Batting Average and Blood Alcohol Level the Same

Posted by HB Sunday, January 17, 2010
1965 International Harvester Travelall...

Out of high school, I went to BYU on a BBB scholarship. If you could Breathe and Bring a check for tuition that wouldn't Bounce, you were in.

After just one semester, I couldn't write another check that wouldn't bounce, so I went home and enrolled at Palo Verde College in Blythe, California while I waited for an LDS mission call. PVC was one of the many California Community Colleges (Juco). When I enrolled, it was the smallest of the CCC system with only 250 students.

The first day of the new semester, I saw Chick Rodriquez, a former high school classmate. He asked me two questions. "Arnett, is that you?" and "Do have a baseball glove?" I replied yes to both questions. He told me to bring the glove to school because I was now on the PVC baseball team and we were headed to Barstow for a game the next day.

I must have been an answer to their prayers because when we loaded up the old International Harvester Travelall (the world's first SUV) the next morning, I counted just nine guys, including myself and Rodriquez, who was a player, coach and driver.

They stuck me in right field and I went 0-for-6. We lost. I blame it on the lack of a bull pen. After the game, we again loaded up the van and headed home. Before we hit the road, however, we made a stop at the local Barstow Safeway store. Rodriquez tossed me the keys and said, "Arnett, we'll be right back and you are driving home." They all went in the store and came back with two quarts each of Coors beer, the official team beverage of PVC baseball.

Turns out that I wasn't recruited for my glove, but because they needed somebody whose blood alcohol level and batting average were both .000. I made the trip the following week to Victorville, and then later suited up at home against College of the Desert from Palm Springs. My blood alcohol stayed the same, but unfortunately, so did my batting average.

That's when they told me that they would rather cut down on their post-game consumption of Coors than have a right fielder that could only drive the van, but couldn't drive the ball out of the infield.

I have no regrets. I am still the only college letterman of all my siblings and the jc credits all transferred back to BYU after the mission.

2 comments

  1. Anonymous Says:
  2. While your stories are amusing, they are less than factual. Your youngest brother......me, was not only a letterman, but a scholarshipped athlete in the most manly of sports...Football. I not only played and was on scholarship, I have the distinction of playing against a Pro-Bowler and Hall of Famer. A game, I might add, we won 14-7. Unfortunately, the Hall of Fame cornerback (without even hitting me) caused me to blow out my knee. Please, in the future, refer to yourself as the non-scholarshipped college athlete in the family. I can attest to your .000 batting average and blood alcohol levels, in both areas you were considered an over-achiever.

     
  3. Unknown Says:
  4. PVC, huh? Back in the day we used to call it UNLV - University of North Lovekin. Chick used to ref our city league games. He was a good ref but you could tell by his spare tire that he and Coors were best friends

     

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