The Inmates Are Losing an Asylum

Sometimes I think I’ll be getting out of the business just at the right time.

Man and boy, I’ve been going into press boxes for (mumble, mumble) years. Quite a few.

These attachments to their playing fields were built by sports owners sometime around the turn of the last century because they realized the importance of the press to the box office. Baseball is an acquired taste. As are other sports.

The press box was the sportswriters’ and sportscasters’ domain. They ran them. The owners turned them over to them. Interlopers were discouraged. To the extent that, when Les Biederman was president of the Baseball Writers of America, he spent a large part of his time getting non-writers--particularly Vegas gamblers--out of press boxes. He was only minimally successful.

Professional writers never violated the sanctity of the press box. They never brought their wives, girlfriends, bartenders, lawyers, doctors, accountants or golfing buddies with them.

It was for working press only. A caveat “No cheering in the press box!” was rigidly enforced, put in place initially at Notre Dame when a few of the good fathers would get carried away and exhort their students--or at least their football team--to get in the end zone.

What I’m trying to say is, the press box was our castle, our office, our workbench, our fief, if you will.

Which is why I felt at liberty to reach down into a tub of ice at the new press box at the Rose Bowl the other day and select a can of diet soda for myself.

You particularly need a cold drink at the new Rose Bowl press box because, even though they spent $11 million renovating it, it isn’t air-conditioned.

I was just about to open my can of soda when a guy in a ponytail comes up to me and asks, “Are you with the press?”

I thought this was a reasonable question, inasmuch as I was in a press box. I assured him I was.

“Then, you have to know these drinks are for the UCLA alumni and booster groups only,” he told me sternly.

I was startled.

“Do you want me to put it back or just pay for it?” I wanted to know.

“No, we want you to drink it and enjoy it,” he said grimly. “But from now on, stay on your side.”

Stay on our side! They’ve ghetto-ized the press box. It’s come to this!

Grantland Rice would have had to write his “Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. . . “--the line widely credited for making college football--from a back bench on the two-yard line!

It reminded me of many years ago in the old press box at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. It was run by the county board of supervisors and, one day during an infrequent trip up there, I sat next to this charmingwoman who leaned over after the kickoff and asked me who I was with.

“I’m a sportswriter,” I told her.

She was thrilled. “A sportswriter! I’ve never sat next to a sportswriter before!”

Bear in mind, this was in a press box. Out of curiosity, I pointed to the group seated with her.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Oh,” she said cheerfully, pointing each one out, “that’s my minister, that’s my cousin and his wife, they’re visiting from Peoria; that’s my husband, he’s in banking, and that’s our doctor. My son couldn’t come today.”

Later that same day--it was a rather important Ram-49er game as I recall it--the late Wells Twombly of the San Francisco Examiner began to pound out his story on his portable. Some friend of a politician seated next to him was outraged.

“Are you going to do that all game long?” he demanded.

Twombly shot him an incredulous look. “Probably,” he said.

The fellow got up and went off in search of someone in authority who could put a stop to this unseemly noise in a press box.

I had gone to the Rose Bowl Saturday, not to hijack a Coke, but in the hopes of devising a new nickname for San Diego State’s wonder runner and leading Heisman Trophy candidate, Marshall Faulk. You know, something to add to Grand Marshall or Field Marshall. But when he fumbled twice in the first few minutes, the only thing I could think to tell a San Diego TV interviewer who wanted to know what I thought of Marshall Faulk was that he’d better hope the Heisman has handles on it.

But Marshall finally had a respectable day. So did I. I stayed in my place, is what I did, and didn’t get too uppity with those people who are, after all, paying for the UCLA football team. I just hope the water fountain is on our side.

The only thing is, it used to be I only had to bring my computer and phone jack and imagination to a press box. Next time, I’ll bring a six-pack and a fan. I know my place.