Memorial Day weekend has stood out for me as far back as I can remember. Some of my favorite memories come from this weekend, so I’m feeling upbeat as the holiday approaches. I’ll get to why Memorial Day has been so special to me in a bit, but in keeping with that theme I want to start this post with a few true feel-good stories from the world of baseball.
Brandon Phillips (Reds): According to this report,, a young Reds fan tweeted shortstop Brandon Phillips inviting him to the fan’s youth baseball game. It was his only day off until June 2, but Phillips showed up for the game and took pictures with the team, the 14-U Cincinnati Flames. Good stuff, Brandon.
Ryan Howard (Phillies): A seven-year-old named Aidan Silva, a big Phillies fan, passed away of sudden cardiac arrest last Labor Day weekend. Last Friday his elementary school planted trees and a dedicated a plaque in the boy’s honor. While on the road in Atlanta, Howard filmed a video message that was shown during the ceremony. Howard said the boy would be in his thoughts and prayers and that he’d dedicate a game in his honor. He also sent a jersey and a hand-written note. How did Howard do in that game? He hit a three-run home run in his first at-bat, and later scored the go-ahead run. Nice work to you too, Ryan.
Barry Bonds (formerly of the Giants and Pirates): Yes, you’re reading this right. Bonds has a well-earned and well-documented reputation as a colossal jerk, but in this case I’m here to give him credit. Earlier this season, a Giants fan was beaten severely at Dodger Stadium, apparently for doing nothing more than wearing a Giants jersey in the Dodgers’ home park. The man, a single father with two elementary-school aged kids, was in a coma and is still in a hospital. He is slowly recovering. Bonds visited the man in the hospital and later offered to pay for his kids’ college education. He did this a month ago and did not notify any press. It only came out because the man’s family mentioned it. I have to give this one to you, Barry. Well done.
MEMORIAL DAY
As a native Hoosier, Memorial Day weekend looms even larger on the calendar than for most others. It meant cookouts of course, but it also meant the Indianapolis 500. It seems funny now as the Indycar series has declined over the years in popularity, but when I was young the Indy 500 actually was what it now only claims to be, the greatest spectacle in racing. Back in the late 70’s and early 80s the buildup of to the race, the qualifications, bump day, time trials, everything, were all huge news. The results were followed closely by those who never paid attention to racing the rest of the year. For someone growing up in Indiana, this was our event.
Of course, growing up in Indiana meant you also couldn’t watch the damn thing on live TV. While these days the race is only blacked out in Indianapolis itself, back when I was a kid it was blacked out throughout the state, South Bend included. This left fans with a huge dilemma every year. Do you listen to it on the radio, or do you studiously avoid all media all day and then watch the race when it aired in prime time on tape Sunday night?
My family went back and forth on this. I have vivid memories of working out in the yard with my stepfather, the high-pitched vroom sounds of the cars coming from the radio, which sat on the patio plugged in with a cord snaking through the screen door back into the dining room. To this day, and I mean this, I can’t pick up a garden trowel without hearing “Crash in Turn 3! There’s a crash in Turn 3!” or the annual sigh from the announcer of “Mario is slowing down! (referring to the perpetually snakebitten Mario Andretti).
Other years we carefully avoided things and watched the race at night as if it were live. In our old neighborhood the party usually involved us, the Lowe family and the Markiewicz family and occasionally others. It wasn’t easy to go the whole day without hearing the results of the biggest event going , but sometimes we managed. Sometimes we didn’t, and sometimes others conspired against us. I recall a Sunday night and a close race, all of us watching breathlessly as the cars zipped around the 2.5-mile oval on a tape delay, Rick Mears quickly reeling in Gordon Johncock. The race promised to come right down to the wire (here's the ABC coverage of it with Jim McKay on the call) when they went to commercial with only a few short laps to go. Before cutting away from the ads, the network broke in with a news brief. I can still hear the anchor now. “Blah blah blah happened in the middle east, blah blah blah President Reagan, and Gordon Johncock won the Indianapolis 500 today in the closest finish in the race’s history!”
I’m pretty sure I learned how to curse by listening to the adults in the room yell at the TV that night. So much for the spoiler alert.
When I lived in Indianapolis I was hooked up with race tickets for a few years. Actually going to the track, seeing those cars rocketing down the straightaway at 230-plus miles per hour at top speed, smelling the fuel, and especially feeling the cars was an awe-inspiring experience (you actually can feel it in your chest and beneath your feet, especially early in the race when the cars are bunched together).
The traffic wasn’t as awe-inspiring however. I do remember being at Tony Stewart’s last Indy 500 before he dropped Indycar racing altogether. He was a NASCAR driver by then, but he was intent on doing the classic double, driving the Indy 500 in the daytime and flying to Charlotte, North Caroline for NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 at night. I was a fan of his and cheered on his top 10 finish at Indy. We left the track and waited in our parking lot to get out. And waited. And waited. Then crept every so slowly out of the lot before being funneled off to the interstate in the direction we didn’t want to go (tough luck, the cops don’t care where you live, just get the hell to the interstates), got ourselves turned around and made our way back to 56th and Georgetown. That took three hours. The track is at 16th and Georgetown, about four miles away. I got back home, plopped down tired on the living room sofa and turned on the NASCAR race. Stewart was in his stock car on the warm-up lap. I laughed as I realized in the time it took me to go from 16th and Georgetown to 56th and Georgetown, Tony had taken a helicopter out of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, jumped in a plane to North Carolina, taken another helicopter to Lowe’s Motor Speedway and gotten in his stock car. Thank goodness there was still a beer left in my cooler.
But I smile most often thinking of those Sunday nights in the early 80’s, watching the race, feeling the beginning of a sunburn on my forehead and shoulders from being out in the sun, sitting in the living room surrounded by my closest friends and family, the promise of a great summer just on the horizon. That’s what I think of when I think of Memorial Day.
Here’s hoping you make a few great memories yourself this coming holiday.
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