Baseball is in my brain

James Larken Smth and
Larry Dierker
Photo by Lisa Warren
Copyright 2020 Al Rights Reserved

By James Larken Smith

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved

SUGAR LAND, TEXAS (July 29, 2020)  As we go into the third week of Constellation Energy League play, it is appropriate for me that the teams we saw playing last night were the 5-5 Skeeters and 5-4 Team Texas, teams playing very evenly so far in this league, and teams that I can speak a lot about for reason I will mention in this article. 

My love of baseball started as a young lad in Grapevine Texas, just a few minutes from Arlington. Yes Astro fans. I confess my sins. I grew up a Texas Ranger fan. Feel free to flog and feather me after you finish reading this write up. You might notice that Team Texas’s uniform has a very slight look and feel to the Rangers uni’s. Several folks have mention this to me. It’s not lost that a number of Skeeters front office folks have worked for the Rangers in the past, most notably former President Jay Miller, who now is in Wichita. I was 9 years old when the Rangers moved from Washington D.C. to that contraption they called a baseball stadium in Arlington. But at 9 years old, I did not know the rigors of the modern Astrodome yet, that would not happen for another 10 years. My heros on the field were Jeff Burroughs and Jim Sunberg, and Bill Mercer and Bill Merrill in the radio broadcast booth. 

I have been a  Sugar Land Skeeters season ticket holder since day one. I have been writing and doing radio stories and coverage both about the Skeeters and the Atlantic League, the league to which they have played for their eight years of existence until the COVID outbreak this year. Being a season ticket holder, and doing coverage of the league and the players, coaches, front office folks, broadcasters, and stories about the moves that take place in the league has allowed me to meet and speak to so many wonderful people in baseball these past years. Print space does not allow me to list all of them. But having lived in Houston since since 1981, you can guess that many of them have been connected to the Houston Astros, and several with my original love, the Rangers. Players include Jose Cruz, whom we know has a connection to a player on Eastern Reyes del Reyes, Of coarse Roger Clemens, Felipe Paulino, who is playing for the Skeeters again. I met and interviewed Jeff Bourrough’s son Shawn, who himself made it to play in MLB a few years, and was playing and coaching in the Atlantic League. And of course, Skeeters skipper Pete Incavigli, who played four years for the Rangers, and had two stints with the Astros. Also included in this list is former Skeeters manager Gary Gaetti, who was a bench coach for the Astros for several years as well. 

I’ve also gotten to to know and meet a number folks from the broadcasts booth at Constellation Field. Longtime Astros broadcaster Bill Brown made a trip to Sugar Land to share a book he had written about a young man going through a serious illness. It was such a blessing to talk to Bill for almost 30 minutes on the concourse about baseball and life in general. On a number of occasions, I’ve got to speak to longtime Astros and Houston Rockets and Skeeters broadcaster Greg Lucas. Greg is also such a gifted writer, and he has shared so many wonderful stories with me, including one about how longtime player and broadcaster Joe Garaagiola kept a notebook with notes from every game he broadcasts. He showed him that notebook on the day Nolan Ryan had his fifth no-hitter in the Astrodome, and all 3 of us were there on that day! There are many more, but there is one man, one Astro, that I met at Constellation Field, that fits the category of player, broadcaster, baseball writer, manager, and one more very special category that he had only with me that night I met him. That of a survivor of a brain malformation, and brain surgery. 

On June 13, 1999, Larry Dierker was manager the last year that the Astros would be in The Astrodome. With the Astros ahead 4-1, Larry had a grand mal seizure in the dugout. He was transported to the nearby medical center where it was discovered he had a tangled web of blood vessels in his brain, otherwise known as an AVM. He had emergency brain surgery to correct the condition, and had a complete recovery, thanks to the quick action of doctors on site in the Astrodome. The game was a rare suspension in the Astrodome, one that was continued a month later, with the Astros wining 4-3. Put that in your next trivia convo.

Photo by Lisa Warren
Copyright 2020 Al Rights Reserved

On July 28th, 2004, I was playing piano in church, when I felt some weird pain in my neck. I finished leading worship on that Wednesday night, and sat down for our bible study, when my lefty arm started going limp. Realizing the severity of what was going on, I called our pastor over, and he stopped the study and he immediately took me to the hospital. After I got to the hospital, my left leg went limp. Once I got into the ER room, just like Larry, I had a grand mal seizure. That’s all I remember, until waking up a week later in St. Lukes Hospital in Houston’s Medical Center. It had been discovered that I had a bleeding AVM and aneurysm, stroke, and unknown to me, had brain surgery the morning of July 29th. After another week in St Lukes, I was transported to Memorial Herman TIIR, to begin what would be 6 months of in and out patient traumatic brain surgery recovery that would change my life forever. 

Several years ago, the Skeeters hosted a Hot Stove banquet to honor Houston area high school baseball athletes. In attendance were a number of the folks I mentioned above. Most important to me, was the chance to meet and speak to Larry Dierker, who was one of the guest speakers. At the conclusion of the dinner, I was fortunate to finally meet Mr Dierker. Larry of coarse was the first Astro to throw a no-hitter. When I first met him, I told him, that I was pretty sure we were the only two to have something in common, and he immediately guessed what it was. He and his wife who was with him, she unfortunately passed away last year, mentioned that they often get mail from other AVM survivors due to the book that Larry wrote, “This Ai’nt Brain Surgery” – How to Win The Pennant Without Loosing your Mind. They always took the time to write back to each person that wrote to them. It talks about Larry’s time in baseball, and goes into that time in 1999, when just like me, his brain blew up. 

Mr. Dierker was kind to take a picture with me, share a few wonderful stories that were pre-curses to might have been signs of his AVM, like his catcher having to remind him that a game was already in progress, a sign that while he was writing his line-up card in his office he was probably having a seizure. 

I had similar signs. So on this day, I’m just so happy to celebrate 16 years of life. Sixteen years of Astros and Skeeters baseball that is a reminder that I got through something that should have killed me, but didn’t. And just like Mr Dierker, when the doctors opened up our brains, they saw baseball built into it…..