Amarillo Memories – Who Misses Green in the Screen at Baseball Games?

Another fun season has started at Hodgetown. A lot of families head to the park to make those memories. Oh, and they hope to see some great baseball. They hope to someday get to say while watching a Major League game that they saw that player at Hodegtown.

Baseball has been a part of Amarillo for a long time. We have had some great memorable moments. The Amarillo Sox mascot fiasco comes to mind. Baseball is all about tradition.

One of the traditions that I hated to see go away with the end of the Amarillo Sox was the Green in the Screen? Have you ever taken part in that ceremony after a homerun? It was always a great time.

After every home run hit by a local player, the fans would run down with our dollar bills. We would put that money through the screen. That is when the player would run by with their helmet off to then fill with our money. This green in the screen was their bonus for the night.

Oh, and it was their beer money.

Let's face it I am pretty sure that is what they did with it. Who cares? Well, the umpires sure did. The opposing team sure did. They tried to get Amarillo to stop.

That was a hard habit to break. So when management finally had to stop the staff found a different way to still honor the players.

It has been an Amarillo tradition for decades.The Amarillo Dillas did it...the Amarillo Sox too. Heck, maybe the Texans did too. I wonder if the tradition started with the original Amarillo Gold Sox. I am not sure.

It didn't matter how much the umpires hated it. It is hard to keep the Amarillo crowd down. The fans ran down after every home run. The kids and adults both loved it.

I loved watching my own daughter run down and give her dollars to the player that deserved it. Sometimes the kids got to run down multiple times in one game. The more home runs the better.

When the umpires finally got their way and tried to stop the tradition guess what? The Amarillo Sox interns would run through the stands and collect the money and still give it to the players.

We are all about our traditions. This is the one thing I miss about baseball in Amarillo. Hodgetown is still a lot of fun. Families still get to make memories at the ballfield. I just really miss the green in the screen.