Interview #4: Ted Romo, Angels fan through thick and thin
And the only person I know to buy a beer for George Brett
Born in Mexico in 1956, Ted Romo moved to the United States at 3 years old and has lived in southern California his whole life. He retired recently after a long career with the railroad and now enjoys his time with lots of Angels baseball and his family (including my Aunt Gracie and their three kids Robert, Daniel and Veronica.
We talked about growing up playing baseball, rooting for the Angels and the time he coached a little girl to get hit by a pitch…
Childhood and baseball
“I was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. They brought me over here when I was three years old.”
“I became a baseball fan when I was really young. I really liked the sport. I really didn't like football as much and I didn't like soccer, even though I came from Mexico and soccer was the main sport over there… but I love baseball.”
What got you hooked on baseball?
“Willie Mays! I wanted to be like Willie Mays.”
Did you ever see him play?
“Yeah, I saw him play at Dodger Stadium. I don't remember the the year that I saw him play. But yeah, I remember seeing him play. They got killed that day. But hey, he hit a home run! I remember that.”
What was that like, watching your guy?
“That was nice. And matter of fact, I think it was… I don't think it was Don Drysdale. Or (Don) Sutton. I forget who was pitching. It was one of the top pitchers the Dodgers had. First pitch. Boom! I think it went straight to center field if I remember right.
And I got to see Willie McCovey. It was Gaylord Perry. He didn't have his day that day. The Dodgers had his number.”
Did you ever get to play with any of your brothers?
“Yeah, I did, actually. My brother, we played AA. Which is before the Majors.”
Note: In Little League, kids under 12 used to play in A-, AA- and AAA-levels then from 10-12 they can make the “Majors”. So this story, they’d be about 8 or 9 years old.
“We played together and he was the pitcher and I was a catcher. We played for one year together. Yeah. Then I went to the Majors and he stayed in the minors.”
How far apart were you?
“It was just a year apart.”
So you never played with in the same league again or the same team?
“We did play together in high school, but I didn't make the cut my senior year. He did. I was partying too much. I didn't make the cut and he beat me out at catcher ‘cause he went for catcher and I was going for catcher. They picked the younger guy.”
Being the oldest of six kids
So you said your uncle took you to your first game.
“Yeah, my uncles were into sports, but not my parents. They were too busy working. So, you know, I was the boy that didn't have parents at the sports. I grew up kind of mad at them as I was growing up. Not like mad, you know. But I was like, angry because how come the other kids’ parents can go and not my parents? They had to, there was six of us so they had to raise us.”
You have sisters, too?
“Yeah, we were the Brady Bunch. Three and three.”
So you're the oldest.
“Yeah, it was me, my brother Javier and my sister Dee. Then my sister Cece, then my sister Sylvia, and then my brother Jessie, who was the baby.”
OK, so yeah, they definitely had to work.
“Later on I understood that they had to work for a living and they, you know, my dad, when he did come home from work, he would do side jobs in the garage because my dad was quite the mechanic and he did a lot of body work on cars in our garage.
I would, you know, go home and I was saying that I did this, I did that, oh, I got the game ball. And you know, they'd be happy, but they didn't understand.
When I was in junior high, they made it a point to go to my graduation because I got the Most Valuable Athlete of the Year. So they went and they acknowledged that and I was happy. Still, I guess you know, when I played football, when I played baseball and I played basketball… Nope. I didn't have anybody cheering me on. I had to hitch a ride with a buddy or walk home from school after the game.
They worked long hours and like I said, when my dad got home, he would work in the garage. And my mom, she would get home from work… they both would get home early enough, but they had other things to do. My mom had to feed the rest of the kids while I was playing and my dad had to work.
But you know, then I understood later on as I got older, I said OK. They were there. I mean, in their own way, they were there for me. It's like I tell your Aunt Gracie, I go out when the kids were playing, I made it a point that we go to most of their games, yeah. And we got we got to see our grandkid’s first high school basketball game this year and that was exciting. He was happy. He did good. He scored 8 points, had 6 rebounds and 3 steals. Not a bad night.”
