Aubrey Huff shares field with his idol in World Series

Reporting from San Francisco — Aubrey Huff does not have to search far or wide to find his boyhood hero.

He is right there, across the field. He is Nolan Ryan, the president of the Texas Rangers, a hero to two generations of Texans.

Huff, the first baseman for the San Francisco Giants, grew up in Fort Worth rooting for Ryan and the Rangers. Now, the team that Ryan put together is the one standing between Huff and a World Series championship, and yet Huff offers nothing but admiration for Ryan.

The Rangers, after all, are in their first World Series. They had not even won a postseason series before Ryan took over.

"To see what he's done with that organization is pretty special," Huff said. "He's turned it from a big banging offensive club into being able to pitch."

Huff, like so many boys in Texas, wanted to grow up to be just like Ryan.

"I wanted to be a pitcher," Huff said. "I didn't have the arm."

He had the bat, and still he could not keep his eyes off Ryan.

"I had tickets to Nolan Ryan's sixth no-hitter, and my mom was too tired from work that day to take us," Huff said. "He threw a no-hitter that night, and we missed it. I was so upset."

That might be a little bit of a Texas tall tale. Ryan threw his sixth no-hitter in Oakland. He threw his seventh and final no-hitter in Texas, in 1991, striking out 16 in a 3-0 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.

Huff was 14.

The Rangers moved from Arlington Stadium — a glorified minor league ballpark — into their new home in 1994. That stadium is now called Rangers Ballpark in Arlington — that Ameriquest Field deal did not work out so well — and it will play host to its first World Series game Saturday.

"That was the most unbelievable park I had ever seen," Huff said. "I just remember Dollar Hot Dog Night when I was a kid … just up there in upper deck eating hot dogs all day.

"And we've got the World Series coming up there, so it's pretty cool."

Huff's father died when he was 6, shot and killed as he tried to disarm a man involved in a domestic dispute. Huff was raised by his mother, and by her parents, the ones most responsible for getting him hooked on baseball.

The grandparents have passed on now, but Huff remembers them often. He thought of them the other day when he asked his mother whom his grandparents might be rooting for in this World Series.

"I'm sure they're rooting for you to do well," Huff recalled his mother saying, "but they're probably rooting for the Rangers."



(latimes.com)