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Everyone has an idea of what they would do if they were Christian Lopez, if they had been sitting in Section 236, Row 1, Seat 19, just behind the red State Farm sign in deep left field Saturday afternoon. Everyone has an opinion of what Lopez did with the baseball he caught, the 3,000th hit in the rich, storied career of one Derek Sanderson Jeter.
He’s a selfless hero! some crow.
He’s a naive fool! others grouse.
But there is one person, and only one, who truly understands what Lopez was feeling in that moment when he decided to swap the baseball for a few seats and a few shirts and a few signatures, what he’ll feel for the rest of his life.
“In the moment, you aren’t really thinking,” Sal Durante said yesterday. “Suddenly the ball is in your hands and everybody is yelling at you and there’s cops and TV cameras, and the only thing in your mind is: ‘So what do I do now?’ ”
Fifty years ago, Durante was the one with a fateful choice to make. On Oct. 1, 1961, he was sitting in Section 33, Box 163D, Seat 4 at the old Yankee Stadium, one of only 23,154 who attended the game, many of them congregated in right field in case Roger Maris happened to hit his 61st home run of the season that day.
In the fourth inning, Maris connected on a 2-and-0 meatball from Boston’s Tracy Stallard. Durante could see the ball coming toward him, sensed it would soar over his head if he stayed in his seat, so he stood, put up his hand, and, sonofagun, if the ball didn’t land square in his palm.
“Only two things entered my mind,” Durante said. “One, ‘I got it!’ And two, ‘I want to get this ball to Roger.’ ”
The times may have been different then, and simpler, but there had been stories in all seven New York papers that a California restaurateur named Sam Gordon had pledged $5,000 in exchange for the record-setting ball. Five large in 1961 is the equivalent of around $38,000 today, give or take, and for a 19-year-old kid from Brooklyn with a fiancée and a $60-a-week job, that would’ve been a pretty tidy score.
Instead, the security men whisked him downstairs and brought him outside the clubhouse, where he showed Maris the prize.
One of the guards told Maris, “The kid wants to give you the ball.”
But Maris just shook his head.
“Keep the ball, kid,” he said. “Maybe you can make yourself some money.”
Durante did sell it to Gordon, who threw in a free honeymoon. People told him he was nuts, he should’ve held out for more. Sal wouldn’t hear of it. He’d followed his heart, and his conscience. Same way a 23-year-old kid would do almost 50 years later.
“Haven’t regretted it once,” said Durante, who now lives in Staten Island, still married to Rosemarie, the 17-year-old girl who bought him that priceless $2.50 seat all those years ago, retired after driving a school bus for 29 years.
“I haven’t even thought of it. You know what’s amazing? Being a part of baseball history. How many people can say that?”
People still remember the name. Maybe that’s what Christian Lopez has to look forward to most across the next 50 or 60 years. Durante already feels a kinship. After all, it was Lopez’s girlfriend, Tara Johnson, who bought Lopez’s ticket, just as the future Rosemarie Durante had done for Sal the morning of Oct. 1, 1961.
“I’m thrilled for the kid,” Sal Durante said. “I hope it’s a memory he treasures the rest of his life. Same way I have.”