Brooks hits right chords with children

Garth Brooks is a big time country star. This spring he is taking a few at bats with the New York Mets in exhibition games in the game he loves – baseball. Should he? Should he be allowed?

Brooks is loved by his teammates. He asks no quarter and is given none. He works hard at the game and gets, maybe, an at-bat every game. Why?

For the Mets, it’s the entertainment value. The Mets have not drawn particularly well in spring games over the years in Fort St, Lucie, Fla. Brooks is guaranteed to generate lots of excitement among country fans who might otherwise never consider going to a spring training game. That has happened.

Brooks gets more phone calls, more bouquets of flowers and more interest from fans than any Mets’ player. He does sell tickets.

Brooks uses the chance to live another dream: baseball. He’s looking for his first hit. When asked what it would be like to hit a home run, Brooks said, “Hey, I’ll take any hit. When I get that first hit it will be home run down the road anyway”.

In the clubhouse, Brooks is just another player. He jokes and is joked with. He eats the spring spread and dresses with everyone else in the open locker room. He helps his teammates.

Brooks was supposed to go with some Mets to the Bruce Springstein concert in Miami last week. He couldn’t go, but a bus, Brooks’ tour bus , showed up, fully stocked, to take the players to the concert.

Mets’ reliever John Franco said, “The thing had a satellite dish attached. We watched games down and back. He [Brooks] called his driver in Nashville and he came over just to take us to the concert and back, then went back to Nashville.”

Mike Kincade, a minor leaguer, lost an at-bat when Brooks hit for him Sunday. Some fans booed, some cheered. Some say the games are entertainment and it’s only spring training. Some don’t disrupt the game.

Every day at spring training Garth Brooks hosts at least one child from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Last Saturday a boy of 7 or 8 followed Brooks from noon to 10 p.m. He was a Down syndrome child. He loved Brooks.

In the dugout, the child sat on Brooks’ lap, played with a ball, jostled Brooks’ hat and met the Mets. He got a ball autographed by players and took pictures with Brooks and his teammates.

Following the game that night, where Brooks grounded out to second in his at-bat, the child and his family said goodbye in the small front waiting room of the Mets’ facility. Brooks took out his guitar. The child’s father said to Brooks, “We spent a lot of nights in hospitals and my son would just want to listen to your CDs to go to sleep. He loves your songs.”

Brooks: “What’s his favorite?”

Father: “Low Places.”

Father to son: “Would you like Garth to sing `Low Places?’ ”

Child: Hands clapping together.

Brooks: “I’ve got friends in low places…”

I do not know if it is right for Garth Brooks to take an at- bat from a player in spring training. It is right to use spring training, and maybe every game, to give what Brooks gives to children who will not see many games.

No player objects. They hope it will be their at-bat that is taken, Andy Warhol once said, “This is art. This is soup.” Garth Brooks, with a song, says, “This is a game. This is life.”

Thank God for friends in low places.

NEWS columnist Gary Thorne, an Old Town native, is an ESPN and CBS broadcaster.