Long Beach Preview 2000...Part One
Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 12:17 pm
Report from Long Beach
The MBBA doormat, the ballclub called the Long Beach Surfers, have been so bad for so long, that this reporter decided to go check them out for a two week period, ingratiate myself into their everyday lives, live among them, (much like Jane Goddall and her chimps), to try and discern what makes them so bad, and what has made them so bad, for such a very long time. Is it just a by-product of living in Long Beach? Or Is it something far more sinister? For that matter, where is Long Beach? I decided to find out.
I traveled across the country from my job in Phoenix to Long Island NY to find the team, only to discover to my horror; Long Beach is in fact, not near Long Island. A mistake I’m sure that many have made in the past. Making the most out of a bad situation, I attended a hockey ‘match’ at Uniondale. The home side was as bad as the Surfers with somebody called Weekes tending goal, and something called an Isbister , and a hairball monikered as Czerkawski. I had an entire section to myself; needless to say, I nodded off, and awoke with the place empty and dark. Just like when I came into the building; and just like at a typical Surfer home game.
I decided to google Long Beach before setting off in my trusty Datsun for a second time, and discovered that Long Beach is actually on the other side of the county, just south of Los Angeles; who knew? Once in LA, and carefully navigating my way to their training complex, I artfully dodged the numerous homeless and transients shambling along the crowded inner city streets. Annddd…I ended up hitting quite a few with my car.
They are just too slow and numerous down there; it’s just like Michigan and all those deer. And just the same as the four-legged inhabitants of Michigan, they freeze in the oncoming headlights. It’s a real traffic hazard. I made a mental note to be sure to lodge a formal complaint once I located a precinct.
I finally arrived at the Surfer ballpark, seven days and two cross country trips into my journey. A beautiful, brand spanking new, ode to excess, rose slowly out of the gloom of smog. It kind of looked like I was in the sweet dewy fog of San Francisco, but no, a quickly made mistake of unrolling the car window confirmed that it was smog; dirty brown and angry looking, and chokingly dense. Actually, it was getting hard to breathe, even with the car windows rolled up; or even to see more than ten feet in front of me, for that matter.
Anyways, there it was, suddenly in front of me, a 50,000 seat Coliseum of broken dreams and faded memories. This place of absurd rare beauty, with its shining emerald fields, its bright white lines, its cascading outfield blue water falls, all while residing in a city with perhaps the worst pollution problem in the USA. All I could think was: who named this place of holiness, ‘Fry’s Surf City’?
As an aside, who names a team the Surfers in a city where the water is unsafe to swim in, because Metro LA dumps all its urban sewage directly into the harbour? The ‘Sewer Rats’ would seem far more appropriate…
I carefully put on my oxygen mask, making sure to check my tank was full before strapping it to my back, and emerged from my car, going in search of anyone who may be able to help point me in the right direction in my search to explain the sorry Long Beach plight.
I found long-time Long Beach second sacker, Brian Fantana, leaning against the stadium wall, furtively trying to catch his breath in order to climb the eight steps, leading to the player’s entrance only door. I took a final deep breath from my tank, and then handed my mask to him, enabling him to take 2 or 3 deep breaths before he signalled ‘O.K.’ and was able to sluggishly mount the stairs. I quickly followed and together we were soon able to breathe the clean filtered air of Surf City and to shut the door tight against the poisoned atmosphere outside.
Fantana has been with the Long Beach Surfers for 7, going on 8 long years. He’s enjoyed the heady heights of 1995, followed by the slowly spiralling depths of despair that the more recent seasons have brought him. He’s seen constant ownership upheaval, and constant poor performance on the field. Once original GM 7teen abdicated in early 1997, the team has steadily gone from poor to piss poor. One wonders how he finds the strength to carry on.
Q. Brian, coming over from Baltimore before the ’94 season, must have felt like a death sentence…
A. “No, not really, at the time, Long Beach were strong, really strong…and Baltimore…well…if you’ve ever spent any time in Baltimore…let’s just say you never would have asked that question…I mean, its about as bad as a place can get…”
Q. “Tell me about 1995...you really mashed the shit out of the ball, and you guys took made the playoffs, quite a story…”
A. “Yea, I really saw the ball well that year, playing with dudes like Ted Sale, O’Shea Jackson and Donnie Rotten, it was easy to learn…and when Rotten went down to injury, I was able to step in and take up the slack.”
