Diamonds Are an Alum’s Best Friend

Glenn Fuller ’50 drove more than a 1,000 miles from Minnesota to Houston, taking three days to get through snow, sleet, hail, and rain, all because he wanted to have one more chance at bat.
...........................................................................

Actually, he got two. Dressed in a white baseball uniform, the 72-year-old hit two infield grounders and trotted to first base at a leisurely pace. Although he was called out, he received a standing ovation for his efforts.

Fuller was one of more than 100 former and current Rice baseball players who gathered at Reckling Park on February 2 to participate in the Rice Baseball Alumni Classic.

The alumni came from all parts of the country, representing classes from as far back as 1947 and including several major league players, such as Lance Berkman of the Houston Astros, Jose Cruz Jr. of the Toronto Blue Jays, and Matt Anderson of the Detroit Tigers.

For Fuller, playing at Rice was like a dream come true. He visited Reckling Park two years ago at an alumni reunion and thought the stadium would be a wonderful place to play ball.
“And then I get this letter saying there is going to be an alumni game,” he explained. “So, man, I say, I am going down.”

The game was structured so that the young alumni played up to the sixth inning against the Rice baseball team, and thereafter the older alumni played against each other.

Lance Berkman ’97 quickly set a whimsical tone to the game by falling on his knees and laughing at the third base coach Jon Prather for mistakenly sending runners for a couple of outs. Berkman, playing first base, then stopped the game and took the aluminum bat away from Rice Owl A. J. Porfirio and gave him a wooden bat instead—a ball doesn’t travel as fast when hit by a wooden bat. But Berkman got serious in the second inning when he hit a towering home run over the scoreboard.

“We had a lot fun and it was good to see all the guys,” he said. Then he adds, with his sense of competitive spirit: “It felt good to hit a homerun, and it was needed because we won the game.”

After the Prather fiasco, Matt Anderson took over as third base coach. Anderson, who is a closer for the Tigers, did not pitch in the alumni game because he Hadn’t yet started training. He did an admirable job as coach, though. “The closest I’ve come to coaching third was when I played third base in T-ball,” he said.

Most players, especially the younger ones, did not have time to prepare for the game. “This is the first time I have seen pitching since September 3,” Damon Thames ’99 said. “And I pretty much looked stupid.”

Nor did the groups get a chance to practice together. “Everyone just showed up today, threw their cleats on, grabbed their glove, grabbed a ball, and went out to have a good time,” said Zane Curry ’99, who is an assistant Rice baseball coach.

But for some, the chance to play in front of a crowd was too important to take lightly. Geraldina Wise ’83 said her husband, Scott Wise ’71, vice president of investments and treasurer at Rice, started working out the day he got the invitation letter in December. “He was not about to go out there and not do a good job,” she explained. And he didn’t disappoint his team as he threw with precision and grace.

Playing ball was part of the fun, but the greatest pleasure was meeting up with old buddies and making new friends. “Just hanging out with people in the dugout, talking to guys who played 40 years ago was a blast,” said Thames, who is in the St. Louis Cardinals’ minor league program.

Phil Costa ’47 said he was determined to play, but good fortune saved him. “I didn’t get into the game because they ran out of outs,” he said. “I was saved the embarrassment.”

At 81, Costa was the oldest player at the alumni game. In addition to seeing his friends, Costa also got to be on the same team with his son, Phillip Costa Jr. ’75.

“It feels great to be out here,” he said, though he lamented the fact that he never got to play in a stadium like Reckling. His team of the late 1930s and early 1940s played on the Rice football practice field. His coach would often tell them: “You boys be careful because the ball takes bad hops.”

Like Costa, Fuller will have to wait for the next alumni competition to get on base or score a run. But he plans to be back. “I don’t want to check out going 0 for 2 in the alumni game,” he says.

—David D. Medina