Published: October 04, 2008 10:59 pm            

MARK MAYNARD: It was a great day at Shea

The wrecking ball will make Shea Stadium a mere memory during the offseason.

It may be the ugly stepsister to Yankee Stadium, but there were plenty of important happenings at the 44-year-old stadium.

It’s where the Beatles played a 30-minute concert in 1965. It was the home of the Amazin’ Mets of 1969, the place where Bud Harrelson and Pete Rose mixed it up in the 1973 playoffs and the site where the ground ball rolled under Bill Buckner’s glove in 1986. It was the home for the Jets of Broadway Joe Namath.

Yes, Shea has its memories.

For me, the memories of Shea involve an adventuresome road trip in my mini-van and the start of a major league career that could only be described as, well, “amazing” for one of Ashland’s favorite sons.

It was April 27, 2003 and Brandon Webb was scheduled to make the first start of his career. It would be against the Mets, and one of his sports heroes growing up — Tom Glavine. His real-life hero, his father, would be in the stands watching. Phil Webb was one of the five who made the drive from Ashland to New York City with only a Map Quest word map as our guide.

The others on the trip with me were Brandon’s grandfather Bob Carr, my pastor Floyd Paris and his son Philip.

We departed Ashland with this ominous message from the Weather Channel: The forecast for New York on Saturday was 100 percent chance of rain. Not 70 percent. Not 80 percent. Not even 90 percent. It was 100 percent. It was going to rain.

Undaunted by that forecast — Hey, how many times are these guys wrong? — we loaded up the mini-van from the church parking lot on a Friday night and away we went. Like most trips of anticipation, we were all pretty excited.

Brandon’s father was excited and nervous, although not as nervous as he would be when his son took the mound later in the weekend. I’d say a lump the size of a baseball was in both of their throats.

None of us had been to Shea Stadium, so the adventure actually even went beyond Brandon’s appearance.

Shea was not Yankee Stadium but, for me anyway, it always was a magical place. The story of the ’69 Mets was always one of my favorites. As an 11-year-old boy, I remember following that World Series and

really falling in love with baseball’s magic. Of course, the days of the Big Red Machine would follow and I was hooked forever.

Namath’s guarantee in Super Bowl III also was one of those great sports moments for me, too. And Shea is where Namath did his thing to get to that Super Bowl.

Brandon was scheduled to pitch on Saturday — the day of the 100 percent rain forecast — and we decided to split the long trip into two days. We drove about eight hours, mostly in rain, before stopping for the night.

We got up the next morning refreshed and ready to complete the drive to New York. And, true to the forecast, it rained some more.

Somehow, even with the Map Quest as our only mapping tool, we made it to the parking lot at Shea Stadium. That was Miracle No. 1 of the weekend.

Brandon left everyone tickets, but I had also secured media credentials to cover The Big Event. That gave me a little more access than the rest of the gang as we waited out the rain delay, hoping we hadn’t made this 12-hour trip — in the rain — for nothing.

While checking out the media accommodations, I actually — and almost literally — bumped into Tom Seaver. The Hall of Fame pitcher is now a Mets’ television announcer. I nervously introduced myself, stumbling over words while telling him how I’d followed his career and how my mom and dad had front-row seats for his no-hitter against the Cardinals when he pitched for the Reds.

Seaver was nice about it, almost seeming interested in what I was saying. I gave him some background on Brandon. He appreciated it, stuffed it in a pocket, and went on.

I found my seat in the Mets’ press box and then headed back to the concourse to find out the fate of the Saturday afternoon game. It was still raining and the field was covered. There was hardly anyone sitting in those bright orange seats, one of Shea’s trademarks.

Eventually, the game was called but a doubleheader was scheduled for Sunday — a day with a forecast for sunny skies — and Webb was the scheduled starter for Game 1.

We’d come this far, so we weren’t turning back now. But our Map Quest mapping only took us to Shea, and we didn’t have a “real” map between us. Now the adventure really begins.

We left Shea Stadium with another passenger — Brandon Webb had joined us in the mini-van. So here I was, driving in New York City, to the hotel where the Diamondbacks were staying. It was near Grand Central Station — are you kidding me? Driving in that town, as you can imagine, was a rather nerve-wrecking experience. There were yellow cabs everywhere and, apparently, they do own the road.

My only previous experience in The Big Apple was in 1996 when Kentucky was in the Final Four in New Jersey. But I flew into the city, stayed in the media hotel downtown and took shuttles to and from the arena. That was nothing. This was something.

Somehow — maybe Miracle No. 2 — we arrived at the hotel and the Diamondbacks helped arrange for a couple of rooms. That night, we talked with Brandon and went to dinner with him. He was so excited yet amazingly calm.

My guess is that neither Brandon nor Phil slept well that night. And neither did I, my nerves shattered by the whole driving-in-New York experience.

I told everyone before we went to our rooms that night we needed to leave early on Sunday because I had no idea where I was going. This was the days before the GPS, and this Map Quest turn-by-turn map from Ashland to Shea Stadium wasn’t doing me a whole lot of good now.

So we left early, it seems like around 9:30, for the journey back to Shea Stadium. It turned out the trip wasn’t going to take three hours like I had anticipated. The streets of New York are pretty quiet on Sunday morning. I mean, it was like a ghost town. I felt like I was driving in downtown Ashland (except for when I went the wrong way on a one-way street).

We were back at Shea Stadium’s parking lot in no time, probably less than 30 minutes from when we left the hotel. We pulled onto the parking lot and there was NOBODY there. I mean, nobody. It was too early for ticket-takers, maintenance, anybody — except these five guys from Ashland.

We walked around the grand old stadium a couple of times and took in the surrounding sites, like the home of the U.S. Open tennis championships. Eventually, the workers began showing up. We were able to make our way into the stadium and begin what would be a memorable afternoon.

I was able to talk the Mets’ public relations personnel into letting Phil into the clubhouse to talk to his son before the game — that may have been Miracle No. 3. I imagine it was calming for both of them.

Instead of going to the press box, I chose to watch the game with my group. I gave Phil my portable radio with earplugs so he could listen to the Mets’ broadcast as the game unfolded — plus block out everyone else. The story, I figured, was right there for me anyway. A father from Ashland watching his son, who grew up playing on our fields, pitch in the big leagues. What could be better?

How about this: Webb pitched seven shutout innings, struck out 10 and walked one in a 6-1 victory. He even laid down two sacrifice bunts. Everybody in Shea — a crowd of 36,491 showed up for that Sunday twin bill — was buzzing about the kid from Kentucky.

After the game, the D-backs actually “sent” Webb back to the minors to make room on the roster for Randy Johnson. All that meant was that he couldn’t be seen on the Arizona bench for the second game. It didn’t matter. Webb was in the clubhouse, meeting the New York media and starting a career that most could only dream about. His father got to tell him, in person, how proud he was of him.

Five years later, Webb is the winningest pitcher in the major leagues and a top contender for his second National League Cy Young Award.

For the five of us who decided to make the amazing journey from Ashland to New York, we drove home happy, satisfied that we made memories that would last a lifetime.

My nerves have since calmed.

MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@

dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.

        

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