Should I pack my bags and head for Dyersville, Iowa?
This aging baseball player wants to know. After all, I'm 80 years old and have been playing baseball for most of my life. Heck! I'm older than Moonlight Graham, for goodness' sake. Well, not really.
All my blog readers know how I can fly off the handle at times, but I'm being serious here. I'm ready to emerge from the cornfields in Dyersville, Iowa, in my TOTS uniform. The TOTS, of course, are the 60-and-over Tucson Old Timers, an amateur baseball team of which I'm now one of the elder statesmen.
The TOTS have been around since 1968. The youngest player to pass through the turnstiles at one time or another is 60 years old.
Maybe I'll pack just one suitcase and head for Dyersville with my glove in one hand and my baseball bat in the other, much like I did in the 1950s as a little boy when I headed off to the local park for at least a "catch" and maybe a game with the other kids in my Tucson neighborhood.
Of course, I lived in the desert. Back in the day, there was less cement in Tucson, more dirt, and nothing but cacti east of Swan Road. There were neighborhood ball fields back then with enough grass to allow for a lovely Sunday hop, but not a well-manicured emerald green ball field with a cornfield surrounding the outfield and beautiful two-story farmhouses in the distance.
No stranger ever came to me and said: 'Is this Iowa? 'Or asked. 'If this was heaven?' as a tumbleweed blew by, followed by a twister...I mean a dust devil.
I've officially been invited to coach third base for the California Orioles, a 50-and-over team managed by Fire Chief Glenn Brown from Georgetown, California, for a three-day tournament (Sept. 5-7) at the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa.
I'll be sending my teammates home from third en route to a tourney title, we hope, at the Moonlight Graham Classic.
Brown says he's glad to have this 'old man' aboard, and I'm certainly pumped for the chance to participate in the tourney in Dyersville. It's a dream come true for me, and I'll have my trusty old laptop along to document the action and all the festivities.
Brown was previously a Fire Chief in Mayer, Arizona, and a Deputy Fire Chief for the Gila River Fire Department in Chandler, Arizona. We both have played in our share of the Men's Senior Baseball League World Series, held every October in Phoenix, Arizona. If I'm lucky enough to play in Phoenix this October, it will mark my 18th season at the prestigious event.
Both of my sons, Michael (60) and Dan (57), are also flying into Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on September 4. We will rent a car, stay in downtown Dyersville for three days, and return home on September 8.
None of us has ever been to the Field of Dreams.
More to come in the coming weeks.
A look at the California Orioles roster and their ages: Glenn Brown, 63, Warren Stout, 52, Scott Hasson, 63, Jason Brown, 50, Adam Huehnergarth, 55, Gerry Mecca, 65, Kevin Simmons, 51, Lincoln Mikkelson, 51, John Mahalik, 54, Marc Luett, 51, Jim Vargas, 51, Ira Dorfman, 69, Andy Poestema, 59, Barry Olberding, 50, Shawn Onley, 50, Mark Robens, basecoach, and Dan Price, basecoach.
Still playing??? What days and times?
ReplyDeleteTom, we still play on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
ReplyDelete