Long-Distance Love Affair, or How to Root for a Team That's Three Thousand Miles Away

Long-Distance Love Affair, or How to Root for a Team That's Three Thousand Miles Away Paul Hensler (bio) As a lifelong Connectican whose first baseball idol was Mickey Mantle, I was possessed of a fandom that wandered from the New York Yankees in early 1967, to Boston later that year when the Red Sox survived a four-team scramble to win the American League pennant—and almost capture the World Series—and then back to New York in 1969 when the Mets stunned the Baltimore Orioles in the fall classic. With three major league franchises in such close proximity to my hometown, there is a natural inclination for others to assume that one of them is my team of choice. However, when a baseball conversation prompts the question of which club I root for—a group currently titled the Los Angeles Angels—that answer elicits a follow-up query. "Oh, you're from California?" My reply can only be sufficient by way of what follows. After divulging that I've lived in Connecticut my entire life, I explain a number of factors that entered into my confounding selection that occurred in 1970, give or take a year. In the late 1960s, the California Angels—and we'll revisit that name in a bit—were a mediocre team, but their shortstop, Jim Fregosi, was one of the better players at his position, and his keystone partner, Bobby Knoop, wasn't too shabby either. The supporting cast, however, was only fair to middling, so the Angels were destined to be a .500 team. Yet they displayed one sartorial dash that was unique: an actual halo of white that was stitched into the caps they wore. The navy panels of the hats were augmented by a bright red bill, and the white interlocking "CA" at the front made this headgear pretty classy looking, so classy, in fact, that I commandeered a copy of The Sporting News, and got Mom write a check to accompany the coupon [End Page 99] to be sent to a sporting goods dealer—in Chicago, if memory serves—for an Angels cap. After the passage of requisite time, a shoebox-sized carton arrived in the mail, and my excitement was at a level akin to Christmas morning. I couldn't wait to open the package and proudly outfit my pate with my halo-crested cap. Imagine my reaction when I uncrated the contents and discovered that the much-awaited item, while remaining faithful to the color scheme, featured two crushing revisions. Missing was the "CA," its space now occupied by an elongated lower-case "a," but worst of all was the absence of the cherished halo once adorning the top. Well, the halo wasn't completely gone, but it had become miniaturized and placed at a jaunty angle as if to be hanging from the top left of the new "a." Crestfallen but still loyal, I soon after broke out a little bottle of white Testor's model paint and did my own retro-update of the original halo around the top, the new reality and authenticity be damned. With the cap now conforming to my stilted standard, it was time to embark on the business of root, root, rooting for my home team, though located on the other side of the country. In an era predating the arrival of the internet, this posed a serious challenge to finding out the scores of many games, especially those played at night in Anaheim. Our most important local newspaper printed morning and afternoon editions, but you could always count on the composite posting of results to look like this, from May 14, 1976: Boston 2, Milwaukee 1 Baltimore 6, New York 2 Cleveland 6, Detroit 3 Kansas City 7, Chicago 1 Minnesota at California, late Texas at Oakland, late If the game—any game, for that matter—wasn't completed by 11:00 p.m., press time for the morning paper, that result would receive the "late" designation, and if you could hold out for the afternoon newspaper, at least you had the opportunity to catch up on the score. But unless the Yankees or Red Sox were involved...

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