Next week the Colorado Rockies will begin Spring Training at their new state of the art facility in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (which just so happens to be the stupidest name for anything ever) in Arizona. The team will be leaving behind its former spring training facility, Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, Arizona forever.
As a diehard Rockies fan and a frequent attendee of spring training this move makes me super duper sad. Sad enough, in fact, that just thinking about it makes me want to mainline some Dilaudid and listen to “Put me in Coach” on repeat for two hours.
The reason I am so sad is because Hi Corbett Field has long been one of my favorite places on the planet. Walking into Hi Corbett didn’t feel like walking into a regular baseball stadium. It felt like stumbling upon a high school field that for some strange reason was being used by professional baseball players. The place fostered a unique kind of intimacy between players and fans, an intimacy that made watching a meaningless baseball game in the middle of the fucking desert become not only bearable, but somehow immensely enjoyable.
There was nothing better than getting to the field a few hours before game time and watching the players warm up and take batting practice.
You could stand three feet away from the pitchers in the bullpen, separated only by a chain link fence, taking in all the little nuances of a pitcher’s wind up and delivery, all the stuff that gets washed away in the distance and immensity of a regular stadium.
You could stand right behind home plate during batting practice, close enough to hear the players joke around with each other between cracks of the bat, or to hear Todd Helton walk up to Dexter Fowler and Chris Nelson and say, “Oh hey, are you the new black guys? You must be the new black guys.” (Now try watching this commercial without sensing some palpable racial tension.)
The stuff that dreams are made of, really.
I made a lot of great memories at Hi Corbett, and since the stadium has now joined the scrap heap of history, I figured now was as good a time as any to do my part in memorializing the place by sharing my all time favorite memory from spring training with all of you.
It was 1997 and I was sitting about 20 rows back from home plate, watching the Rockies and Padres play. Pitching for the Padres that day was none other than former legend Fernando Valenzuela, and I can’t really remember who was pitching for the Rockies. It was probably Kevin Ritz—Kevin Ritz was the shit.
The first memorable thing about this day was how un-fucking-believably hot it was. I can remember having to go to the bathroom every 15 minutes or so to soak my shirt in cold water in attempt to stave off heat stroke. Everyone in attendance had fallen into a kind of silent heat coma.
I don’t know if it was the heat or the relatively slow pace of the game, but in the bottom of the 2nd inning one fan who was sitting a couple of sections away from me decided it was as good a time as any to absolutely lose his mind. He opened his mouth, and screamed into the hot silence:
HEEEEYYYY FERNANDOOOOOO!
And then he did it again:
HEEEEYYYY FERNANDOOOOOO!
And again…and again…and again. Sometimes he would add in some poorly constructed insult like, “You’re washed up! Go back to the golf course!” but he always started with the same refrain.
HEEEEYYYY FERNANDOOOOOO!
The man sat there in the sun, shirtless, ponytailed, and burnt to a crisp, shouting at Fernando Valenzuela throughout the entire game. Not a single person in the stands did anything about it either. No one even acknowledged him, we all just sat there in a silent fever dream and listened to him lose his shit.
HEEEEYYYY ERNANDOOOOOOO!
His madness settled over us like a black pall.
Due to the small size of the stadium and the silent nature of the crowd, there is no doubt in my mind that Valenzuela could hear this guy screaming at him--clear as day. And I swear to God, the crazy man got in Fernando’s head. You could almost see the relentless chant weighing down on him as he struggled pathetically to make it through each inning.
At this point in his career poor Fernando wasn't quite what he used to be. Once one of the best pitchers in the game, he was now just a bloated shell (seriously, he was really fat at this point) of his former self, struggling to make the rotation, and now he had to deal with this bullshit.
It wasn't until many years later that the enormity of the situation really hit me. I realize now that I didn't just see a baseball game that day. I had seen the inanity of life crawl its way out from underneath one of Fernando's skin folds, revealing to us all that even those who had managed to conquer the world--who had reached the pinnacle of human achievement--come to the same sad ending that the rest of us do. They end up fat old men, standing on a mound of dirt in the hot sun, grasping at the wisps of their former glory as they get berated by an anonymous, burnt husk of a man.
And for that, I give solemn thanks to Hi Corbett Field. I'll miss you.
You can go fuck off somewhere, Salt River Pima-Mariwhateverthefuckyournameis.
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4 comments:
I too will greatly miss Hi Corbett Field. Not only was it amazing because being there meant baseball was so close to coming back to Colorado but I also loved knowing I was in one of the places that they shot scenes for Major League at. Pretty epic I must say.
February 16, 2011 at 10:39 AMKevin Ritz WAS the shit.
February 16, 2011 at 12:23 PMUptown girl: Your point about Major League is a good one. It is not everyday that you get to walk the same hallowed ground as a man who once had a duffel bag full of cocaine delivered to his house.
February 16, 2011 at 3:24 PMJ-Bone: I wish that you were more like Kevin Ritz.
"It is not everyday that you get to walk the same hallowed ground as a man who once had a duffel bag full of cocaine delivered to his house."
February 16, 2011 at 3:26 PMThat just about made me lose it.
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