Ricky Nelson's preferred viewing spot is high above the action, down the left-field line. Photo by Pat Coleman, D3sports.com

My favorite seat in a movie theater is dead-center and about two-thirds of the way toward the back of the house. Sound systems are optimized in that area and your field of vision is consumed by the entire screen. That latter reason is of utmost importance because you can just sit back and move your eyes instead of your head. Sit too close and you may as well be watching a tennis match at the net. Sit too far away and there’s dead space at the outer reaches of your vision.

That same seating theory goes for watching baseball. Sitting with the gentry has the advantages of hearing player and coach chatter and seeing precise movement of pitches. Those trees are great for what they are, but I’ll take the all-encompassing view of the forest. The net-free, downhill look of the entire field makes the game to come to you instead of having to be an active, selective viewer. The increased air flow beyond the concourse doesn't hurt either.

In my way of thinking, I had the best seat in the house for all 15 games of the 2012 World Series at Fox Cities Stadium. My spot, just like it has been for most of the last three years, was about 250 feet down the third base line. A way to describe the location is it’s where gimmicky broadcasters will call one game a year.

Over the 13 years I’ve watched games from each section in the ballpark, including the right field patio, the press suites, the plush recliners behind the third-base concourse railing and all of the prime gentry’s seats. None of those beat my preferred perch.

What makes the spot special is the company. There are few reasons why anyone would venture near my seat. You could be a youngster staking out ground for future foul ball scrums, an usher doing the rounds, a fellow knucklehead who actually thinks it’s a good seat, or someone near the poles of the emotional compass. Being witness to the latter group can be heart-wrenching, in good ways and bad.

With pressroom access in hand and the best seat in the house – atop a wooden picnic table, of course – what follows are some of my favorite sights and sounds from above Section 115 at the 2012 Series. Chances are you didn’t see much of this on the webcast. Some names are withheld to protect the innocent.

The area takes great pride and puts tremendous effort into the event. You probably already know that Fox Cities Stadium is home to the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, the Milwaukee Brewers Class A affiliate in the Midwest League. The T-Rats hit the road each season to accommodate the Division III World Series, and the in-house staff works the tournament with support from the local tourism bureau and local volunteers, including host families and sponsors.

Timber Rattler front office personnel, ushers, security detail, grounds crew, concession crew, cleanup crew, ticket sellers, merchandise vendors, parking lot attendants and other staffers are a constant presence in and around the ballpark. Locals play roles as bat boys, anthem performers and public address announcers during the games. Before the games some locals are given the opportunity to run on the field for player introductions or to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

The T-Rats GM was carrying tables and boxes to storage, and the award-winning grounds crew was often the first foot in and the last foot out the door each day. You get to see the grounds crew before and after games and during the sixth-inning touch-up, but they’re also cutting the property’s grass, refreshing equipment, painting the NCAA logos on the grass seating areas down the lines, and performing maintenance tasks around the stadium during the games.

A warm day makes this spot perfect for taking it all in. Photo by Pat Coleman, D3sports.com

The Timber Rattler staff gets to do it all over again when the stadium hosts the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association state baseball tournament in mid-June. Those folks do a lot of work that oftentimes goes overlooked.

Also overlooked are the efforts of the national representatives, resplendent this year in their matching shirts – a different color each day. However, they didn’t have a rainout shirt in the contingency plan and they were forced to repeat an outfit that we saw earlier in the week. Despite that embarrassing fashion faux pas, they still managed to go about their work, which included disassembling the signage and draping that covered the walls and lockers in the press room after the event. For inquiring minds, yes, those coverings were indeed held in place by dumbbells and duct tape. And yes, the national committee members and NCAA rep were on chairs doing the teardown work themselves. Those NCAA signs are worth more than their weight in gold. And they are guarded as such.

Postgame news conferences are held in the home locker room along the third base concourse. Player lockers – covered from view by said signage, weights and tape – line the perimeter of the square room. Players and coaches are seated and provided beverages at covered tables along one wall of lockers. Media members are seated on plush folding chairs in the center. In the back is a black leather couch flanked by matching arm chairs. I sat in one of the arm chairs for most of the pressers. Some trivia I didn’t know until the fifth day of the tournament: my arm chair was in front of former Marietta pitcher Mark Williams’s Timber Rattler locker.

Each news conference lasts about six minutes. Some are utilitarian, meat-and-potato affairs. Others are emotional. Cortland State had this year’s most memorable pressers on the whole. Head coach Joe Brown detailed how he honored his commitment to get a faux hawk after his team made it to Appleton and admitted that he reached a point during the tournament when he realized that he just had to let his team play. But the highlight was Brown’s pride in emotionally recalling how his senior second baseman Matt June went head first into the bag on an infield single during the team’s last inning of the season. It should lead the Cortland recruiting materials.

The most memorable response in a presser was from St. Thomas head coach Chris Olean. Asked the typical question of whom he wanted to face in the winner’s bracket on Day 2, Olean didn’t give the pat response. Without hesitation he matter-of-factly said, “Marietta.” The Tommies beat Marietta the next day.

But the single best word uttered in the press room at this year’s tournament was from Webster head coach Bill Kurich. Asked about the severity of Webster center fielder Cody Stevenson’s injury sustained after running into the wall and being wheeled out on a stabilizing board, Kurich said the information he got was that it was a stinger and he was moving his extremities immediately after the collision. Never has a room been so relieved to hear the word “stinger.”

