San Francisco Angels
Wood Bat Baseball Team
Smithfield Blue Sox 1996
"Religions work to solidify culture by overcoming the hilarity of their creeds."
- Jerome Sanders Dickey
|
|
San Francisco Angels Wood Bat Baseball Team
Smithfield Blue Sox 1996
"Religions work to solidify culture by overcoming the hilarity of their creeds." - Jerome Sanders Dickey
|
|
|
|
|
"All the News in Fits" |
Twenty Years & then we stopped counting |
| In July
1996, the Angels were enrolled in two leagues, and played a weeknight
series against the Reno Diamonds (later reorganized as the Reno Astros).
The result was a lot of frenzied travel and 13 games in 12 days. The
highlight of this insanity was the flight to Salt Lake City and the
drive up to Smithfield, Utah (near Ogden) to play the Smithfield Blue
Sox on a Friday night.
The Smithfield Blue Sox were the oldest continuously-running baseball team in the world. They were Utah's pre-eminently successful summer team, with a strong base of veteran ballplayers continuing in the game long after college. This part of it is the way baseball should be. The other part of it is not so noble. Shown below is an inside page and the cover of the Blue Sox Official Program and Score Card. We will elaborate on the story of this trip at a later time. For now, look at the picture of the Board of Directors. One of those gentlemen was long-time manager of the Blue Sox, the great Richard Hansen. Two others acted as umpires during the hotly-contested series. On the plane trip to Salt Lake City, the Travel Director began practicing lines to use at the umpires, who were expected to be members of a popular religious congregation in Utah. His intention was to work in the phrase "the devil's work." And sure enough, with the bases loaded and a 3-2 pitch with one out in a 4-4 ballgame, the Angels hitter was called out on strikes on a delayed call from a pitch that hit the plate. The runner at first, Jason Gallegos, sauntered toward second and was tagged out midway for a magnificent hometown double play! The Travel Director erupted with some of his practiced lines, directing them first at the umpires (who, at a friendlier moment, had disclosed their Board membership to the Travel Director), and then at the whole crowd congregated that evening; he then lost his script and began preaching in a most accusatory, blasphemous, obscene, and embarrassingly prolonged manner even after he was thrown out of the game. "I'm sorry for what I said," admitted the Travel Director much later, "but I did succeed in conveying to everyone my impression that the enemies of the Creation are at work even in the most religious of communities." |
