It's No Fun Being A Witness To History

By CALVIN TRILLIN

My advice to anyone who was in the stands when David Wells pitched his perfect game for the New York Yankees last week is simple: Have your ticket stub notarized. Otherwise, nobody is going to believe you. I speak as someone who was there when Carl DeRose pitched his perfect game for the Kansas City Blues of the American Association in 1947. Yes, I was. Really.

Last week New York was celebrating. The mayor declared David Wells Day--which was surprising, because the way the mayor has been acting lately, a lot of people expected him to declare Rudolph Giuliani Day, featuring David Wells.

I couldn't join in. I was thinking about the innocent people who had been there in Yankee Stadium. They're thrilled now. They can't foresee the scene at the neighborhood tavern when they casually acknowledge having witnessed David Wells' perfect game and some wise guy at the other end of the bar says, "I guess you were at the game when Bobby Thompson hit his home run too. And, listen: to someone who was in the stands, did it really look like the Babe pointed at the centerfield wall before he put one over it?"

Within a few weeks of the evening I accompanied my father to Rupert Stadium and saw Carl DeRose make history, nobody believed me. My attendance would often come up naturally in conversation. Charlie Adams might be talking about how you could distinguish a Buick Roadmaster from a Buick Super because the Roadmaster had four ornamental holes on the side of its hood instead of three, and I'd say, "Speaking of which, it was like those batters had holes in their bats when Carl DeRose was mowing them down. I happened to be there." Then somebody, maybe the deeply cynical Eddie Williams, would say, "Give me a break," or whatever boys said in Kansas City in 1947 to express skepticism.

That's what it was like for me, year after year: "Tell me another one" or "Oh, sure, we believe that" or "Tell it to the Marines." Looking back, I think that witnessing Carl DeRose's perfect game--which at first struck me as the greatest piece of good fortune that had ever come my way--was the experience that caused me to move away from Kansas City. I just couldn't take the pressure.

Of course, the pressure never really ends. I can hear you thinking right now, "Maybe he just saw it on television, and over the years he's convinced himself that he was there." I didn't just see it on television. In Kansas City in 1947 there wasn't any television. What better proof do you want? I was there. With my dad.

I remember where we were sitting--about halfway up, on the third-base side. I remember the triumphant look on the face of Carl DeRose, a righthander who'd been troubled with a sore arm all year.

In fact, when all this came to mind last week, I thought about trying to find Carl DeRose, the way the sportswriters immediately got on to Don Larsen, who had pitched the only other perfect game in Yankee Stadium. On my phone-directory website, I found several people by that name. Carl DeRose might be thrilled to hear from someone who had been there. On the other hand, he might say, "Sure you were," or "Give me a break." I couldn't take the chance.