Q. “And ’96? You guys go from the Championship series to 71-91. That must have hurt.”
A. “Well…I had a good year, led the team in at-bats and games and everything…”
Q. “Makes you wonder what the manager was thinking…playing you in front of guys like Jackson and Rotten…”
A. “Erm…”
Q. “Moving onto ’97, the team is getting worse, the original manager is MIA, there’s no apparent direction on your rudderless ship. You’ve cemented your hold as the starting second baseman on frankly, a terrible team, that’s now gone 66-96. You become a free agent. What the hell convinced you to re-sign? You could conceivably have gone somewhere else. Why return to this cess-pool? And then the indignity of being sent down to the minors in 1998! A 50 win team saw fit to play immortals like Verdo Incavaglia in front of you! You must have contemplated suicide at this point…”
A. “Well…to be fair I got injured, and I was focused on re-habbing my torn ankle ligaments. The stint in Sante Fe, really didn’t bother me.”
Q. “Yeah, a seven year veteran happily goes down to the minors? But anyways…now it’s the ’98 offseason, and you have another chance to leave, what is frankly a putrid team, that has recently disrespected you, and you…”
A. “Well, I sign up for another three years…”
Q. “You know, its players like you that give baseball players a bad name; you’re just a mercenary, happily collecting your cheque, no ambition at all, content to waste your career, in a cess pool like this.”
A. “I prefer to look at it as being loyal to my club, that we’re on our way back to the top; I’m gonna be here when we finally turn it around, and I’m gonna be proud.”
Q. “Yeah, because baseball teams are notorious for hanging on to their aging middle infielders, paying them well above what they can pay the next kid to stand in behind of second base. When your contract is up in 2001, you’re done, you’re Mr. Nobody again, trying to figure out what became off your dreams, and no one is gonna give a sweet damn what became of you. Can you hear that? That’s the pitter patter of Paco Torres’, Asbel Jiminez’ and Carl Gerhart’s little feet, coming to take your job away.”
To be continued…
The MBBA doormat, the ballclub called the Long Beach Surfers, have been so bad for so long, that this reporter decided to go check them out for a two week period, ingratiate myself into their everyday lives, live among them, (much like Jane Goddall and her chimps), to try and discern what makes them so bad, and what has made them so bad, for such a very long time. Is it just a by-product of living in Long Beach? Or Is it something far more sinister? For that matter, where is Long Beach? I decided to find out.
I traveled across the country from my job in Phoenix to Long Island NY to find the team, only to discover to my horror; Long Beach is in fact, not near Long Island. A mistake I’m sure that many have made in the past. Making the most out of a bad situation, I attended a hockey ‘match’ at Uniondale. The home side was as bad as the Surfers with somebody called Weekes tending goal, and something called an Isbister , and a hairball monikered as Czerkawski. I had an entire section to myself; needless to say, I nodded off, and awoke with the place empty and dark. Just like when I came into the building; and just like at a typical Surfer home game.
I decided to google Long Beach before setting off in my trusty Datsun for a second time, and discovered that Long Beach is actually on the other side of the county, just south of Los Angeles; who knew? Once in LA, and carefully navigating my way to their training complex, I artfully dodged the numerous homeless and transients shambling along the crowded inner city streets. Annddd…I ended up hitting quite a few with my car.
They are just too slow and numerous down there; it’s just like Michigan and all those deer. And just the same as the four-legged inhabitants of Michigan, they freeze in the oncoming headlights. It’s a real traffic hazard. I made a mental note to be sure to lodge a formal complaint once I located a precinct.
I finally arrived at the Surfer ballpark, seven days and two cross country trips into my journey. A beautiful, brand spanking new, ode to excess, rose slowly out of the gloom of smog. It kind of looked like I was in the sweet dewy fog of San Francisco, but no, a quickly made mistake of unrolling the car window confirmed that it was smog; dirty brown and angry looking, and chokingly dense. Actually, it was getting hard to breathe, even with the car windows rolled up; or even to see more than ten feet in front of me, for that matter.
