Baseball, family and the Chicken Dance: Growing up with the Columbus Catfish at Golden Park

Talks of the possibility of minor league baseball returning to Golden Park and speculation of which team that may be have led to a whirlwind of nostalgic memories coming back to me from my experiences over a decade ago.

While growing up in Dothan I grew up knowing the entire Braves roster and was fortunate enough to be able to watch Bobby Cox’s final regular season game as the Braves’ manager. However, just as much as I was a Braves fan I also grew up cheering for the Columbus Catfish.

I can’t recount the amount of times we piled into the back of my dad’s old Isuzu Rodeo with all our baseball gear and drove up to Columbus to watch the Catfish play in Golden Park Stadium. Prior to the game we’d find patches of grass and throw the baseball around and find other children to join in.

My father would run ground ball drills by rolling baseballs down the hill near the river walk. However, after we lost at least two balls in the river behind us and watched them slowly drift downstream we decided to run our drills on level ground.

Yet, some of the most ingrained memories I have of the games happened in the stadium itself. As the smell of hot dogs, roasted peanuts, and nachos came from all around me I remember Catfish staff asking me if I wanted to compete in the dance competition.

I have never been the one to shy away from dancing whether in public or private. I strode onto the field along with other children during a mid-inning break and then the dreaded song came on… it was the Chicken Dance.

I still refuse to this day to dance the chicken dance, and I loathe whoever wrote the song and forced it upon the world. I did as little as I could and wasn’t even slightly upset when they crowned another dance champion. However, this wasn’t the last time I would shine on the field.

Sometime after that day we were attending another game when I was asked to compete by Catfish staff yet again. This time there was no chicken involved, only the Catfish mascot. I was to race the bases with their mascot, a blue cookie-monster-like with shag carpet as fur, in a competition of pure speed and determination, or so it felt like at the time.

I walked to home plate and stared down my nemesis for the next few minutes. The race began and we rounded first head to head. However, as we neared second I bumped into the mascot and tripped over its legs. I fell to my knees with a thud and a scrape, afraid I had lost the race.

Yet, I got up and swept off the dirt that had scratched my knees and with determination I summoned my inner Forrest Gump and ‘ran as the wind blows’ and caught the mascot and overtook it. I crossed home while leaving a cloud of dust behind me for the mascot to choke on.

Now did the adult that was in the costume possibly slow down and let me win the race by design? I say no, but who knows. I received several prizes but the most treasured was the pack of baseball cards I got with minor league players including almost every single member of the Catfish.

I still have an Andy Laroche (yes Andy and not Adam) card bearing the Catfish emblem in one of the corners somewhere at home.

One of the final memories I have of the Catfish is after a rain delay when most of the fans had left for dryer places. My family and I had almost the entire right field bleachers to ourselves. My brother and I left the park that day with probably a baker’s dozen of foul balls. Where are they now? Probably rotting away over our backyard fence because we couldn’t find them after we hit them over.

Those are fond of the memories of Golden Park Stadium and the time I spent with my family. I look forward to attending a game again sometime in the future should another minor league team take the field.