NEWS-PRESS SENIOR WRITER
Summer is not officially here until Tuesday, but it would be hard to top Saturday for bright sun, blue skies and the sounds and smells of a summer day.
It was the kind of day Ernie Banks would have said, "Let's play two!" And that's what the Santa Barbara Foresters did at UCSB's Caesar Uyesaka Stadium. They played a semipro baseball doubleheader against the Maxim Yankees of San Jose.
The most interesting player on the field was not any of the college kids who may end up in the higher leagues some day. He was Jack Gifford, the first baseman for the Yankees, who has no chance of making it to the majors.
Gifford, 64, is the CEO of Maxim Integrated Products, a billion-dollar Silicon Valley company. He bankrolls the Yankees, so if he boots grounders and strikes out every time, you won't hear any criticism from their dugout. But quite the contrary, Gifford was a real player out there. When a throw across the diamond was low, he stretched to dig it out. In his first at-bat, he hit a slow infield grounder and almost beat the throw to first.
A leg hit at 64? Most of us would have to hit the ball into the outfield to have a chance.
This unique embodiment of America's pastime will be back out there today at 1 p.m. when the Foresters and Yankees wrap up their three-game series.