By Phil Roberts, Sept. 2, 2024
Fresh from a confused mix-up of my orders out of boot camp, i had just been assigned to the press office in San Diego.
Still a private (E-0) in the Marine Corps, I knew I was the exact profile for the next “quota call” to be sent to Vietnam. About two weeks had passed since my arrival ( no quota calls), and the press chief seemed satisfied with my work. The press office numbered a dozen or so enlisted and three officers.
A small three-person newspaper staff, all NCOs, were responsible for filling the eight tabloid pages each week. I was told that, effective the following week, I would be the sports editor, replacing a sergeant who was at the end of his enlistment.
I was to go with him in a few minutes to a regular-season baseball game between our base team v. Camp Pendleton in the league of western regional bases. I was still in uniform, but the sergeant had changed into civilian clothes, not intending to return to the office after the mid-afternoon game.
We walked over to the baseball field, about half a mile away, and climbed the steep steps up to the combination play-by-play and press box. We had a clear view of the field. We were the only ones in the press box, even though there were enough seats for 6-8 watchers.
“Would you like a beer?’ the sergeant asked cheerfully. “No thanks, I said. “I never drink in the afternoon,” imagining how quickly I’d be in Vietnam if I returned, in uniform. to the office smelling like a still. ” He smiled. “You mind if I get a couple?” He added that on warm days like that one, he’d usually drink “a beer an inning.”
The first pitch. He returned with his two beers, and we settled in for the game. The game was going quickly. So were his beers. He went down for two more. And then, two innings later, two more. Just as he was returning with beers 5 and 6, a player slammed a long homerun. Everybody cheered down below in the stands. The sergeant looked at me and asked, “Did you see who that was?” I admitted I did not, unfamiliar with the players’ names.
He sat the two beers down next to the scorecard I had tried to fill out, by position, without knowing all of their names though. He cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled loudly to the coach, standing far below next to the dugout. “WHO HIT THE HOMERUN?” he hollered. The coach heard him, despite the racket from the several hundred fans. The coach yelled back a name. The sergeant waited a second and yelled back, “No. WHAT TEAM?”
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