By Guest Writer Wayne McBrayer:
At the age of 6, I walked into San Diego Stadium to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates play the San Diego Padres in 1972. My very first memory wasn’t the great Roberto Clemente making a great throw from right field or Clay Kirby throwing fastball with high velocity, it was fans taking the team photos that were given away that day and turning them into paper airplanes and throwing them on the field. My grandpa warned me to not do it or I would get spanked. That was my introduction to baseball and the game I have always loved.
1974 was the year my grandpa started taking me to games on a regular basis and it was a great time to be a Padres fan. Ray Kroc had purchased the club and a man in a chicken suit known as the KGB Chicken walked the stands cheering the club on. He would buy me a scorecard so I could write down who did what during the game. I was surrounded by men who smoked cigars and talked about players they grew up watching while the likes of Willie McCovey, Nate Colbert, Randy Jones, Dave Freisleben and some tall skinny kid named Dave Winfield played for my team.
A
s the 80’s started, I began going with friends to watch the Padres play. The team was better and things were turning around for the club. Players like Gwynn, Garvey and Gossage helped lead the club to several winning seasons. My friends and I would go early and watch players take BP and take infield practice and we would try to get autographs. San Diego Stadium was now San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium and the KGB Chicken was now known as The Famous Chicken. Things were a little different, but the game of baseball still pulled at my heart, always my first love.
For several years, I stopped attending Padres games and only listened to games on the radio. Jerry Coleman and Ted Leitner would be my eyes and ears for the games until the birth of my son awoke the desire to once again, start paying attention to the passion of my youth. Cammy, Finley and Gwynn led the 1998 club to the World Series during the first year of my son’s life.
Over the last few years, things have come full circle for me with the game of baseball. People like Dave Freisleben, Randy Jones and The Famous Chicken are people I have had an opportunity to talk with and get to know and I am blessed to call them friends. The people I have met either in person or online due to the love of baseball are some of the nicest people I have ever known. To quote former Phillies pitcher Barney Mussill, “Baseball friends are forever” and I would add family to that. Baseball is family and friends watching players live out the dream of their childhood and cheering them on as they play. It is sharing the memories of the heroes we saw in our youth with our children and giving our children the opportunity to do the same with their friends and family.
Don’t forget to check out more of what Wayne has to say on Padres 360.