Three Up, Three Down: It’s always Ladies Night for 51s rooter Flaherty, 81
I remember riding a Schwinn Stingray bicycle around my neighborhood on sultry summer evenings when I was young and hearing baseball coming from transistor radios on front porches. Many of those listening to ballgames were women — big women from eastern European countries wearing sleeveless house dresses, because that’s the kind of neighborhood I grew up in.
It has been said that baseball is a game handed down from fathers to sons. Older women seem to like baseball, too. Maybe it’s the pace of the game. In the late innings when the managers make all those pitching changes, it must seem the game will never end. Just like housework.
On Friday night, Opening Night at Cashman Field, I met Phyllis Flaherty, who has been going to Stars/51s games since the early days of the franchise.
A lot of games.
All of them, in fact, since 1984 when she became a season-ticket holder, except for four games last year when she got sick and some Philadelphia World Series weather blew in.
Friday was also Phyllis Flaherty’s 81st birthday. Opening Night and a birthday all rolled into one. Does it get any better than that for a baseball fan? That’s like Spahn and Sain and pray for rain. That’s like a doubleheader on Bat Day with an Old-Timers’ Classic between games.
Phyllis Flaherty still drives to the ballpark from her home in West Mesa Estates near Alta Drive and Durango. “I just stay on Charleston,” she says, as if the commute were no more difficult than driving a batting practice fastball into the bleachers.
She has been driving to ballgames since the 1950s. She used to drive from her home in Alma, Mich., to Detroit — 111 miles — to watch Paul Howard Trout pitch for the Tigers. Dizzy Trout and Phyllis Flaherty’s aunt were friends. He used to leave tickets for them at Briggs Stadium before they changed the name to honor its baseball inhabitants.
Phyllis Flaherty’s husband, Leroy, died in 1993. He didn’t care much for baseball. He mostly cared for the couple’s grandchildren while Phyllis went to the ballgames and became Cal Ripken Jr. among 51s fans. If there was a warehouse in right field, they would hang her number on it.
A lot of older women occupy themselves with a bridge club or a rose garden or something like that. Phyllis Flaherty and her former next-door neighbor, Jean Vaughan, occupy themselves by learning the names of the new 51s players. Unlike the Tigers of Dizzy Trout’s day, they change a lot.
Phyllis says the two things she likes most about going to the ballpark are Ben & Jerry’s butter pecan ice cream and “being with the people.” A lot of people stopped by to say hello to her and Jean on Opening Night.
It was like they had 8,283 friends.
It was like they belonged to a really big bridge club.
THREE UP
■ The average cost for a family of four to attend a minor league baseball game with peanuts and Cracker Jack and what-not is $60. At Yankee Stadium, it costs $60 on Stub Hub just for the what-not, $80 when CC Sabathia is pitching.
■ File this one under “Only in Las Vegas”: I received an email from Brigham Young’s Cosmo the Cougar, circa 1984 to 1986 (it says “Dr. Troy Adams” on his email account), who said he is happy BYU is leaving the Mountain West Conference “because those of us who want to see the games on TV will actually be able to do so.” I’m still waiting to hear from Swoop, the Utah hawk mascot, via Twitter.
■ The furor over Dave Rice getting the UNLV basketball job over Reggie Theus seems to have run its course. It was sort of like Colorado fans and Saint Mary’s fans raising hell after the NCAA Tournament brackets were announced. It was a big story for a couple of days. Then the games started.
THREE DOWN
■ During the first week of the Pacific Coast League season, 51s opponents stole 25 bases in 27 attempts. A statistic such as this is why the Boston Beaneaters perfected the pitchout in 1897.
■ Las Vegas resident Kevin Na shot a 16 on the ninth hole at the Texas Open on Thursday, setting a PGA Tour record. Tommy Armour, the grandfather of Bishop Gorman High School graduate Tommy Armour III, owns the all-time worst single-hole golf score, a 26 in 1927. Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy took 12 shots before getting over a water hazard in the movies, prompting Rene Russo, who played Tin Cup’s girlfriend, to say: “Five years from now nobody will remember who won or lost, but they’ll never forget your 12.” That said, I still don’t think Kevin Na shot 16 on purpose.
■ However, if it turns out Kevin Na’s people get together with the Lifesavers people and the windmill hole people to announce a six-figure sponsorship and a series of pro-am celebrity miniature golf tournaments bearing his and Carrot Top’s names, I reserve the right to take a mulligan.
Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.