Dear San Marcos, Texas,
Will someone please go to the southeast corner of Field and McKinnon for me and hang an Astros World Series pennant? 964 Field to be exact.
You see during the summer months of the mid to late 60's, the Astros won game seven of the World Series in that back yard nearly every day but until now there's never been a pennant to hang. Larry Dierker would fire a strike into the pitchback near the carport and an ensuing fly ball would come back. The Red Rooster (Doug Rader) would tend third base ... a young willow that never had a chance as its leaves were stripped every time one of us touched third and headed for home. Depending on the year, Denis "the Menace" Memke would set up just in front of the sandbox and Joe Morgan never missed a chance to his left. Rusty Staub, the Toy Cannon (Jimmy Wynn), Cesar Cedeno, or Bob Watson (when he wasn’t at first) never missed a ball to the outfield (to be fair though, Dierker rarely threw hard enough into the pitchback to get one out of the infield). Inevitably, before Steve Wilson, Randy "Rastus Jackson" Johnson and other friends arrived for the real game, an Astros World Series game seven would unfold in my mind and somehow in spite of the outstanding field of dreams behind me, I always seemed to make the final out (sorry Altuve and Gurriel ... been there, done that).
Across the street, Mr. Younger would sit in his patio chair and smile. Mr. Younger we were told had played pro ball, supposedly pitching in the Texas League in the '20s. Mr. Younger was a great baseball connection for me. First, though up in age and a bit feeble physically, he gave his best effort to teach me to throw a breaking ball. However, I was a poor pupil and as it turns out could neither pitch or hit one which led to my greatest ball playing achievement happening in co-ed slow pitch softball when I struck out the side one year in the Kansas City ad agency league. Some would suggest the batters' inebriation and not Mr. Younger influence on my pitching prowess should receive the credit ... but I probably should have pointed skyward in his honor just in case.
More importantly though, Mr. Younger gave me access to Astros Friday night games. My father was administrator of the Seventh-day Adventist hospital in San Marcos then and it was highly important in our faith tradition at the time to start a "sabbath" from things like baseball games at sundown on Friday evenings. Mom, in fact, would have us start shutting down about an hour before the sun hit the skyline at Johnson Ranch and only a few innings into the Friday games. Fortunately, Mr. Younger, bailed me out. He was nearly deaf and loved to sit on his back patio on a hot Texas summer evening, listening to the games. All I had to do was go out back to "pray" and the answer (from the Lord I presumed then and still today) would come in the form of the sounds of the game wafting across the street at a volume easy for me to hear.
So please someone help me out. 964 Field Street needs a pennant hung. The Astros of old who made so many plays in that yard need it there. The "final-out-making star" who this season watched many an Astros game on MLB.TV from Lincoln, Nebraska, needs it there. And the good Lord, who truly blessed that field with the sounds of dozens of Sabbath day Astros’ games surely would enjoy seeing it there too.
Thank you San Marcos. Send a picture please.
This was written shortly after the Astros first World Series championship.