- We are going to take you out to the ball game.

A Tidewater Tides baseball game.

One ticket please.

I think I have enough money.

- Here we go.

$4.

- Thank you very much.

- Hope you enjoy the game.

- Thank you.

This ticket's for you too.

- Welcome to our place, our time, and on this edition, the place is Met Park, where we'll attend a Tidewater Tides baseball game.

We'll meet the man who controls the tides, Dave Rosenfield.

We'll meet the Tide skipper Mike Cubbage.

We'll find out where the best hot dogs are made in Hampton Roads and we'll have music from Sunnyland.

Here's your host, Vianne Webb - Scholar and philosopher Jacques Baran once said, whoever wants to know about the mind and heart of America had better learn baseball.

So we are here to learn about baseball on this edition of our place our time.

It's a beautiful day and we are here in Met Park, the home of the Tidewater Tides season after season.

The Tidewater Tides have been one of the outstanding minor league teams in the country and for 26 of those seasons, they've been directed by a man by the name of Dave Rosenfield.

Dave Rosenfield has directed his tidewater tides to successes defined not only by wins and losses, but in the account books as well.

Tim Morton prepared this profile of Dave Rosenfield, the man who controls the Tides.

- It's all of a piece really, Tim, the success of the team breeds further success.

Our prices are reasonable for program advertising and fence advertising.

The fact that there is a reasonable price creates a demand.

The demand creates a scarcity.

The scarcity creates demand.

It's somebody's law of economics.

I don't, I don't know who it is, but it's, we try to give just like ticket prices, we try to give everybody their money's worth it a little bit more and people have bought that concert - Tide's Lucky Number programs.

- In the 20 odd years that I've worked with Dave, I found him to be the best general manager, major league, minor league in - America, Dave, basically, and I think this is exactly what you can ask for, and a businessman has a tremendous amount of honesty and integrity.

When he told you something would be done, it was done.

He is a gentleman that really doesn't have double standards.

He has his goals in mind and his values in mind and carries it out - Home for Dave Rosenfield is this lovely house in Virginia, Beach's Lake View Shores.

He and his wife Maita have been married for more than 30 years.

A son also works for the Tidewater Tides.

They share their house with a Vima Riner named Misty and an ever increasing collection of professional baseball memories going back nearly 40 years.

- Dave, what are your first memories of baseball?

1938 World Series seven years old had no earthly idea what baseball was and my dad was listening to Cubs and Yankees and sitting on the floor and he was listening to it on the radio and a, I was asking questions.

It seemed like a kind of a mysterious type of thing and I really didn't know what it was about and, and I saw my first professional game early in the 1939 season and kind of an really interesting thing, the Los Angeles Angels in the Coast League had won the first 19 games of the season, the longest opening winning streak to my knowledge in the history of baseball.

The first game I ever saw was the 20th game, the game that they lost.

And I've been in love with the game ever since.

Have wanted to be involved in very little else, been involved in other professional sports, but baseball has always been my first love.

- You were a player in your youth.

What kind of player were you?

- Yeah, not a very good one.

I played because I loved it and I was as good as I was only because I wanted to be, did not have a lot of talent.

Kind of hard to believe right now, but I was very little.

I was the smallest kid in my class through most of my growing up as a junior in high school I was five foot three weigh 120 pounds.

I played professionally and in college at about 165 pounds.

- What position did you play?

I - Was a catcher and I look more like a catcher now than I did then.

I played one year professionally, made a determination by looking around me that I was not gonna be a major league player and decided to go ahead and I had promised my father that I would, if he let me sign a professional contract that I would finish my education and I went back to school and got my degree.

- How'd you get into to management?

How'd you get into baseball management?

- After I had gone back to school and I was in the Navy and I handled the travel and purchasing and a bunch of things for the Navy team, the I had finished college and fr ran into, I quit a job one Friday afternoon and a friend of mine said, you wanna get back in baseball?

I said, no, I don't wanna play anymore.

I'd hurt my arm.

And he said no in the front office.

And I said, well, I would love to, but I can't imagine who's gonna hire me with no experience.

And he said, well, they're looking for a guy in Bakersfield and which was about a hundred miles north of LA call such and such a guy, which I did on Monday.

I said, well, we pretty much decided on somebody, but if you wanna drive up, we'll talk to you.

