‘We were able to live it’: Gengenbachers watch Pujols hit 700th home run from Dodger Stadium bleachers

Rick Gengenbacher didn’t want to witness history through a 4-inch screen.

So when St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols walked to the plate in the fourth inning of last Friday’s game at Dodger Stadium, neither Gengenbacher nor his wife, Becky, nor their daughter, Kristen, pulled a cellphone from their pocket in hopes of recording Pujols’ 700th home run.

“I can watch it a thousand times on Twitter or Facebook,” Gengenbacher said. “I want to live it.

“And we were able to live it.”

Seated in the second row in the right field bleachers, the Quincyans watched Pujols hit the 699th home run of his career to left field in the third inning. In his next at-bat, Pujols launched another epic home run to left field, becoming just the fourth player in Major League Baseball history with 700 career home runs.

“When he hit it, everybody went crazy,” Rick said. “You had people going, ‘I can’t believe he hit it. I can’t believe we saw it.’ We were high-fiving each other. I just couldn’t believe it. It was surreal. 

“Everybody was going crazy. People were screaming. We were screaming. Everybody else was screaming. Dodger fans were excited. Cardinals fans were going nuts. We just couldn’t believe we were there for it. So exciting.”

And lucky.

Rick considered turning around before even reaching Chavez Ravine.

While planning their trip to California to help their daughter pack up her belongings, clean her apartment and prepare to move to Virginia, where her husband, KJ Mahoney, is stationed in the Armed Forces, the Gengenbachers looked at the baseball schedule and made a decision.

They’d get tickets to see the Cardinals play the Padres in San Diego on Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon and then take a road trip to L.A. for the Friday night game against the Dodgers.

“We had been out there probably 15 to 20 times over the years since Kristen had been there,” said Rick, whose daughter played volleyball at the University of San Diego. “But we had never been to a Padres game. So we decided we needed to do that.”

Rick even got a souvenir out of it.

In the bottom of the second inning of last Wednesday’s 1-0 loss to the Padres, Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado ended the inning with a force out at third base. He tossed the ball into the stands while heading to the dugout, and Rick caught it.

He nearly caught another one in L.A. when Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts tossed a ball into the stands, but that one went off the heel of Rick’s hand.

“Some other guy got a finger on it,” Rick said. “I was pissed.”

That might not have happened if he had turned the car around.

The day of the Dodgers game, the Gengenbachers logged on to ticket broker websites such as StubHub to purchase seats. The plan was to buy three tickets for the left-field bleachers, but they were selling for $200 apiece.

So Rick opted for right-field bleacher seats and made the purchase around 1 p.m. that day.

Not long thereafter, they began the 90-minute drive from San Diego to L.A., but Friday afternoon traffic on the L.A. freeway turned the trip into a more than three-hour tour.

“It was awful,” Becky said.

While being stuck in the middle of bumper-to-bumper traffic spread across five lanes, Rick decided it wasn’t worth the anxiety and angst and considered going back to San Diego.

“At one point I was like, ‘Let’s turn around. This is crazy,’” Rick said. “Kristen was like, ‘No, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.’”

So they stayed the course and reached the stadium approximately 20 minutes before the first pitch. They missed the pregame ceremony where the Dodgers presented Pujols and Yadier Molina with golf bags, but they were in their seats when history happened.

“The look on my dad’s face when he got to see Pujols’ home run was incredible,” Kristen said. “I grew up learning about Cardinals baseball from him. It was such a cool full circle moment to be there with him. I got to see my dad like he was 12 years old watching baseball all over again.”

The only thing that could have made it better would have been to have Kristen’s three sisters — Karlee, Kassidy and Kendra — there, too.

“I wish the other three girls were here to see this with us,” Rick said. “They’ve all grown up Cardinals fans.”

That’s due to their dad. The 56-year-old Rick has witnessed numerous historic moments involving the Birds on the Bat in his lifetime, but seeing Pujols hit his 699th and 700th career home runs in person is one moment he will treasure. 

“I thought we had a chance to see one of them,” he said. “But to see two of them? Who would have guessed that?

“If you love baseball, this was pretty special.”

Saying you lived the moment amplifies that.