How does the baseball fan, an average fan or fanatic, define a successful season? That is, a successful season as a fan. Does the team have to win the World Series, make the playoffs, play .500 ball, perform better than the previous year, have a star rookie, have a player win a MVP or Cy Young award, win the season series with the Giants, have the Giants miss the playoffs?

I expect success for a fan may often be tied to winning, just as it is for the team. However, I have had different ways to measure success as a Dodger fan since my inaugural season in 1952. That success would include all of the above and much more. Necessity has probably caused me to become more creative during the past twenty-five years as winning it all simply hasn’t happened. Nevertheless, I have had considerable success as a fan during those years. My success is always measured by the memories I have when the season is over and each year there are memorable events and moments. Measuring success only by winning would have put me in a quarter century long depression.

This year, 2013, already goes down as a very successful year. In fact, the most successful season I have had in a long time. It was a short season, starting on February 22 and ending on March 4, nearly three months ago. Since then I have been wondering if the memories would fade. They haven’t. During that time I found myself in Phoenix having made a reluctant decision to visit the Dodgers at Camelback Ranch for nine spring training games. I say reluctant as I am a notorious homebody and find flying, even under ideal conditions, as my least preferred method of travel. I did have some stated reasons for undertaking this adventure, more so than just out of curiosity, which I wrote about in an article entitled I’m Going To Spring Training this past February.

Camelback Ranch – Glendale, Arizona
(Photo credit – Tim Roberts)

First and foremost I wanted to meet the Dodger family that consists of the members of the ThinkBlueLA forum and blog. We have known each other for about seven years via the internet but had never been together as a group. I had previously not met any of the members of this group of Dodger fanatics. Living on the outer fringe of the baseball world, a Dodger fan in almost total isolation in Nova Scotia, had pretty much precluded such a gathering for me. But there I was in Phoenix on February 22, 2013 – and I am not fond of big cities. I was met at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport by Ron Cervenka, who had orchestrated this gathering of loyal Dodger fans from across the continent.

Soon I was to meet an interesting collection of individuals – all in love with Dodger blue. It was a family reunion, no doubt, as good natured bantering was in full flight from day 1. As mentioned, Ron Cervenka coordinated the whole expedition, worried if we were doing and seeing what we wanted to do and see, and couriered us around for the ten days. Gary Smith, from Yorba Linda, CA (is that really a place) helped with the driving. I quickly learned that if one is to share secrets with Gary he should not have your phone number so he can phone your wife.

Joe Pierre, from Brooklyn, was the elder statesman in the group having been a Dodger fan since the late forties. Joe soon learned the technique of applying sunscreen. Will Isabella, from New York, got involved in an autograph competition which he claimed wasn’t a competition and tried to teach Mike some Brooklynese. Unflappable Dick Greenblatt came in from Toledo and was spotted behind the barriers at Camelback talking with Dodger dignitaries. Huh! And then there was Mike LeClair from Cranbrook, British Columbia who never stopped flapping and spent considerable time trying to teach us how to eat a banana. Oh yes, Mike tried to learn Brooklynese while still struggling with Cranbrookese. Las Vegas resident Linda Valkenburg came bearing gifts and trying desperately to get a Sandy Koufax autograph. Under other circumstances it would be called stalking. Linda’s husband, Jim, visited for two days. I expect he visited to check out the group with whom Linda was associating or maybe two days was all he could take.

ThinkBlueLA members Harold Uhlman, Mike LeClair, Will Isabella, Kevin Sparkuhl, Dick Greenblatt, Gary Smith, Ron Cervenka, Joe Pierre and Linda Valkenburg pose with the Camelback Ranch mechanical statue.

Not to be outdone, the group had two members who live behind enemy lines in San Francisco – Evan Bladh of the Opinion of Kingman’s Performance blog site and his son Evan Jr. They still had smiles on their faces. Go figure. Meanwhile Kevin Sparkuhl drove all night from Nampa, Idaho and complained his outside waterfall in Nampa had frozen up. Kevin and I made up the alpha and omega in the group. I have the “uhl” at the beginning of my surname and Kevin has it at the end.

My primary objective was reached as soon as I had met all the members of the group. However, there was much more. It had been twenty years or so since I had heard the sounds and seen the sights of real live baseball. On our first morning at Camelback I heard the crack of the bat for the first time in so many years as players hit in the batting cages. I had not forgotten the sound and it was as sweet as ever, the greatest sound in all of professional sports. Each morning as we waited for the gates to open and many were talking, I was listening to that sound coming to us from the batting cages just inside the gates. Inside I was amazed to see so many players standing and playing catch as a warm up. Playing catch – one of my greatest childhood and teenage memories. Professionals still do it and I still loved that sound.

Will, myself and Joe waiting for the gates to open. It was from here that I listened each morning to the rhythmic sound of the nearby batting cages – a sound that I have been waiting more than 20 years to hear again.

Camelback Ranch was as I expected from the pictures I had seen. It was not Dodgertown in Vero Beach. Dodgertown had sand to walk on, little pavement and cement. However, Camelback soon won me over with the player and fan facilities it offered. The main field was a great venue to watch a game. The trees and water areas added a nice touch that I appreciated. There were barriers keeping the players safe from the crowds, something that was not necessary at Dodgertown when I was there in 1985. I understood the reason why at Camelback, which was unfortunate for polite fans.

As mentioned, I had not seen a live game for about twenty years so each game was a treasure even in the unseasonably (I was told) cold weather during the first couple of days. The manicured grass and infield caught my attention. The smells of the ball park also tweaked my senses as hot dogs, pulled pork sandwiches, popcorn were as enticing as ever. I enjoyed watching fans, seeing how they were dressed, listening to comments and of course there is always a fan with an echoing voice starting a chant, “Let’s go Dodgers!!”

Much of the morning was spent waiting and watching, hoping to get autographs. I had hoped to get maybe two a day but eventually got over seventy including Mark McGwire, Shawn Green, Eric Karros, Davey Lopes, Ron Cey, Steve Yeager, Tommy Lasorda, Manny Mota, Adrian Gonzalez, Hyun-jin Ryu, Yasiel Puig, Andre Ethier, Tommy Davis, Stan Kasten and Mark Walter. I was pleased to get autographs from a couple of my favorite young players – Joc Pederson, Shawn Tolleson and Paco Rodriguez.

We spent many mornings waiting and hoping to get autographs and actually did quite well, getting autographs from nearly every Dodger player.

Joe Pierre gets an autograph from Assistant Trainer Nancy Patterson

As members of TBLA might suspect, I enjoy minor league baseball as much as I do MLB. As such, I follow the Dodger farm teams perhaps as much as the Dodgers with two farm teams close to my time zone, not four hours away. There was little opportunity to acquire minor league player autographs as during my time at Camelback they did not have names on their uniforms and a numbered roster list was not available. However, in addition to meeting the members of TBLA, another highlight for me was simply learning that it was Ross Stripling I was watching in a bunting game with other young pitchers.

My fervent hope is that the Dodgers right their ship and have a successful season. I have already had mine.

Theirs should be so easy.