I drove up, was interviewed, toughest interview in the world.

I was in a room with five guys sitting in a chair in the middle of a room.

They said, go ahead, tell us something.

And they interviewed me, gave me the job, asked me when I could start, and I said I could start the day And they gave me the job and I've been at it ever since.

That was in February of 1956.

- You call him the best general manager in minor league baseball.

Define that for me.

What is the best?

- Well, first is a basic understanding of the game itself.

He has that, secondly, a willingness and ability to keep cost and or minimum because if you keep cost and or a minimum, you're not gonna lose money if you draw practically no one.

And the third thing is to get people in the seats in the ballpark and he has, I think a mastered all three of those and has done an exceptionally fine job for us.

- Basically what he has done here is he's kept the ticket prices low.

You bring a family of four or five out here, it's a good night's entertainment and they're not charging you an arm, a leg.

Dave is extremely loyal to those people who patronize him.

You see all of these clients that have all of these billboards out here and in the program and the promotions.

He will get back to them next year and he will give them first choice As far as seats, as far as tickets are concerned, we have a waiting - List for signs and we have sold more program space advertising wise this year than ever before.

And thirdly, if you go walk in his office, he has a blackboard on which he lists all of the promotional events that we have during the year, and the whole blackboard looks like it's fer to me.

- What do you do?

This team is always a contender - Every year.

- What is it that you do that makes team a contender?

- Because of my longevity in the business, I probably have more input with the Mets than most minor league general managers have with their parent club.

They do listen to my suggestions, they listen to my evaluations.

I have worked very well with virtually every manager that they've ever had here, and that, again, that type of harmony helps to bring some success.

- I think perhaps if you were to mention one thing about Dave that maybe is a slight negative and perhaps he knows about this and he's considered, he does have a short fuse and most perfectionists I think are this way, getting back to his value system, he has strong values and when things rub him the wrong way, we used to be up in the press box and certain things would happen during the course of a ball game and he would just get blown all out of kilter.

- Do you have a - Temper?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Somebody told me a long time ago that was a good way to avoid having ulcers was to not hold it in.

And I, I've taken that advice to heart.

I don't, I I blow up pretty good, not often, and I, I, I'm a tough guy to work for I'm sure, and I think you could ask any of my people and they'd probably tell you that, but I think that I'm fair.

- They all seem to say that - I demand as much of myself as I demand or more of myself than I demand of them.

I think that this is a, a business that, that demands that this be a career rather than a job.

If you're not interested in going on and succeeding in this business, you ought to get out of it and go do something else.

And if it is a career to you, you ought to work hard at it.

- Thank you.

Tim Morton, we've met the team's leader in the front office in a moment we're going to talk to their manager in the field.

His name is Mike Kopi.

But first we'd like to tell you about some important events happening throughout the area in the next few days.

Here are our choices.

The manager of the Tidewater Tides is a young man from Charlottesville, Virginia now in his second season here.

His name is Mike Cupid.

It occurred to me that baseball was a sort of great chess game, a mind game.

I know that it's, it's projected by statistics and so I wondered if you'd talk to me a bit about the strategy of baseball.

- Well, there can be a great deal of strategy involved in a baseball game and it, the, the way strategy enters into a game is, is normally in the closeness of the game.

50 out of 150 games approximately each year are decided by one run.

So the one run games are usually lost and not won.

So that's when you get a great deal of strategy.

When the guys go out and hit and pitch and catch it, well, you get the large lopsided wins and there's not a great deal of strategy.

There's just the pure art of the game.

The guys hitting home runs of pitchers pitching well and strategy doesn't get involved, but oftentimes it does, - But it's known as a pitchers game really, isn't it, in terms of winning and losing.

I was telling somebody in football, you'll, they'll mention a quarterback and say, well, he led the Redskins to thus and so team in baseball.

It seems to me the novice that the game is credited, debited, or credited against the pitcher.

Why is - That?

Well, pitching is a large part of it, no doubt about it.

And I, you can't win without good pitching to ask the Baltimore Orioles that right now.

But I've been fortunate to have good pitching and good pitching.

What it does, it always gives you a chance to win a ball game.

They keep, they keep you close.

Sometimes they shut a team out or hold a team to one or two runs.

