The View From 20 Years

Last weekend I sat atop the Western Metal Supply Co. Building at Petco Park with my daughter, her teammates, and many other families from our local girls softball league. It was a fun perch for the night, about 330 feet from home plate and 80 feet above it. You could see the game but not necessarily watch it.

I was separated from the action on the field not only by space but time.

Twenty years earlier, I was beginning my first month in baseball, my first month with the Padres.

Much of what I write about is really perspective, baseball’s version of that birthday card reminding you how much gas cost the year you were born, who was president, and which film won best picture — and it doesn’t come from your mother-in-law.

Three-hundred fifty feet is far from home plate. Two decades? That’s distance.

As I gazed down from the rooftop, I took in the physical alterations the ballpark has undergone since it opened. A lot changes in 20 years. Once a ballpark with too much space, now every square foot has been optimized for revenue (or run) generation.

I can’t remember any game details from the home opener in 2005. I know I wore a tie in accordance with the unwritten dress code of Opening Day. And I know I worked the stadium radar gun for the first time, a privilege and honor that — at the time — meant you’d gotten a foot in the door.

The game flew by while I was deciphering pitches from a slightly sunken station a few rows behind home plate. I would have never survived the first month without the help of my co-pilot down there, erstwhile baseball operations intern and current Padres VP of Pro Scouting Pete DeYoung. Was that a cutter or a slider? I couldn’t see that one after it left the pitcher’s hand — what was it?

That first season of home games was an education.

More recently, that area behind the plate became way too valuable not to sell. Seats were added. Credentialed employees were displaced. A rite of passage was taken away.

Technology has since absorbed the entry-level role of identifying pitches and posting them to the scoreboard. I won’t go as far as to argue that the absence of baseball personnel indoctrinated by stadium radar guns will be the downfall of our game, but check back with me in a couple years.

I remember slightly more about my first game (April 4, 2005) in baseball. The team was in Coors Field, as were several of my immediate colleagues. I really had no idea where I was even supposed to watch the game from my desk inside the Petco Park offices. I traded off between following online — the user experience then only presented small dots representing players advancing from base to base with accompanying play-by-play text — and moving towards a nearby TV during more critical moments.

Woody Williams started the game. Trevor Hoffman blew the save and took the loss. I don’t remember anything in between those two points on the nine-inning timeline.

The only reason I remembered that Williams started the game was because of a co-worker, the one full-time data scientist and quantitative analyst who had more quirks than Nomar Garciaparra between pitches.

The analyst had the blessing of the owner, a limited understanding of how the game was played, and no inhibitions when it came to sharing his ideas.

On the first day of the season, an email went out with his optimized batting order to everyone in the baseball operations department. In it, Williams, the starting pitcher and career .199 hitter, was batting second.

When I recently spoke with retired pitcher Daniel Hudson, he said, “I don’t even think analytics were a thing until probably 2014 or 2015, right?” I’m not sure what we called whatever was going on in 2005, but Huddy isn’t entirely wrong.

Using better judgment, manager Bruce Bochy batted his pitcher ninth. The baseball gods, in turn, have rewarded Boch handsomely.

No player who debuted prior to the 2005 season is still active. While games — and even seasons — run together after awhile, those that stand out seem to grow in significance over time.

In late August of that first year, my parents came to visit. Their trip to the ballpark coincided with the Major League debut of Will Venable. In his first at-bat, he tripled into right field. Not much went right that season for the Padres, but Venable’s arrival was a homegrown success story that San Diego could feel good about. He delivered hope.

Two days before Venable became a big leaguer, relief pitcher Jesse Chavez debuted with the Pirates. Chavez most recently threw two innings for the Braves against the Dodgers on March 31 — of this year! (He’s since been sent down to the minors, but I wouldn’t bet against his return.)

Three other players who debuted prior to Venable are still in baseball. Two of them — Justin Verlander and Charlie Morton — are starting games today. The other player, Max Scherzer, is unfortunately on the injured list. (Pretty amazing that two of those players are future first-ballot Hall of Famers.)

Meanwhile, Venable is in the dugout of the White Sox, a rookie again, this time as a big league manager. On July 4, he’ll lead his team into Colorado, where Venable will line up across the diamond from his first big league manager, Bud Black.

Is that enough reason to watch a White Sox/Rockies game?

I think the first time I considered life in a 20-year increment was when I heard “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” At the time, I was only 10 or 11, and the album had hit the shelves about 19 years earlier. My father and I looked forward to the moment when it was actually going to be “20 years ago today” that the song and album were released.

Over the years I’ve watched a lot of baseball and I’ve listened to a lot of The Beatles. Whether through playing, scouting, or coaching my kids, I’ve come to believe in the Paul McCartney school of hitting:

And in the end, the pitch you take is equal to the pitch you rake.