6.22.01 LOS ANGELES DODGERS vs SAN DIEGO PADRES
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We didn’t really plan it this way—our drive up the coast the next day and a quaint bed and breakfast in San Luis Obsipo was supposed to have it covered—but my wife and I ended up spending our fifth wedding anniversary at Chavez Ravine, joined, serendipitously, by the Reverend Howard, who’d performed the ceremony, and my pal Marty from San Diego, who was my best man. So, a reunion of sorts. Also present: Tim and Joel from the other night, Joel’s wife Kim, Marty’s brother Jon. A regular party. The crowded left field reserve level couldn’t contain us, so we ended up moving over to a roughly corresponding section on the right-field side to watch the Dodgers hold off the Padres right up until the end, at which point the bully gave it away (again).
Paul Lo Duca hit yet another homer, a fifth-inning blast which tied the game at four. With the bases loaded and no outs in the sixth, though, underrated Padres righty Woody Williams got Marquis Grissom to ground into a force at home, then struck out Alex Cora and Dave Hansen to end the inning, and the Dodgers came away with nothing. They would be kept on the porch for the next two innings by Jay Witasick before Trevor Hoffman came on in the ninth to slam the door in their faces. In the meantime a tired Matt Herges had loaded them up in the top of the ninth for light-hitting catcher Rick Wilkins, who knocked in the go-ahead run and started a Padres feeding frenzy that would eventually account for five runs. Payback, Padres fan and defender of justice Jon would have us believe, for the morally reprehensible act of intentionally walking Mike Darr. Oh well.
A gorgeous night, though, a decent game up until the end there, good company, and a chance to reflect on my week in So-Cal. This wasn’t the first time I’d been back since moving away—we went home for Christmas—but it was my first time back since I started to feel at home in Rochester, and I’d wondered about the difference that would make. Would I experience the bitter realization that you can’t go home again, that things will never be the same as how you left them, that this place you called home for so long is now just a place you used to live? Or would I come to my senses and recognize just how much I’d left behind, and that this is where I truly belong, and that Rochester is not a home at all so much as an okay place to mark time until this geographical fickleness has worked its way out of my system?
Funny thing is, the answer was neither. I had a couple afternoons to kill in the college town that’s been my social and cultural epicenter for the last decade or so, and as I walked around peeking in the cafes and bars and the record store I kept seeing familiar faces, the kind of people you don’t really know, maybe not even by name, but over the course of years you see them often enough that you exchange friendly smiles or hellos when you pass. And, as usual, we smiled and said hello, the townies and me. It happened a couple times before I realized what was odd about it. They thought I still lived here!
And so, in a way, I still do. That’s the feeling that I came away with. I feel like I haven’t moved so much as expanded. I’ve got two homes now. My footprint has gotten broader. It’s a feeling that is strangely gratifying, and has allowed me some insight into why really rich people maintain households on three continents: because they can!
FINAL SCORE: PADRES 9, DODGERS 6
FOOD CONSUMED: My last Dodger Dog and nachos of the season. Unless of course the Dodgers somehow make it to the NLCS, in which case I have vowed to return. (It’s kind of like vowing, “I will go to the moon.” Nobody’s really going to hold you to it if you don’t.)