Healdsburg Owls

Baseball fans may be aware that a Giants fan made the mistake of attending opening day at Dodgers Stadium, where a group of Dodger fans beat him down in the parking lot. He is now in a coma with brain damage.

For some years I worked on Long Island, and I recall well the last time I went to a Mets game. My wife and I took our two little girls, fans of the club, and once we were seated I realized that we had taken them to what amounted to an outdoor saloon filled with drunken louts. When they weren't pouring beer into their mouths, they were shouting obscenities. The Mets lost.

After the game, we got onto the train with the other fans, and again we were surrounded by obnoxious drunks, including one in particular, a guy wearing glasses, who spent the trip cursing loudly (being manly, no doubt) and making racist remarks--he attributed the Mets loss to the one Black player on the team, Mookie Wilson, (who had played very well). Our car was parked at the first stop, and as I got off, I had to pass the loudmouth, so I rammed my shoulder into him. To my great pleasure, his glasses popped off and fell into the crack between the train and the platform, where they could not be retrieved. We could hear him grieving as we walked away.

Meanwhile, many years later, some friends took me to a minor league game, where the crowd was small, friendly, relaxed and totally enjoyed a losing game under a soft evening sky. I am now hooked on minor league ball. I mention this because Healdsburg has an unknown minor league team that will be playing this summer. You might want to google the Healdsburg Owls.