The Fallacy of Memory
So I was working on my upcoming post about my visit to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome as the first stop of my baseball stadium tour. I know from the first time I compiled my baseball stats that I've got two ticket stubs for the Metrodome, plus my very first baseball stadium trip which predated my ticket stub collection. I thought it might be fun to find the box score from that first game. I thought I'd linked to this in years past, but I couldn't find it on LJ anywhere, but that's ok because I knew the following things:
1- The California Angels beat the Twins 2-0 in the Metrodome.
2- Gary Gaetti was playing for the Angels (he was a Twins player for years and came up through their system) and doubled in a run off wall in center field.
3- It was 1990, the Twins were terrible and the stadium was largely empty.
Thus armed I went over to Baseball Almanac to find the score. Some quick searching showed me that:
1- Gary Gaetti only played for the Angels for three years: 1991, 1992 and 1993. He played for the Twins in 1990.
2- Ok, maybe I was wrong and Gaetti was playing for the Twins. Well, it still wasn't 1990 because in 1990 the Twins never lost to the Angels 2-0.
3- Maybe I misremembered the winner? Nope, in 1990 the Angels never lost to the Twins 2-0 either.
4. OK, maybe it wasn't 1990. In the three seasons Gaetti played for the Angels, the Twins never lost to the Angels by a score of 2-0 at home.
5- What if the Twins won? Well, in 1993 the Twins did win 2-0 over the Angels on June 27, but Gaetti didn't play. In fact, he'd been released by the Angels on June 3 and signed by the Royals on June 19 so he wasn't even on the roster.
6- In 1992, the Twins did beat the Angels 2-0 on June 22. Gaetti played for the Angels that day, but he did not get a hit in four at bats. Plus the Twins were actually pretty good in 1992; they went 90-72 and finished second in the division.
Assuming I'm actually correct about the 2-0 score and Gaetti playing for the Angels, this pretty much has to be the game I went to. But I was equally certain that the Twins lost and that the team was terrible and nobody was there. The first true are demonstrably not true. I suppose the last point is debatable. The box score says nearly 23,000 were in attendance, but the Dome was configured to hold 55,883 for baseball in 1992, so that's not even half full, which is not good for a team that was 38-30 after that night and that had won the whole thing the year before.
So it appears that my first baseball game was in 1992, not 1990, and the Twins won, instead of losing, and all of this is based on the perhaps dubious proposition that I've remembered the 2-0 score and the roster position of Gary Gaetti correctly. Since I definitely WENT to a game in that time period, I guess this is going to be it, absent some new evidence being turned up in my memory or via my family.
If nothing else, this may explain why since 1998 I have kept detailed lists of the movies and baseball games I attend. I hate having this hole in my memory. I'm quite familiar with the idea that my brain is lying to me about things, but this was a bedrock memory... and quite wrong on many details. Nobody is harmed by misremembering this, but if I can't get this right what important things am I misremembering?
1- The California Angels beat the Twins 2-0 in the Metrodome.
2- Gary Gaetti was playing for the Angels (he was a Twins player for years and came up through their system) and doubled in a run off wall in center field.
3- It was 1990, the Twins were terrible and the stadium was largely empty.
Thus armed I went over to Baseball Almanac to find the score. Some quick searching showed me that:
1- Gary Gaetti only played for the Angels for three years: 1991, 1992 and 1993. He played for the Twins in 1990.
2- Ok, maybe I was wrong and Gaetti was playing for the Twins. Well, it still wasn't 1990 because in 1990 the Twins never lost to the Angels 2-0.
3- Maybe I misremembered the winner? Nope, in 1990 the Angels never lost to the Twins 2-0 either.
4. OK, maybe it wasn't 1990. In the three seasons Gaetti played for the Angels, the Twins never lost to the Angels by a score of 2-0 at home.
5- What if the Twins won? Well, in 1993 the Twins did win 2-0 over the Angels on June 27, but Gaetti didn't play. In fact, he'd been released by the Angels on June 3 and signed by the Royals on June 19 so he wasn't even on the roster.
6- In 1992, the Twins did beat the Angels 2-0 on June 22. Gaetti played for the Angels that day, but he did not get a hit in four at bats. Plus the Twins were actually pretty good in 1992; they went 90-72 and finished second in the division.
Assuming I'm actually correct about the 2-0 score and Gaetti playing for the Angels, this pretty much has to be the game I went to. But I was equally certain that the Twins lost and that the team was terrible and nobody was there. The first true are demonstrably not true. I suppose the last point is debatable. The box score says nearly 23,000 were in attendance, but the Dome was configured to hold 55,883 for baseball in 1992, so that's not even half full, which is not good for a team that was 38-30 after that night and that had won the whole thing the year before.
So it appears that my first baseball game was in 1992, not 1990, and the Twins won, instead of losing, and all of this is based on the perhaps dubious proposition that I've remembered the 2-0 score and the roster position of Gary Gaetti correctly. Since I definitely WENT to a game in that time period, I guess this is going to be it, absent some new evidence being turned up in my memory or via my family.
If nothing else, this may explain why since 1998 I have kept detailed lists of the movies and baseball games I attend. I hate having this hole in my memory. I'm quite familiar with the idea that my brain is lying to me about things, but this was a bedrock memory... and quite wrong on many details. Nobody is harmed by misremembering this, but if I can't get this right what important things am I misremembering?