That doesn't mean there wasn't a lump the size of a Rawlings in my throat as I watched Edmonton Trappers assistant general manager Dennis Henke deliver the ceremonial first pitch at Telus Field last night.
Four batters later, the final Pacific Coast League game to be played in Edmonton was called due to rain. Mother Nature's putout brought the curtain down on 24 seasons of triple-A baseball locally.
It was a moment many of us who inhabited the press box over the years thought would never come.
Shaking off New Yorker Mike Nicklous's 1990 attempt to purchase and relocate the club, meant triple-A was here to stay. All we needed was a new ballpark to replace John Ducey Park. That dragon was slain in '95.
THAT TEAM WAS BRUTAL
The team supplied by the Oakland A's that season was brutal.
Still, life at the park we dubbed the Phone Booth after Telus snapped up the naming rights was good. It was made even better by the powerhouse '96 and '97 squads that captured back-to-back PCL championships.
Between pitches, before and after games, those who endured Ducey and moved to Telus would muse about heading to pension from the new yard.
It was an idyllic world nobody wanted to leave.
I was no different. Like the well-travelled minor-league veteran, I had few options remaining when my bosses at the paper moved me to the CFL beat.
My run as one of two people to see every Trappers game at Telus ended when I waved the white flag the day after the squad played its 2001 home opener.
Soon-to-be-former manager of baseball information, Gary Tater, is the only person to have witnessed every inning of Trapper baseball played at Telus.
We always laugh about the day I called from San Francisco International at the tail-end of a road trip, my United Airlines aircraft still parked at the gate. Mechanical problems were delaying the flight and the clock was ticking on a 7:05 start back in Edmonton, not to mention a tight connection in Calgary.
At some point during the conversation, I suggested Gary might be responsible for the delay. He chuckled heartily but admitted he couldn't take credit for the potentially streak-threatening snag in my travel plans.
Arriving at Telus with 40 minutes to spare, Gary and I went toe-to-toe until the night I queered the deal by not showing up.
Play-by-play man Johnny Doskow asked about me when Sacramento arrived to play the back end of that opening homestand. Gary made the mistake of telling him I was gone.
Fortunately, the misunderstanding was cleared up in time to prevent Johnny from mentioning my untimely and greatly exaggerated demise on air.
The misunderstanding prompted team photographer Denyse Conroy - designated the unofficial assistant GM by my buddy and one-time competitor on the beat, Robin Brownlee - to tape a sign which read "Gerry Prince Memorial Press Box" on the door.
It was weird staring at that pre-posthumous honour every time I returned to the park during my first season covering football.
Naturally, when you spend the better part of 20 years hanging around the place, first as a season-ticket holder then as the public address announcer followed by a stint as a freelance writer and eventually the beat writer, you're going to see a lot of weird things.
Right-fielder Dan Grunhard ringing a routine throw home off a fencepost next to Ducey's old green clubhouse and watching the ball roll into centre field was weird.
Tim Krauss starting the game at second base and exiting as the winning pitcher in an extra-inning affair versus Calgary in '85 was equally bizarre.
The 16-instalment "Gutter" cartoon strip created and drawn by PCL broadcasting legend Al Coates lived up to its name and qualifies as another Telus Field oddity.
Originals of the strip still exist but remain under lock and key.
And then there was the not-so-weird, like Mark McGwire clearing the light standard next to the scoreboard with ease and alarming regularity during batting practice prior to the first of two exhibition games featuring the A's.
Or Albuquerque slugger Mike Busch doing the unthinkable and becoming the first man to go deep over the Green monster in centre field.
GIAMBI'S GLOVE NEEDED SOME WORK
Or Jason Giambi's natural ability to hit the ball but never fully able to unravel the mysteries of the glove.
Or Aaron Small tossing the Trap's first no-hitter of any description in Vancouver one night and Steve Wojciechowski coming within two outs of tossing a no-no at Telus the next evening.
With four PCL titles in 24 years, it's been a hell of a run for baseball fans in Edmonton.
In a perfect world, there would be more PCL titles.
Regrettably, nothing lasts forever.
Nothing except, perhaps, memories.
