Baseball and a birthday party

Gene Steinmeyer

Who doesn’t love the Fourth of July? No matter what day of the week it falls on, most people can find a way to take a day or two off. I know when our country gained its independence 239 years ago, the nation’s founders didn’t exactly plan how the Fourth of July was the perfect date.

The Fourth of July might be rainy, cloudy, hot, windy or some other minor weather problem. It’s hardly ever cold and miserable. Anyone can survive some weather interference, but not everyone can survive cold.

The Fourth of July has something for everyone. You can count on great junk food. I don’t care how big of health nut you claim to be, a greasy, fat-filled hot dog is acceptable on the birthday of our independence.

There’s always a fireworks display somewhere. You can even sit in your air-conditioned living room, in front of your 72-inch, high definition flat screen television and enjoy the fireworks shows.

The Fourth of July means baseball to me. I have to admit, I love the junk food and the fireworks displays, but it’s not the Fourth unless there’s a ballgame somewhere. As a kid, that meant fastpitch softball in DeWitt, Nebraska.

DeWitt was seven miles from my hometown of Clatonia. On the Fourth, you would usually find the Kings, a fastpitch softball team out of Lincoln, competing against the local team from DeWitt. DeWitt could matchup with the big city fastpitch teams because it had a great pitcher.

Just mentioning the Kings makes my mouth salivate. Kings was a restaurant chain based out of Lincoln. I think there are still a few Kings around, but they are much different from the Kings of the 1950s and 1960s. Back then, you could sit at a booth, pick up a phone and place your order for their double-decker cheeseburgers or the classic Cheese Frenchie. I loved their butterscotch malts, too.

The softball games always moved very fast with the pitchers dominating. When DeWitt met Kings, seldom did more than three total runs cross the plate. I had fun watching the old guys look good on the softball field because their pitchers hardly ever allowed a hard-hit ball.

The fireworks at DeWitt could force any youth to soil their underwear. Sure they had a few Roman candles and your obligatory shows of color. The main show, though, was to throw what seemed liked sticks of dynamite into the heavens. The concussion could shake the toupee off any movie star.

All the kids would watch in terror, waiting anxiously for that last blast to arrive. We would look at each other and almost always say, “Man, that was cool.” We were all lying.

In 1976, the nation went nuts celebrating the bicentennial. One of the most impressive things from the bicentennial celebrations was the fireworks display over the Statue of Liberty. It was something to see even if most people watched it on an 18-inch color television. The show had the sticks of dynamite and all the great colors combined into one great show. The whole event was set to patriotic music. How did they do that?

One year in the late 1980s, an advertisement on an Omaha television station caught my attention. The Omaha World Herald was sponsoring a fireworks display after the Omaha Royals game. That was no big surprise, but the Grucci Family was designing the fireworks display. They were the famous family that put on the fireworks show over the Statue of Liberty.

Tickets to the Omaha Royals game were sold out, something that never happened. I decided to investigate the Grucci fireworks and maybe scalp a ticket to the game. I drove toward the now torn-down Rosenblatt Stadium about game time. I was shocked to find I had to park more than a mile from Rosenblatt.

I walked as close to the stadium as I could get. Just after dusk, with the game completed, I watched the most amazing display of fireworks I had ever seen. I couldn’t take my eyes off the sky, but when I did I was amazed to see the world around me had stopped. Traffic on Interstate 80 was at a standstill. Every road leading to Rosenblatt was blocked and no one was honking or complaining. The fireworks were that good.

I was hooked. For several years after that first experience, I bought game tickets at the start of the season, went hours early, ate my junk food in the parking lot and watched the Grucci’s knock me out of my socks each year.

I had a real challenge with baseball and fireworks after my son, Sam, was born. Sam hated fireworks when he was an infant. It was really hard for me to give up on baseball and fireworks. I wanted to pass my excitement to my son. It didn’t work out well.

One forgettable Fourth came when Sam was about 3 years old. It had to be more than 100 degrees, 70 percent humidity and no wind as we attended a Royals game. We had great seats, but with Sam’s squirming, the heat, my wife Michele’s complaining about the heat and a horrible Royals team, I couldn’t wait for the fireworks.

Just about the time the first bomb exploded over Kauffman Stadium, Sam started screaming. I spent the entire fireworks show walking with Sam under the stands. I didn’t even get a hot dog. Sam has now overcome his fear of fireworks and has my love for baseball. My favorite activity is to spend the Fourth with the St. Joe Mustangs. Matt Johnson’s team always plays well and there are cheap hot dogs. It might not be a Grucci firework show, but they do throw what seems like sticks of dynamite into the heavens. Happy birthday, America.