The story of a lifelong Angels fan
“When I was little, the reason that I became a real baseball fan is ‘cause one of my uncles took me to an Angels game way back in the day, and if I could think right, I think they were playing the Twins. And I went to Anaheim Stadium when I was maybe 10, and that was the first time I ever went to a ball game And that's what hooked me in.
Originally I was a San Francisco fan. Because I grew up, you know, with Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Jim Ray Hart, Jim Davenport, the Perry brothers. I grew up a fan of all those, every Giant. And then, because I hated the Dodgers, because they’d always win. And my Giants would always get beat by them. By one run or by an error. After Willie Mays retired, then I became an Angels fan.”
How far growing up were you from Angel Stadium?
“When we lived in Santa Ana, we were only like 15, 10 minutes away from the stadium.”
Did you go a lot?
“Yes. And then when we couldn't go, we would go to the parking lot and park… like my older uncles, we'd go to the parking lot and park and hear the the crowd from the stadium. And we knew when it was loud we knew something was happening, and we listened to it on the radio.”
Did you ever have season tickets?
“Two other guys from my company, we got together and one of the managers there at the company ended up getting the tickets. And we just paid him the money and we all shared the tickets. We all got two tickets apiece. And we split the tickets , but we would call each other and say, hey, I can't make it. Do you want the tickets?
I graduated in ‘75, so ‘78, ‘79, the early 80’s I had season tickets.”
The 1986 ALCS (note: that was a heartbreaker for Angels fans)
And then 1986 is when they almost made the World Series.
“Yeah, that that was the worst day of my life when Donnie Moore came in… I still hate that guy that hit the home run to this day, but that dude (Dave Henderson) was a good hitter! Still, I remember the day with Donnie Moore threw the pitch and I said, ‘oh, we got this game in the bag.’ Because we're way ahead. And who were they playing? The Red Sox. And man, I go, this is it! This is the year we're going. And they came in with Donnie Moore and BAM! That was the end of it. “
“That was crushing. That's when they had Bobby Grich, Doug DeCinces, Reggie Jackson. Yeah, that was the year they had it. And then the following year, they had it, but they blew it to Milwaukee.”
As an Angels fan, there’s been a lot more heartbreak than success, hasn’t there?
“Yeah. It was it is. Sometimes you wonder… what are they doing? They don't get the right guys, you know? And it's very frustrating. But when you when you become a fan, you just become a fan and it's sweeter when you know they were considered not winners, and then all of a sudden they won their first World Series! That was exciting. That was very exciting.”
When you when you become a fan, you just become a fan and when they were considered not winners, and then all of a sudden they won their first World Series!
Note: The Angels won their first World Series in 2002
“It was amazing. They gave us these Thundersticks. I mean, the stadium was loud, the stadium was exciting, you know. Even your Tia Gracie got hooked on baseball when we went to the playoffs. We didn't go to the World Series, but we went to all the playoff games and she just said ‘wow, I didn’t know that it could be this fun.’”
“For my 50th birthday they (his family) bought me a brick and it's there at Anaheim Stadium. It'd be a bummer if they ever tear it down. I have a replica. They give you a replica. But the one that's there, it's there.”
Have you seen it?
“Yeah, every time we go, we look for it. It’s kind of hard because there's a lot of bricks, but we know more or less where the area’s at. It's over where the the big hats are at the main entrance. And there's a pitcher’s mound there. From the pitcher’s mound, you count 15 steps to the right and I'm right there.”
Shohei Ohtani’s first home start
“We got tickets. We all went as a family to see Shohei Ohtani. First game that he was going to pitch at Anaheim Stadium. And he was playing against the Boston Red Sox. That's when they they still had Mookie Betts and they had it Xander Bogaerts. It was very disappointing. It only lasted like, I think 2 innings. He got bombed. That was his first season and that was his first pitching game. I just remember that he sucked. Bombed it.”
Note: It was his 2nd start at Angel Stadium and 3rd career start. He went 2 innings, 1 homer, 2 walks and 3 earned runs. Mookie Betts had 3 home runs that day (4/17/2018). Now they bat in the same lineup.
