It was 94 degrees Saturday for Brandon McCarthy’s first pitch.
Fans huddled in the shaded corridors. Large gaps separated the intrepid fans who stayed in the mad-dog heat.
Clay Bellinger didn’t budge.
His son Cody was playing major league baseball in Dodger Stadium. He had fielded his own dreams there before.
“It happened right over there,” Clay said a few days earlier, pointing beyond the first-base line.
In 1999, Clay Bellinger was 30 years old, a Triple-A warrior, blocked at every turn by the stalwarts of the New York Yankees. This time Bellinger had left camp with the “big club.