There wasn't supposed to be any rain in Palm Springs. This was the town of Sonny Bono, the desert oasis, the land of spring break and of spring training. Tickets to two Giants-Angels exhibition games were burning a hole in my water-proof backpack.
The rain had subsided some as we reached the hotel, a quaint poured-concrete block called the Date Palm Motor Lodge. Good. Perhaps after a night spent in our hardened bunker, the desert would be dry again.
The man checking us in looked like a refugee from Mayberry. I immediately took to calling him "Cleetus." As he handed us the key, he smiled dumbly. I hoped we'd never have to see him again.
Two minutes after opening the door to our hotel room, I heard my friend Andrea scream from the bathroom.
"My god," she said, "it's a cockroach the size of Nebraska."
We called Cleetus. Not man enough to crush a bug, you say? Hardly. But had I actually squished the monster, it would've left a puddle of dead bug blood (and dead bug) that would've rivaled Lake Huron in surface area. So we called Cleetus, hoping he'd bring a cage, trap the thing, and take it to the Palm Springs Zoo.
The Giants were no doubt in town by now. Baseball. We were here for baseball. Did the Giants have giant bugs in their rooms? I doubted it.
Cleetus arrived at our room with a piece of one-ply facial tissue. I don't know how he expected to use the tissue, except perhaps to give our friend the bug a snack so he'd have less incentive to eat us. Before feeding time could begin, however, we discovered that our bug had disappeared.
"Aw, that ain't no worry," Cleetus said. "That weren't no cockroach, anyway. That there was a date beetle."
Oh, I felt much better then. Since it ain't no cockroach, I won't have to worry when Mr. Date Beetle crawls into my ear in the night and prepares a nest. Thanks, Cleetus.
We slept with the bathroom door closed.
The weather on Monday was partly cloudy, and small drops of rain fell through rays of sunshine. I had come to Palm Springs expecting lots of college students, considering that it was spring break and all. And at Angels Stadium there were quite a few college students, though the place wasn't overrun with them. I'm told that the true spring break is in April, when students from schools on the semester system are on vacation.
Angels Stadium is a true minor league park, right down to the outfield wall being covered over with advertisements for various local companies. Vendors sold the standard sports fare: cold-Coke-get-your-cold-Coke-here, ice-cold-malts-get-your-malts-here, and my favorite, peanuts-hey-peanuts-yeah-peanuts-hey-peanuts-here.
The first few innings of both games went as I expected, with most of the teams' regular starters playing. They were real games, until about the fifth inning. That's the Line of Death for spring training games. That separates the die-hards from the fair-weather fans (and the weather was indeed fairer on Tuesday, with not a cloud in the sky).
Faster than Dodger fans fleeing like lemmings to their cars during the 7th inning stretch, the moment that Will Clark was replaced at first base by some nameless scrub who bore a striking resemblance to the second Darren on Bewitched, the Palm Springs bleachers began emptying.
This was a good thing. Those of us who remained saw good baseball, and Giants fans were happy that their team ended up winning both games.
Among those to flee early was the guy sitting next to me, who couldn't stop talking to his girlfriend during the game. And when he couldn't think of anything inane to say (and believe me, he was a master of inanity), he would randomly sing songs. Not good songs. We're not talking the Beatles (not date beetles) or U2 or anyone in between. This man was scraping the dregs off the bottom of Casey Kasem's closet.
There's something surreal about sitting in the sun during spring break, watching an exhibition baseball game, while some guy next to you is doing a medley of Bon Jovi hits, maybe with some Frampton mixed in, and perhaps a rendition of "My Sharona" to top it all off.
Spring training baseball is a wonderful thing for fans of the game, even if they don't know the names of the guys with numbers like 98 and 74, the guys who look like cast members from '60s sitcoms. Those who remained after Darren Stevens replaced Will Clark at first saw some damned fine ball.
And seeing baseball in March is also reassuring. Spring is here... and baseball season won't be far behind. Time to come out of the dark confines of your basketball arenas (So I picked UCLA, so what? I picked Michigan and Duke, didn't I?) and out of the wet rice patties of the World League of American Football. Baseball is here, and you can watch it outdoors, in the sun. Life is good.
The Date Beetle Motor Lodge, as we took to calling it, didn't trouble us again. Cleetus gave us a lovely wake-up call ("Ma'am? This here's Cleetus. I know it's 5 a.m., but I'm just checkin' to see if you still want to be woken up in two hours?") and our date beetle never reappeared.
There were threatening clouds overhead as we zoomed up the mountain highway out of Palm Springs. But we had beaten the rain, the date beetles, and the annoying people at the game. We had seen some good games. It was a great vacation. I recommend it highly.
And if you go to the Date Palm Motor Lodge, say "hi" to Cleetus for me. Don't worry if there are giant evil bugs in your room, either. Chances are, it ain't no cockroach. It's just a date beetle.