 |
| Frames from a storyboard I created to celebrate, for a client, this storybook ending! |
Ah yes, June 1st, the beginning of hurricane season. Oh joy!
It's not been a very good month for me. In fact, it really hasn't been very good since November. On top of everything going on with the quarantine, the riots and Tee's illness, I lost a childhood mentor and just two weeks ago, I lost a friend in the Pentagon to Covid 19.
My de-stressing respite lately is Vin Scully's Dodger baseball. Apparently on YouTube, there's about thirty of the many games he's done over the years and I've seen just about most of them. But, the one game that couldn't be scripted by Hollywood or any fantasy writer is the first game of the 1988 World Series. Nowadays, the game would be suspect as a left wing conspiracy or a media manipulation that's just too crazy to believe.
But, the game has since become legendary in the baseball world, and the Gibson's home run is considered by many as one of the greatest home runs of all time!
The thing is, that up until the fifth inning when Kirk Gibson is seen limping around in the dugout with his jacket on, did I realize I was watching "THE game". Because the game was streaming on YouTube, I could jump back to earlier sections of the game to get the full effect of the fact that Franklin Stubbs would be substituting for Kirk Gibson in Game One because Gibby was gimpy! He was injured in the playoffs with the New York Mets, and no one knew exactly how bad the knee injury was and how long he'd be out.
"Oh man, I said to myself, this is THE game!" I don't ever remember watching the whole game.
In the first inning against Oakland pitcher, Dave Stewart, Mickey Hatcher hit a two run homer. It was the first home run Hatcher had ever hit in his entire Major League career up until this game.
Unfortunately for the Dodgers, Tim Belcher, could not find the strike zone until Jose Canseco walloped a grand slam answer in the very next inning. The rest of the game was pretty much a pitcher's dual with only the Dodgers scoring another run to make the score 4 to 3.
Oakland had many opportunities to put the Dodgers away.
From this point on, the bottom of the ninth with two outs, I was very familiar with because I had, on three occasions, created storyboards about the magic of that last at bat for local clients like Great Western Bank.
To this day, I could not believe the roll of the dice manager, Tommy LaSorda took having Mike Davis, after being walked by Dennis Eckersley, actually steal second base. Had Davis been caught, the game would have ended with the "A's" winning 4 to 3.
With the roar of the home team crowd, and Davis on second base, I got a lump in my throat and even though I had seen and drawn this scenario many times, my eyes started to well up.
Therese looked over to notice I was, once again, losing it to a baseball game. I covered my mouth as to somehow mitigate the sounds of my sobbing, but when LaSorda inserted Gibson as his pinch hitter and Vince Scully exclaimed, "And look who's coming up", I totally lost it and started crying.
After game was won and I'm exclaiming that "Baseball Is Life" a couple of times, I wiped away the tears. Calming myself down as I re-entered the living room, Therese stated, "You never cry. After all these years of trials and tribulations, I've never seen you cry... except at baseball games!"
"How come?"
First cup...
Copyright 2020/ Ben Bensen III