If they keep you close, then you're always in the game and your, your, your kids have the good spirit and they always think they have a chance to win.

That's what good pitching does for you.

- That's interesting because I was wondering what the allure of baseball is.

I guess we've always wondered why it still remains that great American passion referred to as the Great American pastime, and I had wondered if it's because people sitting in the stands could identify with you.

- Oh, that's a good point.

I think almost everyone from one time or another is raised on baseball and they play little league or, or Junior league or whatever.

There, there's always been an affiliation somewhere in their life with the game of baseball and, and some never get it out of their system.

I think it's the allure of these fantasy camps where the older men and women go down to Florida and put on a major league uniform when they're 50 or 60 years old.

The allure of, of people going to spring training, that's such an attraction to get out of the cold north and go down to spring training and, and watch baseball games, watch young guys go out and chase balls or whatever.

There, there is a strong passion, I think, throughout this country for the game of baseball and because so many people have been involved, they stay involved and they manage right along with the managers and they listen in on the radio to the tele cat, to the games and they watch on tv and I, I really feel like it, it, it holds a strong attraction on, on our nation.

- You've had a wonderful career, haven't you?

I I think that our viewers need to know, first of all that you're from Virginia.

I thought it really wonderful that you went to the University of Virginia on a baseball scholarship, but we're quarterback of the first string of the ba the football team.

And you've come up and down, you, you played in the majors, you've done it all and you've done it at a very young age.

And it leads me to ask you what kind of career these fellows can have and look forward to if they never make it to the majors.

How long can you stay?

- Players do end up playing a few years at this level.

Normally when players can't advance in lower leagues, they're released and they, they go home and start up a new career.

But players are so close at this level to the major leagues and a lot of these players have major league time, so they keep hanging in there hoping that their break will, will come and they'll get that chance to get to the big leagues for the first time or get back to the big leagues.

I think anyone that plays this game has a strong passion for it.

It gets in their blood and it's really hard to take the uniform off.

I know I've found it to be that way.

I have a strong passion for the game.

I've, I've lived the game all my life since I was about three or four years old and I, you know, hopefully I'll be in this game the rest of my life as long as I live because I, I love it and I enjoy it and, and I, I just feel like a lot of nice things have happened to Mike Cubbage.

No doubt about it.

I've had a, a good career and my timing has been good.

Sometimes players' timing isn't real good, but my timing throughout my career has been good.

Not only as a player but as a manager.

I'm with a great organization now and a lot of talented kids and they're, they're just a joy to work with.

- Thank you.

Mike.

We have a question for you.

What's a baseball game without a good hot dog?

Dave Rosenfield and the Tidewater Tides say that the best hot dogs in Hampton Roads are right here in Met Park.

Well, there are other places that have good hot dogs too.

And Tempe Fisk set out to find the winner.

- They first call them ducks and sausages.

In Germany, we know them as Red Hots Wiener worse or just plain old dogs.

You can have them split broiled, grilled, kosher with or without relish or just eat them plain.

One thing is certain the All American hotdog is frankly a doggone good meal.

According to the Oscar Meyer company, the nation's leading hotdog manufacturer, the hotdog as we know it began in New York City's Polo Grounds home of the New York Giants on a cold April day in 1900 concessions were having no luck selling ice cream and soda.

So they sent out for some francs advertising them as dachshund sausages.

The vendor Harry Stevens sold them as Red Hots.

One of his customers was cartoonist Tad DGen DGen sketched a dachshund in a role and the rest is history.

Our Hampton Roads region boasts a variety of places to sample this All American meal.

If you're looking for a basic hotdog with few extra frills, the dog and burger in downtown Norfolk has them complete with the old style standup counter and barber pole.

There are times, however, when a regular size hot dog just won't do the trick, that's when you head for Pops footlongs in Grafton.

It's a family operation that's been under the present management for the last 12 years and a popular peninsula hangout.

Joe Allen owner and proprietor thinks he knows why - These are foot long hot dog rolls and we precooked these hot dogs beforehand and so they'll be good and hot and ready for you to eat.

Put ketchup, mustard.

Alright, I'm gonna put onions on it and my homemade chili and you have a hot dog.

- Thank you.

So Pauline, you've been here 17 years.

Yes.

What's the largest order anyone's ever ordered of hot dogs?

