Dusty Baker and Watergate

A low groan rose up from the crowd.

Holding there hats against the violent candlestick wind.

***

It was a Saturday in the summer of 1973, and your father was fed up with all the Watergate coverage on television. He turned off the set, saying there were more important things in life than following the fates of white politicians trying to topple one another.

So he drove you and your brothers to Candlestick Park to watch the Giants play the Braves.

At the park you discovered it was raincoat day. Free raincoats with a Giants logo on the vinyl breast for everyone entering the park. Despite the heat, it seemed everyone had slipped on the raincoats given them at the gates. The ever-present Candlestick winds made the many raincoats flap like a huge flock of birds beating the air with their wings. The entire stadium looked like a bright sea of wavering orange.

Before the game began, the Braves center fielder, Dusty Baker, jogged over to the fenceline to sign autographs. You had never heard of Dusty Baker before. He was a short, stocky black ballplayer, with a ready grin. More importantly, he wasn't a San Francisco Giant. Still, you couldn't help but lean in with the crowd and shove your gloved hand out over the fence. It disappeared among so many other gloves and baseballs and game programs and white pieces of paper. Somehow, though, of all the possible choices, Dusty reached for your glove. Grinning broadly, he winked at you. Then, as Dusty signed the glove just beneath the thumb laces, you felt the power of his pen on your hand underneath the leather.

Later that afternoon Dusty Baker slammed a fastball high over the right field fence. Or perhaps it was just an insignificant base hit, you can't remember now.

What you do remember, though, is this:

While a collective sigh rose from the crowd, you sat back in your seat, proudly, and stared at the signature scrawled on your glove.

Dusty, you said under your breath, slapping the meat of your glove again and again. Dusty, Dusty, Dusty.

And although the years have passed and you no longer remember the names of those politicians who for so many days filled the television screen, you have never forgotten the ballplayer with the unusual name -- Dusty Baker.