(or 2001 a Strat-O-Matic
Odyssey)
by Phil Trygar
Sometimes, Life is just about being at the right place at the right time…or, more often, not being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Looking back at my life so far, I’ve had a little bit of both places and times, but for the most part, I can’t complain. It’s usually the right place/right time moments that tend to stick in my memory the longest. It’s sort of like when I roll that 1-4 game winning home run. How many 5-6 K’s to end a game can you remember? In this chapter, I’m going to tell you about a Strat team being in the wrong place, but in writing this, it made me remember when I was in the right place…and it sure was the right time.
As I’ve told you already, I worked 5+ seasons with the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Red Barons. When I originally applied, I was told all the positions were filled, but that I would be kept in mind. Uh, huh. We’ve all heard that one before. Except this time, I new it was true. I had been talking with the Assistant General Manger, Rick Muntean, for about 6 months prior to the stadium even being completed, so I felt I new him well enough. One thing about Rick, he is a straight shooter, who will tell you what’s on his mind…and not pull any punches. In other words, he is a rare commodity at that level…an honest man. Rick is now the General Manager, having been promoted when Bill Terlecky, the team’s original GM, left to join the ranks of team owners. Hopefully, Rick’s honesty will serve him well as the GM and I wish him and his family all the best.
After being told all of the positions I was interested in were filled (in that part of the world, they usually were filled with politically connected peoples’ nephews, sons, daughters or cousins, but that’s another story), I now had to resign myself to the fact that I may have to buy a ticket to get into the stadium. On Opening Day 1989, the first ever game to be played at Lackawanna County Stadium, I had no ticket. Much like the positions in the stadium, most of the seats for the first game were spoken for by the important people of the surrounding communities, of which I was not one. I arrived home from work at 4:30 and was prepared to watch the game on television. That was, until I played my anwering machine messages.
It seems I new someone who was important after all. Well, at least his father was. A business client of mine had left a message telling me his Dad, who was a local city councilman, had an extra ticket to the game, and since he knew I was a big baseball fan, would I be interested in going. He had called a few people, since he didn’t know who might be able to go on short notice and I was the first one to call him back. So if I wanted to go, the ticket was mine. Darn right, I wanted to go! The game started at 7:00 and it was now nearly 5:00. A quick shower and I was out the door, because I knew the area around the stadium was jammed already, having been by there earlier in the day. I met my friend at the main gate and he gave me what a lot of other people wished they could have gotten themselves…a ticket to THE Opening Day at LCS.
I bought him a beer to say thanks and we proceeded to wander around the stadium to take in the views. One thing I usually like to do at baseball stadiums I’ve never been to, is take in the sights from different parts of the stadium, so if I go back, I will know what seats might be worth buying. We were wandering down from the top of the upper deck, when who should I pass on the rampway down, but none other than Rick. He had an armload of boxes and seemed in quite a hurry, but he stopped to say hi after he recognized me. “Hey, good to see you. Do you still want a job?” he said. Just like that. He proceeded to tell me that they had a position open that someone was unable to do in the PA booth, operating the Message Center and scoreboards. “Hell yes, I still want a job.” I replied. “Come back tomorrow afternoon and I’ll show you around.” Rick said. And then he was off, lugging his boxes of what looked like souvenirs to wherever it was he was going.
“Did he just offer you a job?” my friend asked. I was speechless really. When you think of the odds of me even having been in the stadium, yet alone bumping into Rick where I did, when I did…well, anyway to me it was amazing. I reported to the stadium at 1 minute after noon the next day (the team was on an off day, so I had that day and the next to learn the computer system the Message Center was using), and the rest as they say, is history. Even though my working for the team is now history, it was a 1-4 home run all the way, and moving out of the area and giving up that job was very difficult.
But I digress…as usual. That little story was of being in the right place at the right time. This little part, is of my Boston Crabs Strat team being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was over my friend Paul’s house playing some league games. In those days, it was like bowling night in that everyone in the league usually got together at one place to play, rather than individual series’ being played at individual houses. I went through my ritual of spreading my cards out just right. I’ll explain more about my own personal superstitions and those of others in another chapter, but let’s just say I firmly believed all the hocus pocus I went through meant wins and if I lost a game, it was because I didn’t use my lucky dice, or some other such nonsense. But I was in good form tonight and there they were, the cards layered and spread out on the table in all their glory, ready for a night of victories.
Paul’s Mom brought us pink lemonade (that cool, refreshing drink) and we were ready to go. Now Tony’s dice throwing method involved a few unintellible incantations, a quick snatch of the dice from in front of him, and a punching motion where he dropped the dice from exactly the same position in front of him every time. It was during the snatch portion of the clean and jerk that he punched the glass of pink lemonade instead. A wave of it came washing across the table, and the hapless Crabs could only be caught in it’s undertow. Every one…all 40 cards…received some portion of the pink baptism. I tended to stack like players, such as my bullpen, on top of one another, with just their names showing from underneath the next card. The pink flood (I got a chuckle out of that, since I was a Pink Floyd fan in those days) totally engulfed the top card and got successively less of the next card, until the bottom card had only a thin strip of pink highliting the players name.
Tony was beside himself. “Guy, I’m so sorry! It was an accident!” he pleaded. I knew that, but he said it anyway, because there were guys in the league who might have thought otherwise if it had happened to them. After we cleaned it all up, I assessed the damages. My entire starting lineup, which was directly in the line of fire, or flood in this case, was pink from head to toe (so to speak). The rest of the team had varying degrees and shades of pinkness as decribed earlier. “That sucks” he said. “Let me try make it up to you”.
And do you know what…he did. A few weeks later, Tony stopped by my house with a brand new set of cards. Not only did he give me a whole new set, but he had them laminated! All 600 or so cards. “This is awesome” I said. “But you didn’t have to go through all that.” I mean, it was cool, but I had sort of gotten used to the pink cards once they had dried out. As a matter of fact, I had gone on a little streak and taken over first place in the league while my boys were doning the pink unis. Coincidence…or Pink Karma? I like to think that we were just ahead of their time, since Strat went to the pink and blue format just a few years later. Either way, it was cool what he did. His Dad owned a few businesses, so he was able to get the laminating done for free. His family also owned a bar, that my friends and I frequented quite a bit. An idea was forming.
So what I did, was pull out my team from the laminated set. I then asked anyone else if they wanted their team as well. The rest of the set, some 200-300 player cards, we donated to his Dad’s bar. Every time we went there, the bartender would whip out a Strat-O-Coaster for us, to put under our beers. Nothing was cooler to a Strat-O-Fanatic then dropping that pint of Guinness down on top of a Pete Redfern Strat card. They became so popular, that Tony even had a few embossed with the bar’s name in the corner and he began using them for other customers. At least until they all started disappearing. Now who in their right mind, do you suppose would want to steal one of those? Surely not a Strat Maniac, because part of the fun was never knowing who’s card you might get. Forrest Gump says life is like a box of chocolates. The Boys of the LSL used to say that beer never tasted better then when it sits on a Reitz. A Ken Reitz, that is.