Coaching
I asked him for his favorite non-Angels baseball story and he told me a really good one about how baseball can teach one to overcome fears, doubts and also what a little bit of encouragement can do.
“The coolest thing I've done in baseball… it goes way back to when I was coaching (a team of 8- and 9-year-olds). There was this little girl on our team and she always was afraid of the ball and she would run when the pitcher threw the ball, she would run backwards.
So, we made it to the championship game. We were down by two runs, she was up to bat. At that time, that's when they started implementing that you gotta play every player. So I had to put her in. They walked my best hitter and she came up to bat.
OK. And you know my memory was, I told her ‘do not back up. Whatever you do, don't back up. Stay in there’… because she got hit before. And she didn't come to play or practice for a while. Not because it broke anything. It was just she was afraid so. Finally her parents talked her to come back to play.
Anyways, she was up to bat. And I told her just hang in there. And the first pitch, she backed up a little bit. And then, you know, a strike.
So then I went over there and I told her, ‘You know what? Don't back up. If the ball hits you, you're going to become the hero.’
And she went in there and she stood in there and sure enough, she got hit. So she ran to first and then my other best hitter came up to that with the bases loaded. Well, of course he hit the Grand Slam and we ended up winning.
But that little girl was picked up by all the players, picked up on their shoulders, and she was the happiest little girl I ever saw in my life. And her parents were so happy. And that was my greatest moment in baseball.
You know this little girl that everybody thought she was gonna… even her, you know, her own teammates were saying, oh, we're going to lose. And she heard all of that, so she didn't even want to bat, she said. I don't want to bat. I don't want to lose the game. And I said well, you have to.
She hung in there and she got hit. She ran to first and I thought she was gonna fall on the ground and cry and do a big whole deal. This little girl got up, ran to first base, I mean jetted to first base.”
I’ve never seen a coach tell their kid to wear one like that.
“Well I didn't tell her to get hit, but I just told her not to back up. That pitcher was kind of wild. I mean, he threw hard for a little guy. No, I tell you this little kid threw hard. He decked the little girl and she ran to first base… I'm telling you, she was the happiest little girl I ever saw in my life.”
Where did she get hit? Hopefully like the arm or the leg.
“In the rib area.”
That's the worst!
“Yeah, but she didn't care!”
That little girl was picked up by all the players, picked up on their shoulders, and she was the happiest little girl I ever saw in my life.
Having a beer with George Brett
“I got to talk to George Brett at the bar and I bought him a beer. When I bought him a beer at the bar, he says ‘you're from California, ain't you?’ And I said, yep. And he goes ‘I bet you're a Dodger fan.’ I said no. I’m an Angel fan.”
And I said I remember the day that you got your 3000th hit, it was against the Angels. He goes. ‘Yeah. How did you like that?!’ I said I didn’t!”
Takeaways
Hopefully no one else in my family is reading this, but Ted is my favorite Uncle hands down. Obviously we have baseball in common, as shown by how long this interview went. But he’s also the nicest and most generous person I know and our family is blessed to have him as a part of it. There’s a reason at any family reunions or Thanksgiving dinners I try to hover around him and time flies by much quicker.
It’s a cool story when you look at where he started and where he is now. Starting as a child born in Mexico and moving to southern California at a young age, to fall in love with baseball so hard and so young says a lot about how addicting the sport was for kids in the 50’s and 60’s who got to see Willie Mays and that generation play. And the parts about him hanging out in Angel Stadium parking lot, listening to the game on the radio and hearing the roar of the crowd with the windows down… that’s pretty awesome.
The part I think was most relatable was growing up with working parents, and the struggle of not seeing them there for the things you loved doing as a child. He had a great relationship with his parents and siblings, but when you’re a kid, you don’t realize how hard they’re actually working to make a life for the whole family and make sure everyone is seen after. So in the grand scheme of things, missing a Little League game ball-winning performance isn’t the worst thing. But tell that to the kid who wants to share that moment with their parents like every other kid on the team and can’t.
Also, let’s get him a playoff run from the Angels this season please! I think he’s overdue for some packed playoff crowds at Angel Stadium with the Rally Monkey out of retirement… but hopefully the Thundersticks stay retired.
