| Larry Powell: President may make history right off the bat 01/23/2001 By / The Dallas Morning News Good morning, fellow daydreamers.
We may be on the brink of something previously unseen: a presidential father-son team tossing out the first pitch on opening day of the Major League Baseball season.
Imagine: President George W. Bush and former President George H.W. Bush warming up their wings and throwing out ceremonial first pitches for April 3's home opener at The Ballpark in Arlington.
A check with the Texas Rangers' public relations office reveals that nobody's been pegged for this duty yet – probably the announcement will come, as it usually does, during spring training.
But, it sure would be fun – yes, historic – to see the father and son presidents throw out the first pitch.
Then, in October, maybe Texas could claim another first: a father-son presidential duo tossing out the first pitches for the first World Series game in the state. Wouldn't that be great!
Of course, if Texas' pitching doesn't develop, by summer's end the old man, a baseball star at Yale, may have worked himself into the Rangers' starting rotation.
Anything can happen – it's the modern big leagues. The ex-prez probably won't hold out for $252 million, however.
• DALLAS SYMBOLS: TOWER, EQUATOR – For most of the evenings since Reunion Tower opened on April 15, 1978, the big ball atop the 50-story tower has provided a nightly light show. Lately, however, the lights have been bright, but not dancing. Relax, this symbol of Dallas isn't going away. The tower is undergoing maintenance, and the computer-programmed light shows will return, though Hyatt Reunion spokeswoman Priscilla Lynn says, "I couldn't really say when. ... It depends on the maintenance schedule." ... So, a committee studying textbook errors reports that one book used in middle schools shows the equator passing through the southern United States. This can be explained. The author flew to Dallas in August, walked outside and realized there could be only one explanation for such unbearable heat: the equator follows Interstate 30 between Dallas and Fort Worth. Hard to argue.
• ABOUT THE NEW FIELD HOUSE – Taxpayers, have you driven past the new gym lately?
Holy smoke, that American Airlines Center is huge! It looks like a giant hangar – big enough to store billionaire Howard Hughes' giant wooden airplane, the Spruce Goose, while simultaneously holding a pep rally organized by disgruntled airline attendants.
As progress on the building continues, let's just hope one more time that the Hangar, er, American Airlines Center, has something that Reunion Arena does not: Adequate signs. And "adequate" means signs that can be read from nearby Stemmons Freeway (Interstate 35E) as you whiz past in a fast-moving car.
One of the big passer-by drawbacks to Reunion Arena has always been that every event sign on the building is obscured by a freeway bridge or a viaduct. You almost have to buy a ticket to whatever's inside just so you can get close enough to read the tiny signs over the entrances.
One way to tell what's going on at Reunion is to roll the windows down, and this ploy only works in the summer. If it's August and the air is, er, "different," you know that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is playing Reunion and has parked the animals near the freeway.
This plea for helpful signs is made on behalf of those of us who can afford to drive by the new gym, but can't afford to go in.
Larry Powell can be reached at 214-977-8487; P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, TX 75265; fax 214-977-8319; or at .
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