He Had a Gift for Making People Feel Welcome

The invitations for Mark Becker Night, an annual party for 20-some years staged in the upper deck at Dodger Stadium, went out to more than 200 of the L.A. Unified School District audiologist’s closest friends around March 5.

For the last year, as he has done every year, Becker hit the local discount retail stores before going on to Las Vegas and “the biggest gift shops in the world” looking for just the right door prizes for every one of his Dodger Stadium guests. Sometimes it would take three or four of his friends to carry all the gifts into the stadium.

“He’d have a kid in mind all year when he went shopping, looking for just the right gift,” said Blaze Kistler, Becker’s best friend. “If he couldn’t find something with someone’s name on something, he’d order it special.” And someone named “Blaze” would know that better than anyone.

A few years back Markbecker -- his friends running his name together every time they used it -- found shower caps for everyone to wear on Mark Becker Night. That might explain why none of Becker’s friends complained about sitting way up in the nosebleed seats and out of sight.

A year ago he passed out 2004 sunglasses, asking his pals to watch the Dodgers through the double zeroes in 2004. Sunglasses at night, of course, might be the best way to watch the Dodgers sometimes.

This year he scheduled Mark Becker Night for Fireworks Night, because he always liked to give his friends a little something extra.

In this year’s “creative” newsletter to friends, he informed them, “Celebrity convict Martha Stewart has a new job on the outside. She’s been named the culinary director of Mark Becker Night 2005, and if your last name begins with A-O, bring domestic diva desserts. If your last name begins P-Z, bring house-arrest appetizers.”

Becker, who was based at the Marlton School for the deaf and worked as a KCET volunteer when needed, also noted in his rather unusual invitation that Jose Canseco’s allegation “that Mark is dating the Olsen Twins is utter nonsense,” while also refusing comment “on being fired by Donald Trump.”

As you can see, Terri Hassenmiller, KCET volunteer coordinator, said, “Mark Becker was a once-in-a-lifetime-type of person.”

Who else could invite 200 friends to a party, and then insist they bring food and buy a ticket to join him?

“Wouldn’t miss it,” said Marcia Hanford, a Mark Becker Night regular. “Everyone would share the food through the game, containers passing from row to row. In addition, Mark would haul in his bag of goodies, and everyone would get a prize. I won a one-inch-by-two-inch frame with a picture of Mark Becker himself one year, and I’ve got it sitting right here on my table. In the picture, he’s wearing his ratty old Dodger baseball cap, like always.

“We would eagerly watch the scoreboard when it listed special guests,” Hanford continued. “Obviously, a block of [cheap] seats doesn’t rank up there for banner status, but in the list of birthdays, anniversaries, etc., there would be ‘Mark Becker Night’ and we’d all cheer. The students, many of whom communicated in sign language, were thrilled to see Mark’s name in lights because they were part of Mark’s group.”

This year’s Mark Becker Night was scheduled for Saturday night.

Friday, however, friends and family gathered for Mark Becker’s funeral services.

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A FEW days after invitations for this year’s party went out, Becker went to a doctor to check on a persistent stomachache. Initially, he thought it was from the stress of dealing with his mother’s illness.

One doctor told him to check back in six months, another told him he had esophagus cancer, giving him a 60-40 chance for survival, “when he had no chance,” Kistler said. “He just wanted to know what was going on, so I had to tell him. He had terminal cancer.”

Fortunately, as he would joke to Kistler later, the Dodgers had messed up his ticket order for Mark Becker Night.

“He said he’s going to die,” Kistler said, “but it’s going to work out good, because he won’t have to send the tickets back. To the end he was joking.”

Becker was a dedicated Dodger fan, critical at times, but still loyal. Kistler and Becker went to Dodger games all the time, and it was Kistler who was with Becker last week watching on TV as the 12-2 Dodgers took on the Padres.

“It was our last conversation,” Kistler said. “It was really good. We talked about where he was going, and how unfair it was, but we all have to go sometime. We talked about meeting up there and he said, ‘I’ll be there waiting for you.’ He was OK with the whole thing. We were talking about the Dodgers, and in mid-sentence he just went into a coma.

“He didn’t see the end of the game,” Kistler said with a chuckle. “Thank God -- a loss.”

Call it a coincidence, if you like, but as Kistler noted, “The Dodgers went on a losing streak after that,” and four days later Becker passed away at age 51.

“On his last birthday a few weeks earlier I got him one of the Dodgers’ official jerseys with his name on the back and No. 10 for the day he was born,” Kistler said. “He was really touched. Unfortunately he never got the chance to wear it to a game.”

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THERE WAS no homemade food to pass around Saturday night at Dodger Stadium, there were no door prizes or “instant winners,” as Becker used to shout, while reaching in his pocket to pull out the name of a child.

“The Dodgers have lost a wonderful home-grown tradition,” Hanford said. “Over the years, thousands of us reveled in this original, campy, heartfelt night in beloved Dodger Stadium.”

The Dodgers went on to win, the fireworks the ideal exclamation point, but the message on the scoreboard 20 minutes before it all started turned out to be prophetic: “Welcome to Mark Becker Night ... as always,” where everyone goes home happy.

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Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.