I begin this, the fourth installment of Love It Then Leave It, with a few words about our “Secret Garden” contest winner. I’m speaking of course about the distinguished, unassailable maverick known as Sam Gavin. Without question, Sam Gavin is a savior of worlds. Sam Gavin is the kind of exemplary human that inspires random kindness, common radness and awesome prowess.
Congratulations, Sam Gavin. The Internet loves you.
With that, I present Love It, Then Leave It: Sports Edition. Now, I have attended both ASU football and basketball games, but not while actually attending the University. As a young sprout, my ASU alum father took me to football games and my ASU alum cousin had lower deck seats at the arena. I couldn’t manage to attend any games while actually going to school here.
I’m disappointed to acknowledge that my tenure at ASU has not been marked by any significant football or basketball victories. My junior year came close, as the Sun Devil football team began the season 7-0 only to falter against every ranked opponent left on its schedule.
It all brought back my earliest memory of ASU athletics: the 1996 Rose Bowl, in the Jake Plummer era, which my nine-year-old self viewed in a living room full of shouting uncles (it must be clear by now that I have many passionate Sun Devil relatives). The experience may have instilled in my ‘lil brain a sense of lowered expectations about my inevitable future school.
However, for all of the mania that results if the football team approaches success, there is a criminal lack of celebration for the total immortality of the ASU baseball team. It rules, mercilessly. I’m not kidding.
For those uninformed, the ASU baseball team has been Pac-10 champions for three years in a row. This season, the Sun Devil diamond demons began with a 25-game winning streak that was ended earlier this month by the Oregon Ducks. At the height of the run, the team defeated Northern Illinois by a score of 26-1.
It might be assumed that the ticket price for such an awesome spectacle would be stiff, but it’s actually non-existent. Students can attend every baseball game at Packard Stadium for a total of zero dollars. This economy is all screwed up.
There’s nothing as distinctly American as watching a ballgame in the Sunday afternoon sun. This may have explained the droves of senior citizens who came to see the Devils take on the USC Trojans on April 18 (courtesy shuttle buses hummed patiently outside the pavilion entrance).
While the old-timers took to the shade and families relaxed in the sequestered picnic grass, the loudest in attendance took to the bleachers and made themselves heard. Packard Stadium is very cozy. A left-handed hitter could foul off a ball into a windshield in the parking lot. Any cat calls and heckling can be clearly heard from all directions. Those around me in the student section were particularly brutal, telling the visiting Trojans to “go back to Compton.”
The Trojans were comically bad. In the bottom of the 8th inning, USC had two throwing errors that led to two ASU runs. Then a Trojans reliever threw a pitch behind an ASU batter, earning him an immediate ejection. The managers and coaches from both teams began shouting, resulting in further ejections and cheers from the crowd.
Any bickering was completely for naught, as the Sun Devils pulverized the Trojans 14-6. High fives were exchanged between strangers, and I made a deposit for season tickets.
12 Days,
Chase
