By Chip Young in
Rhode Island’s Future
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| Photo by Will Collette |
In the iconic movie
about minor league baseball, Bull Durham, the
hotcha Susan Sarandon plays Annie Savoy, a diehard fan who worships at the
“Church of Baseball,” the home park of a low minors team, the Durham Bulls. She
is in essence a sophisticated baseball groupie.
Every year Annie
welcomes the new roster of the Bulls. And through the course of the season
gives the ballplayers her full-hearted devotion, affection, the finer points of
the game and, in some cases, her body.
Sarandon immortalized the nickname for
her place in the pantheon, “Baseball Annie,” in a wonderful way. All Annie
asked from the Bull players in return every year was respect and loving
kindness. At the end of the year, it was all good-bye hugs and kisses, and no
regrets to the boys of summer, with a new group due in for the same warm
embrace in the spring.
At McCoy Stadium, it
has never really been about the constantly changing players on the field, but
the warmth, family atmosphere and affordable prices that allow folks to get
more than their money’s worth. And if that is the future Jim Rice or Fred Lynn
or Wade Boggs out there, it is a bonus that will be realized down the road with
a boastful, “I saw him when he was at Pawtucket!”
Pawtucket Red Sox fans
have become our own version of Baseball Annie, currently at a rift between the
adoration of the PawSox in our hearts, and their ill-considered moment of
straying from the emotional commitment of their loyal lovers.
Fortunately, that
pie-in-the-sky attempt to drop Baseball Annie in favor of a more upscale
relationship in the Capital City blew up in the team’s face. For a number of
appallingly obvious reasons, the plan to relocate went down faster than Jeb
Bush’s presidential hopes.
Time
to make nice
Fortunately, the two
new members of the front office management team, President Dr. Charles
Steinberg and Sr. V.P./General Manager Dan Rea, seem to understand the Baseball
Annie love affair the public has with their franchise.
They inherited the mess
from last year’s aborted move, which cost the club a big hit in attendance, and
after a worthwhile chat with them, seem to fully understand the unspoken
dynamic between team and fans.
Even more pleasingly,
Vice Chairman Mike Tamburro, he of the perpetual smile and good humor, is still
on hand from the legendary troika of he, late owner Ben Mondor, and top
executive Lou Schwechheimer, who turned a moribund franchise into one that such
New England lifestyle mags as Yankee magazine would recommend as a must-see
Biggest Little attraction.
And Dr. Steinberg so strongly relies upon Tamburro’s
intimate knowledge of the needs and desires to succeed that he adamantly makes
the point that he has moved himself into Tamburro’s office to make sure the
acquired wisdom can rub off.
Even to the point of pledging that he and Rea will
be with Tamburro out in the parking lot greeting fans arriving for the game,
even if they draw the slightly shocked and bemused reaction Tamburro is used
to; most fans not realizing they have been given a personal thank you and warm
welcome from the team’s top dog, who is more comfortable on the macadam than in
a luxury box.
Steinberg and Rea both
emphasize that the PawSox are here to stay in McCoy on a multi-year lease. This
is almost a necessity if they want to woo their Annies back, and not seen to be
looking over their devoted’s shoulder for yet another field of greener grass.
They are making the critical financial commitment to the franchise with subtle
improvements all around the 74-year old ballpark, the exception being the large
banner atop a building outside the center field fence that shouts outs “Welcome
to Pawtucket.” For residents of the city and essentially all Rhode Islanders,
that is as good as sending two dozen red roses to their affronted lovers.
Unless my bullshit
detector is badly damaged, I believe Steinberg, with Rea nodding in assent,
when he says that the word for what they are trying to accomplish to bring
their sweethearts back is simply, “Class. Doing things right and treating
people well. It’s a two-way street.” And it is a road he, Rea and Tamburro are
planning to take to win back the Baseball Annies.
You are lying – or
extremely blessed – if you claim that you have never been in a serious
relationship with a partner who hasn’t scared or hurt you by wandering for a
bit, be it heavy flirting or thinking they can get a better deal dancing
cheek-to-cheek with someone else.
And chances are, if you knew you had the real
thing happening, you sucked it up when apologies were sincerely offered with
promises to never do it again. The PawSox have been too good, too faithful and
too sincere for Baseball Annies like you and me to cut off our noses to spite
our face.
Lover come back, all
is forgiven. But don’t you ever, ever do that again. (Please.)
On The
Ball And Off The Wall is
an occasional sports column by Chip
Young, a Rhode Island journalist who was a sportswriter and broadcaster for
25 years. Best known as Phillipe, of Phillipe and Jorge’s Cool, Cool World,
Young was also an All-America soccer player in college, and he is in the Brown
Athletic Hall of Fame. He has attended PawSox games since before the Mondor
rehabilitation of the franchise, and once threw out the first pitch. He still
has that ceremonial ball.