Casey at Bat, Circa 1978

Baseball’s opening week is always special for me. The six-month tapestry of the unfolding baseball season begins anew. Everyone gets a do-over, everyone is in first place, everyone is a contender.

It’s hard to think of a new season without thinking of what will always be my single favorite memory of the game: the night my dad and I watched Pete Rose’s hitting streak come to an end in Atlanta.

My father was old school. He was never overtly affectionate and didn’t outwardly show emotion to me. I realize that this describes many fathers, and their relationships with their sons of our era. He and I never doubted our love for each other, but there was a polite emotional distance that we had to traverse, especially during my teens and early adulthood. We shook hands; we didn’t hug.

Our backdoor solution for this, and the common ground that often brought us together, was our mutual love of baseball. It was the marked-out territory for us to freely communicate with each other, and we found ourselves relying on this zone of safety more as the years went by (God knows, there was plenty outside the safety zone).

On occasion, we would make the trip to Atlanta from our home in Montgomery, Alabama to catch a Braves game. To be a fan of the Atlanta Braves of the 70’s required great patience and a long historical view: Biff Pocoroba, Roland Office, Rick Camp, Buzz Capra, Darrel Chaney…..these were the Braves of that era. They were not pretty years, but we loved them anyway, and followed them regularly, knowing that better days were surely ahead. We were right, of course, but my Dad didn’t get to experience those years.

So, in the Summer of 1978, we were just like all other baseball fans in America: transfixed by Pete Rose’s consecutive game hitting streak, checking the box score in the paper every morning in those pre-internet days. As the consecutive games climbed, so did our fascination and hope that Pete would break Joe DiMaggio’s record for consecutive games with at least one hit. We decided to see the streak continue in person by purchasing tickets to see the Braves and the Cincinnati Reds play on August 1st. DiMaggio’s record was in sight (56 consecutive games), and Pete was already at 44. We were sure it was just a matter of time. I’ve always loved Pete….clearly a flawed and troubled man (he never learned to “adult” particularly well), but the best baseball player this lifelong fan of the game has ever seen…..every play, every game was “hair on fire” for Pete Rose.

We had great seats behind home plate, and watched Pete go down 4 times, thinking, “this can’t be happening…this isn’t in the script.” But we quickly realized that he had one more shot at it, as he was due to bat 3rd in the 9th, against Atlanta reliever Gene Garber. I won’t go into the pitch selection and all that…it’s been written about many times. I will share that Pete’s 9th inning plate appearance was “Casey at the Bat” writ large. The packed stadium was hushed and electric…you could hear a pin drop. Everyone in Fulton County Stadium, Braves fans all, was pulling for Pete to get the hit that would keep the streak going. 

And, of course…he didn’t. He went down swinging. The lasting image I’ll take to the grave with me of that game was Pete walking back to the Cincinnati dugout, head down, while the Braves’ Garber did a little happy celebration dance on the mound. I’ve always wished Garber had just respectfully tipped his cap and quietly headed back to the dugout too.

The three-hour drive home was subdued. We came to see the streak continue, but even though we saw history unfold, we left disappointed like virtually everyone in the crowd that night. We’d seen a slice of baseball history, but it was not the one we came to see. That game provides me to this day a lasting memory of a special evening with my dad, who died just a few years later, that time can never take away.