The Only Real Dirt in the Building
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@micheles501, via YouTube
September 29, 1963. Stan Musial's last game. His last hit, number 3,630, was a ground ball single to right that skipped past a 22-year-old rookie second baseman for the Reds. That kid won Rookie of the Year that season. His name was Pete Rose, and he spent the next eighteen years chasing a number he had helped put on the board.
He came into 1981 needing 74 hits. He tied it on June 10 with a first-inning single off Nolan Ryan, who looked over at first base and touched the brim of his cap, then struck Rose out his next three times up. Two days later the players walked out. The strike killed 55 games and seven weeks. Rose sat one hit from history and went to a batting cage, where the machine fed him a pitch every ten seconds and he stayed for an hour and a half at a stretch.
Mark the date
August 10, 1981
Baseball's first day back from the strike, 60,561 at Veterans Stadium, with Musial in the building
Baseball came back on Monday, August 10. National telecast on ABC, 60,561 at Veterans Stadium, the Cardinals in the other dugout, and Stan Musial himself in the building. First inning, Rose hit a hard grounder to Garry Templeton and the official scorer called it an error. The fireworks went off anyway, because a stadium engineer on a walkie-talkie heard Bill Giles say "go" when Giles had actually said "no." The booing lasted a while.
Eighth inning, leading off, Mark Littell pitching. Rose hit another ground ball, this one through the hole between short and third, and the place came apart. Fireworks again, intentionally this time. The game stopped. Musial walked out and shook his hand at first base. Pete Rose Jr. came out of the dugout to hug his father and the rest of the Phillies followed until there was a traffic jam at the bag. Ronald Reagan called the clubhouse afterward.
Here is something only the people who were there would think about. The Vet was AstroTurf. The only real dirt in that entire building was in the sliding pits around the bases and out on the mound. So the ground Rose was standing on when Stan the Man reached out to shake his hand was one of the few square yards of actual earth in the whole ballpark, and there were kids in Philadelphia that night who understood exactly what that was worth.