Anyways, there it was, suddenly in front of me, a 50,000 seat Coliseum of broken dreams and faded memories. This place of absurd rare beauty, with its shining emerald fields, its bright white lines, its cascading outfield blue water falls, all while residing in a city with perhaps the worst pollution problem in the USA. All I could think was: who named this place of holiness, ‘Fry’s Surf City’?
As an aside, who names a team the Surfers in a city where the water is unsafe to swim in, because Metro LA dumps all its urban sewage directly into the harbour? The ‘Sewer Rats’ would seem far more appropriate…
I carefully put on my oxygen mask, making sure to check my tank was full before strapping it to my back, and emerged from my car, going in search of anyone who may be able to help point me in the right direction in my search to explain the sorry Long Beach plight.
I found long-time Long Beach second sacker, Brian Fantana, leaning against the stadium wall, furtively trying to catch his breath in order to climb the eight steps, leading to the player’s entrance only door. I took a final deep breath from my tank, and then handed my mask to him, enabling him to take 2 or 3 deep breaths before he signalled ‘O.K.’ and was able to sluggishly mount the stairs. I quickly followed and together we were soon able to breathe the clean filtered air of Surf City and to shut the door tight against the poisoned atmosphere outside.
Fantana has been with the Long Beach Surfers for 7, going on 8 long years. He’s enjoyed the heady heights of 1995, followed by the slowly spiralling depths of despair that the more recent seasons have brought him. He’s seen constant ownership upheaval, and constant poor performance on the field. Once original GM 7teen abdicated in early 1997, the team has steadily gone from poor to piss poor. One wonders how he finds the strength to carry on.
Q. Brian, coming over from Baltimore before the ’94 season, must have felt like a death sentence…
A. “No, not really, at the time, Long Beach were strong, really strong…and Baltimore…well…if you’ve ever spent any time in Baltimore…let’s just say you never would have asked that question…I mean, its about as bad as a place can get…”
Q. “Tell me about 1995...you really mashed the shit out of the ball, and you guys took made the playoffs, quite a story…”
A. “Yea, I really saw the ball well that year, playing with dudes like Ted Sale, O’Shea Jackson and Donnie Rotten, it was easy to learn…and when Rotten went down to injury, I was able to step in and take up the slack.”
Q. “And ’96? You guys go from the Championship series to 71-91. That must have hurt.”
A. “Well…I had a good year, led the team in at-bats and games and everything…”
Q. “Makes you wonder what the manager was thinking…playing you in front of guys like Jackson and Rotten…”
A. “Erm…”
Q. “Moving onto ’97, the team is getting worse, the original manager is MIA, there’s no apparent direction on your rudderless ship. You’ve cemented your hold as the starting second baseman on frankly, a terrible team, that’s now gone 66-96. You become a free agent. What the hell convinced you to re-sign? You could conceivably have gone somewhere else. Why return to this cess-pool? And then the indignity of being sent down to the minors in 1998! A 50 win team saw fit to play immortals like Verdo Incavaglia in front of you! You must have contemplated suicide at this point…”
A. “Well…to be fair I got injured, and I was focused on re-habbing my torn ankle ligaments. The stint in Sante Fe, really didn’t bother me.”
Q. “Yeah, a seven year veteran happily goes down to the minors? But anyways…now it’s the ’98 offseason, and you have another chance to leave, what is frankly a putrid team, that has recently disrespected you, and you…”
A. “Well, I sign up for another three years…”
Q. “You know, its players like you that give baseball players a bad name; you’re just a mercenary, happily collecting your cheque, no ambition at all, content to waste your career, in a cess pool like this.”
A. “I prefer to look at it as being loyal to my club, that we’re on our way back to the top; I’m gonna be here when we finally turn it around, and I’m gonna be proud.”
Q. “Yeah, because baseball teams are notorious for hanging on to their aging middle infielders, paying them well above what they can pay the next kid to stand in behind of second base. When your contract is up in 2001, you’re done, you’re Mr. Nobody again, trying to figure out what became off your dreams, and no one is gonna give a sweet damn what became of you. Can you hear that? That’s the pitter patter of Paco Torres’, Asbel Jiminez’ and Carl Gerhart’s little feet, coming to take your job away.”
To be continued…