The largest order we had.

One man came and got seven foot longs and ate him.

Then over the phone we had nor 24 did the man that eight seven live through the ordeal?

Yes ma'am.

We came back.

If foot long hot dogs are a little too long for you and you'd rather have a New York dog, the only kind that's really any good says Al Stein, then you need to come to his place.

Famous Uncle Als.

- Well, it comes out in New York, it's the best food in town and boy's head makes the best hot dog there is.

- You wouldn't be prejudiced because - You're in New York.

No, not at all.

You try it and if you tell me it's not the best, don't pay for it.

- Uncle Al thinks most of the reason people come for his hot dogs is because they're New York dogs, but he says the name doesn't hurt either.

- Well, I got drunk at my niece's wedding and they kept calling me Famous Uncle Al and my wife said, if I ever went back into business, they call him famous Uncle Al's.

That's the best name I could have picked.

- There are those longtime Virginians who say, you haven't really had a hot dog until you've had a Toley dog at Smitty's in Hampton.

Shirley Blackburn would agree.

She says they're one of the most popular items at the Landmark Drive in that has been serving customers for over three decades.

Twirl, she should know she's been there for 27 of those years herself and Shirley's considered a supreme twirly dog maker.

Smitty's curb waitresses work very hard.

Each of the three girls assigned to deliver dogs will serve anywhere from 25 to 90 cars apiece during the lunch hour and cars start lining up at 11:00 AM They know almost everyone by name because many of them are regulars and they take orders with speed and accuracy.

They also make change the old fashioned way.

Pass it up for now.

Next time you're out for a meal, try a twirly dog, a foot long, a kosher New York dog or any number of other varieties that exist in Hampton Roads.

You might discover that the hot dog is a doggone good meal.

- I'm gonna try one of Dave Rosenfield's hot dogs and while I do, we have some music for you to listen to.

It's from a blues group called Sunnyland.

The Tune's appropriate enough entitled Sport and life - People from my home of it makes you sad, makes you wonder by time to come.

Well, my own mother once said to me, well son, are you, you gotta, you better quit your, I've been a liar, I've been a cheat all of my money on you, but I swear me so I'm will.

I swear.

- Baseball lovers call the game.

America's game.

But the game most of us grew up with, and some of you still play, is softball.

Of course, for somebody with my baseball skills, the idea of catching or hitting a softball is a much more realistic proposition.

Joe Pitts discovered a softball team that's been playing together for many years and still having a great deal of fun.

- Softball, he played it as a kid, then maybe baseball, football took its place to many people.

Springs the beginning of softball season and to this one group of players, that season has lasted over 12 years.

These are the high tides.

A group of friends who got together 12 years ago to do something with their summer and have been together ever since.

Although the game resembles its cousin baseball, the rules vary slightly, - And I don't know if you really understand the theory of the game, but the game has been played with three bases, a home play, hi mom, 10 other people, a designated hitter and a lot of complainers.

We don't have many complainers, but we've been playing the game for this long period of time, enjoying every moment and having a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, we're not the number one team in the nation, but we're gonna be someday what - We guys, and as you can see, professionalism and patriotism are still alive and well on the softball diamond.

Like any well lubricated machine that's used only four months outta the year, even this early in the season, they really click together.

The High Tides, no relation to those.

Other guys do have a history, however, both in 1979 and 84, they won the city championship and so far things look good for 1988.

- The same year that the Res kids won the championship, the high tides gonna win it again.

- Others don't share that theory, but we give 'em a chance anyway.

On this day, the schedule took them Sherwood Forest Elementary School in Norfolk where they played four games, one three and really wish they'd one the other.

Playing from 9:00 AM to about seven that night.

To paraphrase a famous softball player, when it's over, it's over and it's time to celebrate.

When you work hard, you can play hard.

- That's right, the American, let's go Slam down a couple of bottles of milk.

I'm a Clutton man - Myself.

Thank you for being with us at the ballpark.

Next week on our place, our time, we're gonna go sailing and we'll meet Bill's show Horse known in sailing circles as sled.

The name's quite fitting because Sled is one of the premier yachtsmen in Hampton Roads.

And we'll have some tips on one day vacation trips within reach of our place.

And Connie Parker will be our musical guest.

Till then, I'm Vianne Webb for our place, our time.