We've all heard of games called (stopped, canceled) on account of rain, riots and earthquakes. And then there was a game almost called in Salinas on account of projectile vomiting. Well, more about that later...
For old-time, hometown, Friday night lights kind of flavor, the humanity-packed westside section of The Pit, as the old Salinas HSchool sunken stadium has been forever called, is "the" sweetest place to be for hsfootball fans and folks of all cultural backgrounds in this city still surrounded by miles of sprawling fields of agriculture memorialized in novels by John Steinbeck. Sure, the mega-bucks Salinas Sports Complex is where Palma generally packs 'em in, or where big local area "grudge" matches are held (Salinas High vs. North Salinas, I think, next week), but that house, nice as I've heard it is, in no way can compare to the berm-surrounded, shoe-box configured heirloom of a jewel where the Cowboys of CCS/Monterey Bay-Gabilon were hosting the CCS/Mt. Hamilton Pioneer Mustangs of San Jose this Friday night (9/11/15).
Okay, the game itself (or at least the 1st half which is as long as I stayed) wasn't quite the quality as one would find during most WCAL games or games played in the Sac Juaquin Sectional vortex of hsfootball, so, with the Salinas Coyboys cow-punching the Mustangs 28-0, with three running TDs in the 1st Qtr and one passing TD in the 2nd Quarter, with it seeming like Pioneer was in for a second week of being drubbed by more than 50-points (Valley Christian 54, Pioneer 0, last week), one's eyes kind of roam around the stadium, a lot, and the mind kind of starts recalling a couple games it's owner once played there when he was a hsfootballer, one game in particular that almost got called on the account of projectile vomiting.
By the way, if one does decide to treat oneself to a game at The Pit, know that the field is a bit darker than most (since, I swear, those are the same wooden telephone pole light stanchions with the same few lights per pole that were screwed in just after Thomas Alva Edison invented the light-bulb). But the pepperoni pizza slices (can a slice of pie have too much pepperoni?) are actually very good (light years better than The Pit's field lights and darn better then the embarrasing crap they sold at the Home Depot Stadium during the CCS State Bowl games). Their cheerleaders and dance team dress respectfullly, picture Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders but without red-white-&-blue vests and an a lot of clevage, and before the game started, and before the school a'capella choir sang a very beautiful version of the National Anthem, the cheer/dance gals did a nice version of the Radio City Rockets routine (why is it that many cheer/dance teams from upper income area schools do dance routines that border on vulgar whereas the cheer/dance teams from moderate to lower income schools do dance routines which do the school and community proud?)
So, now, the promised projectile vomiting part. At The Pit, as the visiting team, many, many Friday nights ago, on the opening kick-off, our receiving squad was in the midst of setting up something we had practiced all week: a picket fence kick-return play, you know, where after the ball is kicked, most of the team runs to one side of the field where one guy after another starts taking-up positions about 5-yards in and on each major lateral field stripe, like a picket fence except with football players instead of wooden slats. The deal was, that I would take the kick-off and start running like heck toward the side-line and then down-field between the picket-fence made by my teammates, the idea being that in order for the opposing team to tackle me they'd have to get through each picket in the fence! Well, apparently, Salinas High had never seen nor practiced how to break though the picket fence and so once I hit the opening, it was like looking down a gaunlet or a perfecty straight, long intestine stretching toward the goal line.
Poor choice of words there, intestine. Because after making it past the first two pickets (who banged the heck out of the Cowboys who ran into them) I suddenly see two of the pickets, two of my teamates down on the 50 yard line and the the 35 yard line turn toward the side lines and, clutching their stomachs, start to vomit, mind you, not just regular vomiting, but dreaded projectile vomiting! For sure, this was a tactic I did not recall our coaches teaching us during the week when we practiced the picket fence play. But I kept running down the right sideline and, bang, bang, bang, the pickets were stopping the would-be tacklers. By then I had picked-up a lot of speed (it was like running a hundred yard dash, straight ahead, no fancy foot work, no zigging or zagging, just running like heck, and with enough momentum to farily leap over the first and second pools of vomit now inside the picket fence where my two, still vomiting pickets in the fence were now on their knees, the would-be tacklers, no doubt, stopping short and wondering what to do since they had never practiced trying to tackle a ball carrier leaping over pools of vomit. Or maybe they simply didn't want to get their uniforms soiled.
Then, it all went downhill. About the moment I landed after leaping gazelle-like over the 35-yard line picket and his growing pool of vomit (and thinking, wow! I'm only a few pickets away from my first-ever kick off return TD, I guess, because by then I was breathing heavily, I got a nose and lung full of my 35-yard line picket's stomach contents and, suddenly, my guts started acting like that scene in the first "Alien" movie, where the little monster eats it way out of the guy's stomach, and by the time I got to the 15-yard line, I could feel my lunch about to make like Mt. Saint Helen's and I could run no more and pulled-up out of bounds, about 10 yards short of pay dirt and, yep, vomited my guts out.
It was our team's equipment manager who figured it all out, that the three of us who puked in The Pit (and had to go to the hospital) were the only players on the team who 1.) had ordered egg rolls and 2.) sneeked those egg rolls out of the restaurant where we had lunch, later on eating those tomane-laden little buggers shortly before the game started, mind you, this being in the days before the had come-up with specially planned and perfectly timed pre-game meals and easily digestable snacks. Of course, before leaving The Pit at half-time this Friday night, I had a thought of going over to the Pioneer side of the stadium and, for a bit of nostalgia, revisiting the 10 or so yard line where I had decades ago barfed my egg rolls and fortune cookies, to see if the grass in that area was discolored or maybe growing oddly, but, well, one thing new in The Pit, at least since after I played there, is artificial turf. So, I simply bought a slice of pepperoni pizza from the consession stand and drove home having throughly enjoyed my return to The Pit and my memory of racing down the sideline along the "picket fence," well, at least an enjoyable recollection of the racing down most of it. Muds
