Bakersfield, CA
What I Remember
The Bakersfield Dodgers were celebrating their 50th season in 1991 and everything about Sam Lynn Ballpark seemed kind of old school, which I liked a lot. I remember there being what I think of as carnival or county-fair type games outside the concession areas: rolling dice for prizes, throwing darts at balloons, that kind of thing. It was quaint and the Saturday night crowd was festive. There was also a fully functioning and popular playground beyond the first base grandstand complete with sand and swings. It was not the only one of these we saw but it was the first.
The Game:
Bakersfield Dodgers 8 Stockton Ports 1
A young catcher make an impression on us in this game when he hit the first Grand Slam we saw that season in the fifth inning. Mike Piazza went on to hit 427 home runs in the majors over a 16-year career that began the very next season,
Batting ahead of Piazza in the Dodgers lineup that night was Raul Mondesi who would hit 271 major league dingers himself. There was also a 19-year old kid up from Great Falls in the Bakersfield rotation, although we did not see him that evening. Pedro Martinez began the season at 8-0 with Bakersfield and made it all the way to Triple-A that year. Like Piazza, Pedro was also with the Dodgers by the following season.
In League with America 