The game of life is undoubtedly baseball for these sisters

Originally published Saturday, May 24, 1997

By JON HAHN  
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

Pete and Ole thought they might lose their Mariners season tickets several years back, when Pete reached over the railing during a players scuffle and "bopped one of the other guys on the head!"

Versions of the story differ. Some say it was a well-placed bop to the head with a clenched fist. Others suggest the blow was landed with Pete's purse.

Pete and Ole -- which is what family and close friends have called them since they were sisters growing up in North Dakota -- are serious about Seattle baseball, even if they don't take their white hair or themselves all that seriously.

They're probably the most fun-loving pair to come out of the Columbia City neighborhood in the years since the Seattle Rainiers stopped playing at nearby Sicks' Stadium. The sisters, who wear Mariners sweat shirts to the game, have had first-row, first-base tickets for the past dozen years. Before that, they "moved around a bit, trying to decide which were the best seats," one said.

The Sicks' Stadium site on Rainier Avenue South now is known as Eagle Hardware. And Pete and Ole are known officially as Agatha (or, Aggie) Doman and Viola Pfau, ages 86 and 89, respectively. Along with one of Ole's daughters, they live in a well-kept and nicely landscaped bungalow near the Bethlehem Lutheran Church where they are members.

The two lively sisters love a good double play almost as much as they love classical music, a good sermon or cold beer on a hot summer afternoon in Dakota wheat country. They grew up in the not-so-strict household of a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor in Kramer, N.D., not far from Minot. "But we danced even when we weren't supposed to," Ole noted. "Even danced once with Lawrence Welk when he came to town. He couldn't even speak English very well back then.

"And some of the other local pastors and even a Catholic priest used to come to our house to play cards!" said Ole with a twinkle in her eye. "We were 'Pastors Kids,'" she said, referring to the "P.K." label that always seemed to imply a bent toward bending rules.

She and her sister -- who she says "has always been my best friend" -- have spent almost as much time in baseball park seats as they have in church pews. They were going to Mariners spring training camp long before anyone even knew there was a Peoria west of the Mississippi.

"I missed a year when I had both knees replaced," said Aggie, "but she has gone most of the years, even when they were at Diablo (Stadium, at Tempe, Ariz.)" Pete said. "That's where you got hit, wasn't it?"

Ole wasn't sure where it was, but they both remember it was a ball thrown in practice by former Mariners second baseman Harold Reynolds. "He was one of our favorites. And he signed the ball," Ole said, "with his name and John 3:16 ('For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son ...')."

"We also especially liked Jim Presley (former Mariners third baseman) and (pitcher Mark) Langston," Pete said. And in a bit of uncharitable hometown fan fervor that might be forgiven, she added: "But we hate the Brewers. One got me so mad that I bopped him!"

As near as the sisters can recall, it was during an on-field free-for-all, when former Mariners first-baseman Alvin Davis was being pinned to the wall below where the two sisterssat.

"I was thinking of hitting him when she beat me to it!" chimed in Ole.

The baseball bug bit Aggie after she and her late husband moved to Seattle. "I never liked the farm much, and I knew I wanted a better education for our (four) children," she said. After visiting an older sister who lived in Seattle (Claudia Albrecht, now 94, of Renton) we decided to move to Seattle right after the war, and we bought this house."

Her carpenter husband, who played ball back home, used to take her to Seattle Rainiers games at nearby Sicks' Stadium, Aggie said. Ole's husband was a farmer in Upham, N.D., not far from their original home. After both sisters' husbands died, they decided to live together in Seattle, in the turn-of-the-century bungalow Aggie's husband had remodeled.

And their father, the Rev. Albert Rubbert, also moved here after 52 years of preaching. He lived to be 91. "And he loved it here, especially all the flowers," Aggie said. "You can't grow a whole lot of flowers back in North Dakota ... too danged hot!"

The sisters are unanimous in the opinion that their father was "the best preacher we've ever heard," and a wonderful man. "We were poor as church mice," Ole said without tripping on the metaphor. "Our father found a secondhand Victrola somewhere, and we soon had old records of all the old masters, the classics and the opera."

But their favorite over the years has been "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," and when they still used to drive to the games, "there wasn't anyone who could get in front of us!" bragged Aggie. Her car carries the custom Mariners license plates, but she lets her niece drive them to the home games. "Too much traffic," Aggie said. "But I did get my driver's licence renewed. I was so happy I almost crawled over the counter and kissed the man!"

The two sisters aren't sure they will ever see a game in the new Mariners Stadium, slated for opening in 1999. "We're not going to plan on getting our season tickets renewed then ... maybe just next year," Aggie said wistfully.

"Maybe next year" is a term sports fans use a lot around here. But few of them have the fan enthusiasm and staying power of Pete and Ole from Columbia City.Jon Hahn is a staff columnist who writes three times a week in the P-I.