On the field the level of play had its peaks and valleys. The reality is that the valleys were pretty low. The press room refrain in the early part of the tournament was a variation of “You didn’t get to see what we’re about today” or “Good teams win ugly.” The highest peak, the play of the week, was turned in by Marietta shortstop Tim Saunders, the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. The play – a fully extended diving stop and throw from the hole – in and of itself was great, but the circumstances – killing a rally in the national championship game – added to its brilliance. Many big leaguers wouldn't make that play.

The performance of the year was St. Thomas utility Dylan Thomas shoving fastballs past Marietta on his way to a 149-pitch, complete-game win. The moment of the year was Webster shortstop Taylor Stoulp’s two-out, two-strike, two-run walk-off hit with the bases loaded against Kean. That hit made Webster the 54th program to win a game at the D-III World Series. Whitworth became the 55th member of the club later that day. A moment that didn’t get much publicity was after Marietta’s Kyle Lindquist finished off the final inning of Mike Mahaffey’s win over St. Thomas on Wednesday. Not only did the win propel the Pioneers to their 13th championship game, it was also Marietta’s 14th shutout of the season. That matched the Division III record set by Marietta’s 2011 title team and St. Scholastica’s regional team in 2005.

Some off-the-field highlights were the 6-foot Kean teddy bear that had its seat in the dugout, the St. Thomas pitchers jumping up and making primate calls upon the cage-like screen of the bullpen during Tommie rallies, and the Marietta bullpen doing the Macarena to “Come on Eileen” during the fourth inning of the semifinal game and the Chicken Dance to another random song during the third inning of the title game. Who was tight? Not Marietta. The suspected mastermind behind the Pioneers’ dancing was ringleader Lindquist, but I was told it was Game 3 starter Mike Mulvey. The dances livened up the unusually subdued Marietta crowd on a gloomy, overcast day when the lights were on at 11 a.m. That’s all well and good, but the reason I was told is more practical – the guys in the bullpen were simply getting cold and needed to move around.

The play of the week off the field was turned in during Marietta’s pregame on the final day. After everyone took their reps of fungo flies in the outfield and made their way to the dugout, D3baseball.com Pitcher of the Year Austin Blaski got the last “silo” fly ball that is reserved for the catcher. Like many of those types of flies, it didn’t go as planned and it went about 25 feet behind the intended target near the left field foul line. Blaski sprinted to the warning track, hurdled the fence hands-free, took two lunging steps up the grass hill, turned around and put his glove up just in time to snag the wayward baseball. Including the principals, maybe four people in the stadium saw that remarkable display of athleticism. Young fans with gloves dot the stands and grass berms waiting for foul balls. Blaski prevented at least one baseball from finding the stands.

School is still in session for most of the local kids in attendance, and their absence during the latter portion of the tournament was pronounced. Fans get to keep balls hit or tossed into the stands in Appleton, so it’s a good thing that there were 90 dozen balls at the start of the tournament. One kid down the left field line went home with five World Series baseballs in one day. On the flip side, another youngster gave up his ball to a Whitworth parent after a short negotiation. She made an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Many of the youngsters use their souvenirs to get autographs from the players, who always oblige even as they prepare for the biggest games of their lives. The impression is that the players appreciate the ritual as much as the kids. All told, there were about 25 baseballs signed near my picnic table alone. Nervous kids walking away elatedly with a signed ball is high among the best sights each year.

But no sight tops the teams’ supporters and their rituals and emotions. Doctors would be wise to ditch all other methods of stimuli and perform stress tests at the Division III baseball World Series. Some supporters use the concourse to become amateur umpires and assistant coaches. Fans come a long way from their original seats to confab and bellow colorful suggestions from my perch.

Then there are the nervous pacers and the superstitious lot. A Marietta parent couldn’t bear watching her son’s at-bats and hid in a corner that blocked the view of everything but the left field corner. Not that it mattered. Her back was to the field anyway. The routine worked. Her son was named to the All-Tournament team.

The nerves of most parents got a workout, but a few stuck out. A Wheaton mother bent over a nearby picnic table, nose flush with the top, and prayed during her son’s plate appearances. A female Webster fan after the Gorloks' game on Day 2: “My heart is going to explode, and I think I might puke.” She was smiling.

A Wheaton representative paced the length of the third base concourse like an expectant father during the latter portion of the winner’s bracket final. Vigorously working a cell phone with his thumbs as he paced, he said, “I can’t take this.” His jubilant “Yes! Yes! Yes!” while pumping his right arm as he floated down the steps to the field after the final out makes you appreciate the investment and passion the players have on their side.

The picnic table above Section 115 attracts a cast of characters, like the guys from the south who consumed their first bratwurst during the week and had their first experience of getting sunburned without sweating, or the Marietta fans who got in some between-game concourse laps before descending to watch nearly every pitch of the tournament from the first row behind home plate.

There were many stories from my picnic table this season, but my favorite involved a matriarch of D-III baseball. She was keeping score of the game on a sheet of paper about the size of a pocket book. She paced and changed seats for innings on end on Tuesday, but nothing she did could change the fact that her team was 12 outs from being eliminated. In the sixth inning she finally found the perfect, game-changing spot – a spot I’ve never seen anyone attempt. With zero comments or fanfare she plopped her seat cushion and bag on the last of the concrete steps in Section 115. She colored in three runs on her sheet by the end of that sixth inning and her Etta Express went on to win in extra innings and avoid elimination for another day. D-III baseball royalty sitting on the concrete, literally between two garbage cans, in a superstitious scheme for victory will be my lasting impression from 2012. What a program.

I hope to see you there next year. Save room for me on the picnic table above Section 115, the best view in the stadium.