by Mick Rhodes | editor@claremont-courier.com

In 1989, my first wife, our 4-year-old daughter Brittany, and I moved into an honest to goodness shotgun shack on a beautiful, California live oak-shaded block of north Pasadena. The 732-square foot, two bedroom house on a 1,950 square-foot lot at 1364 Elizabeth St. is still there. Our rent was $625.

Here’s how it worked: you stepped through the front door and were standing in the tiny living room, walking through you were in the kitchen, which led to a door to the bathroom on the left, a breakfast nook on the right. Beyond that was bedroom #1, a short hallway with storage, and finally a second bedroom with a door to the backyard. It took about 20 steps to traverse the entire house.

All this sounds shockingly small and quaint here in 2026, but back then we weren’t at all bothered by the cramped quarters. Our little family did just fine there. It was, and still is, a uniquely charming place to live, and still provokes warm fuzzies every time I drive through.

(L-R) Old friends Collin Frey and Courier Editor Mick Rhodes at Monday’s Dodgers game. Courier photo/Mick Rhodes

Within a few days of moving in Brittany made fast friends with two elementary school-aged girls who lived in a duplex across the street: Erin, the oldest, and Kamarin, the spunky middle child. Their toddler brother Collin did his best to keep up.

Our families became close over the years we lived on Elizabeth Street, and little Collin and I hung out a lot. I was a huge Dodgers fan and his parents were not into sports, so I served as a sort of emissary into that world. It was fun to have a buddy to watch games with. We were both mostly surrounded by girls all the time, and though he was a little kid, as I wrote in November 2024 [“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in”] we bonded over Dodger baseball. Soon I began taking him to games at nearby Dodger Stadium. It was our thing.

In late 1992 I landed my first full-time journalism gig at the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza in Incline Village, Nevada. Collin and I kept in touch over the next couple years and got to Dodgers games when we could. In 1994 I was back in LA and we continued our Dodgers tradition. In the late ‘90s a friend became the executive chef at Dodger Stadium’s then new Stadium Club, and Collin and I caught a couple games from the new luxury seating there. It was pretty great.

After my second daughter Grace was born in 2002 I started the best job I ever had: stay-at-home dad. Though I loved it, it was well beyond a full-time gig. Soon a third daughter, Lou, joined the family, followed by son Everett in 2010. I loved my job, but was so wrapped up in my own young, growing family I had little time for Collin, and we drifted apart.

Like all old people, I joined Facebook when it was a new thing. A few years ago Erin, Kamarin, and Collin popped up on my feed. Collin and I started messaging and talked on the phone a few times. It was lovely to reconnect and catch up.

Seconds after the Dodgers won the 2024 World Series my phone rang. It was Collin. It had been more than 30 years since we’d taken in our first game at Dodger Stadium. “I still remember that game,” he said. “It was towel night.” Before we hung up he said, “We gotta get to a game next season.”

Collin was true to his word and hit me up last year with some game options. I wanted to go, but I just couldn’t swing it with all my work and family stuff going on. So another baseball season went by without our Dodger Stadium reunion.

Finally, on Monday, we made it happen. Collin and I sat in the reserved section and watched the Dodgers lose to the hated San Francisco Giants. It was a beautiful night at the much changed cathedral we all know as Dodger Stadium, now called Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium. The sound system was concert level, with massive bass frequencies vibrating all 44,298 of us. The flashy entertainment part of the game was fun, and the new rules with challenges to balls and strikes and calls on the bases added some much-needed modern flash to the pastime. But I wasn’t there for that stuff.

I was there to reconnect with a long-ago part of my life, when Collin was an actual kid and I was a big kid (Collin, now 37 and 6-foot-5 inches tall, is now the big kid).

I’d been curious about how we’d do with all that time together after all those years. I needn’t have. We caught up our families’ exploits, talked about the old days, and mourned those we’ve lost since Elizabeth Street. And of course we talked a little baseball too.

We’d begun our friendship when Hall of Fame Dodgers catcher Mike Piazza was behind the plate and picked it back up when Shohei Ohtani was doing things nobody had ever seen.

And though the Dodgers lost, it was a win on every other front.

As the years stack up and I am ever more grateful for my many blessings, there is increasing meaning to be found in relationships that have stood the test of time, distance, and trauma. I’ve always been an emotional man, prone to weeping at insurance commercials, and I find the feelings even closer to the surface these days. Life has become more precious following this decade of loss, like a whack-a-mole game with the grim reaper holding the hammer and folks my age hoping to pop back to safety before he slams it down. It’s been that random.

So, these moments that may have passed without acknowledgement in my younger days — like Monday night with Collin at Dodger Stadium — are deeply cherished. I think they call it being “in the moment,” and I’m on the hunt for as many moments as I can find while I’m still in the game.