Kennedy/Johnson bumper sticker they had wired to the rear bumper of the Falcon...and in Boston, yet!

 

[Tommy Fedora]

Early sixties when my friend had tickets to a night game at Yankee Stadium. I was about 15 and we sat three rows behind the visitors on deck circle.
I was in total awe as I walked up the ramp and got my first sight of the immensity of old Yankee Stadium, before they brought the fences in. It was cavernous.
Early in the game the fans started to stand and cheer. I looked around for something happening but couldn't find anything as the crowd swelled and clapped. Then my friend pointed out to me that Mickey Mantle walked out to the on deck circle ! A fond memory.

 

[Nathan Flowers]

.

I can't remember the exact date or year.

Reggie Jackson was playing for the Angels, though. Probably around 81-82 in Anaheim.

 

[Feraud]

My first MLB game was a Mets vs. Padres double header. I remember the game being long and the weather hot!
Speaking of Reggie, I was in attendance when he hit is 300th home run with the Yanks.

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

With the Red Sox home opener happening tomorrow,

LET'S GO RED SOX:eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

My first game was a Sox game. It was sometime in the early to mid 80's. I don't know who was playing. I remember being with my Dad, my Uncle Nate, my Uncle Teddy and my Grampa Itsy. I remember having seats right behind homeplate. There was a lot of press around, and the ushers apparently knew my family. I later found out that my Grampa had rebuilt a 1950's Mercedes SL for one of the players, and as part of the payment he gave my Grampa a bunch of game tickets. I'll have to ask my Dad what year it was, but I think it was 82 because I was about 8 years old.

 

[Fletch]

Yanks at Kansas City, ca. 1977. I was about 10 and with my dad. It was also my first time smelling doob (some guys behind us had it). Strangely, I didn't need to ask what it was, I just "knew."

Only player name I remember from that day was Graig Nettles. I remember thinking Graig looked wrong and should have been spelled Craig. I think the Royals got behind, so we left.

 

[RedPop4]

Best as I can recollect, July of 1976. Dodgers vs. Cubs in Los Angeles. We were visiting my cousin who lived out there. It was ok, had seats way up in Dodger Stadium.

Next one I remember was a couple years later, Reds. Vs. Cards. in Busch. We got into St. Louis too late the night before, and missed Tom Seaver pitching. Went to a Rangers-White Sox game in Arlington on the same trip.

 

[dhermann1]

May 1962, Forbes Field, Pittsburgh, Buccos versus the Dodgers. Our friends grandpa had a season "luxury box" on the press box level. The game was telecast nationally, and I was sitting one plate glass width away from Joe Garagiola! What a thrill for a 15 year old kid! My mom was a diehard Dodger fan, even after they left Brooklyn. Johnny Podres, World Series hero for the Bums vs Al McBean. Dodgers won, 9 to 5, as I recall. They certainly don't build ball parks like Forbes Field any more!
My second Major League game was a double header at Yankee Stadium in May of 1965. Whitey Ford and Al Downing swept the Angels, I believe. Afterward I hung around the back of the building to see the players come out. To see Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle come out of that building was the thrill of a lifetime. The Mick had golden blonde hair, and was almost as wide as he was tall, and I mean ALL muscle. The power just radiated out of him.

 

[LolitaHaze]

May 21st, 1993

That was the day I fell in love with Mark Grace! I was 13 and on a class trip to St Louis, MO. Cards vs Cubs. I liked baseball, but wasn't a fanatic. We were way back up in the nose bleeds. No one really cared to be there, but then I look up on the jumbotron and there was Mark Grace, 1st baseman for the Cubs up to bat. To this day, I have a crush on Mr. Grace and finally got to (all too briefly) "meet" him and get his autograph at a game last year. He really liked my vintage outfit! Anyway, that day the Cubs lost and I lost my heart to Mark Grace. lol

 

[Pilgrim]

About 1982 (I was 32 years old) in the Kingdome; Mariners vs. (I think) Red Sox.

That old dome was quite a cavern!

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

The Dodgers on a elemetary school field trip. It was bat day! I still have the bat. It's tiny.

Here's a question, and I hope it won't get in the way of the first one but who has seen a baseball game in another state and not for a team you were rooting for?

 

[Dan G]

The Mariners. Stinking Mariners. I can't help but root for them, and they NEVER make it. Yet the next year, I root for them again. Like a sore those Mariners are.
I don't pay any attention anymore.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Here's a question, and I hope it won't get in the way of the first one but who has seen a baseball game in another state and not for a team you were rooting for?

I used to go see the Expos whenever I was in Montreal, not so much to root -- because they were a pretty sad and faceless team in those days -- but to simply enjoy a ballgame. They'd have these special deals where it was only $5 for any seat in the place -- and there were usually 45,000 empty seats or so to choose from, so I'd usually end up pretty close to the action. But then a funny thing happened -- I actually *did* start to root for them, and I was heartbroken when they finally moved to Washington. I still have a desperate "Save Our Expos" pamphlet someone handed me at one of the last games I saw.

 

[dhermann1]

So how about minor league?

While we're at it, how about minor league? I've been to a couple Brooklyn Cyclones games out at Coney Island and it's really fun. My first minor league game was at the NYPenn League Jamestown Falcons some time in the 60's. But my favorite was the old Hawaii Islanders in 1968, in the Bo Belinski days. They played in a wonderful old wooden dump of a ballpark on King Street, which is long gone now. Let's hear it for wooden baseball stadiums!
Maybe we could start a thread on the most decrepit ballpark we've ever been to. (Decrepit is GOOD in ballparks.)

 

[RedPop4]

dherman I agree completely with decrepit ball parks. There's a living history and sense of rootedness in those places.

As for minor league ball. New Orleans had the Pelicans of the Southern League into the mid 1960s. In 1960 they abandoned Pelican Stadium which, if it were there, I would be able to see from my workplace. In 1977 we got a AAA franchise in the American Association and they played in the Louisiana Superdome. They stayed for that one season and left.

We now have the former Denver Bears/Zephyrs since 1993. Used to have season tickets. Then I worked as an usher for two seasons, better to let them pay me since I couldn't afford the tickets any longer. We have a ball park that opened in 1997, it's nice. Nothing really remarkable about it, though.