1953
Little League
tryouts were on the other side of Compton
at Colin Kelly Park. I refused my mother’s offer to drive me and rode my bike
across town, my glove hanging from the handlebars, bat on shoulder, steering
with one hand—a hotshot. There were about a hundred kids warming up, a lot of
fathers. Nobody knew me. I was the smallest, youngest kid on the field. I sized
up my competition and felt I belonged. There were to be eight minor league
teams, which took on big league names—Yankees, Indians, etc.—and four major
league teams sponsored by the Lions, Rotary, Kiwanis and UCT
One of the
coaches looked me over and commented on how small I was and asked my age. And
when I lied and said ten, he told me he was going to try me out with a minor
league team. I told him I was going out for the majors like everybody else. He
smiled and told me I’d have to grow and earn my way to the majors, just like
pro ball. “I oughta know,” he said. “I played pro ball.”
There was a dozen
or so kids trying out for each position and the best players were at shortstop,
and so was I. We lined up behind each other for our chances at groundballs.
They tried the eleven and twelve year olds first, then us smaller kids. I
charged my first grounder, snared an easy hopper in my crouch and snapped a
sidearm throw to first. When they hit me one to deep short, I planted my back
foot, fielded and threw overhand in one motion, hitting my target. A bunch of
coaches clustered at home plate looked at each other, nodding.
One of the
coaches along third base asked another coach, “Who’s the peewee with the good
glove? Kid’s slick.” I refused to look at or talk to the other kids trying out
for shortstop. Dad had explained to me that when he went to Spring Training
with the Tigers there were dozens of players fighting for that position in the farm
system, working their ways up to the big leagues, and it was dog-eat-dog, and
“somebody trying to beat you out was trying to take food off your plate. They
were the enemy.”
The coach with
the fungo, who’d played pro ball, tried and failed to hit a ball through or
past me. My throws were on target. When I stepped into the batting cage to take
my three cuts, I turned to bunt as I’d been instructed by Johnny O’Neill,
deadening the ball, dropping a dead fish on the third base line. Then I choked
up and smacked three knockers between third and short, into left field. The
coach who’d been hitting grounders stopped when I finished. “I don’t know who
you are or where you’re from, Peewee, but you’re a ball player, a natural.
We’re gonna find a spot for you somewhere.”
When I got home I
tossed my bike down in the yard, busted into the house and told mother I
thought I’d made the majors. And if I didn’t, well, they could jam it. She made
a long-suffering face. Then she looked into my eyes, smiled and roughed my
hair. “You’re my little brown nut. I’m sure you’ll make the majors. You’re a
chip off your father’s block. He’ll be so proud of you.”
Next day, Mr.
Roark, coach of Kiwanis, called and welcomed me aboard. I was going to be his
shortstop
*
Dad was overjoyed
I’d made the majors as the youngest kid.. He and mother agreed he shouldn’t
meddle with the team. If he had a night off, he’d sneak out and watch me play
like any normal father in the stands.
The Lions and UCT
had the best, oldest players, and the Lions coach was the son of the league
president. The Kiwanis and Rotary were allotted kids who were better than those
in the minors but nowhere as good as the Lions and UCT players, including Jim
Rooker, an obvious star. Our first baseman, the twelve year old coaches’ son,
looked like he belonged on the last place team in the minors. He could hardly
catch the ball. Coach Roark was a kindly, pleasant man, but knew nothing about baseball
and depended on his stocky assistant, Mr. Fletcher, who claimed he played
semi-pro ball and had a tryout with the Chicago Cubs. He and I took an instant
dislike to each other when I refused to alter my hitting style at his urging.
“Who the hell are
you that you know so much?” he wanted to know.
“My dad’s Murray
Franklin. He played for the Hollywood Stars and the Detroit Tigers and now he
plays for the San Diego Padres, and he knows more about baseball than you’ll
ever know,” I told him.
His dislike
turned to hatred and he grumbled to Mr. Roark that I should be moved to second
base, but Roark refused. Fletcher was a hard-ass, he had this technique on
batting where you kept your elbow cocked up, but I was taught to keep my elbow
down, so the bat lays level on the shoulder and not jutting up vertically with
the elbow up. Fletcher had all the kids hitting with the elbow cocked out, but
I continued to refuse. His kid was as terrible a player as Roark’s kid. He
seemed to be miserable playing baseball, his old man critical and demanding and
embarrassed by his play; while Roark knew his kid stunk, yet encouraged him
even when he dropped easy throws to first and looked like a dizzy clown on pop
flies.
We all hated
Fletcher and our team played badly. UCT skunked us by 20 our first game. We
were inept clowns. I was furious and felt helpless. I hated losing and was
already a bad sport at any game on the playgrounds. When dad came home from a
road trip I told him how awful we were, but he didn’t seem to want to get
involved. In a way, I was disappointed. Yet in a way, I was relieved, for kids
at school and on the playgrounds and in Little League were telling me that
their dads were saying my dad stunk as a ball player and so did I, because my
dad had struck out in a televised game. “Yer dad’s a bum.” I was getting in
fights.
The Lions skunked
us. Though Rotary was little better than us, they had a good coach and edged us
out. When UCT skunked us again we were a laughingstock. So far, at bat, I had
walked a lot because I was short and Fletcher urged me to take pitches until
they threw me a strike. His base signs were un-baseball like. I was hitless. We
were all flailing hitless wonders.. And while UCT, Lions and even Rotary and
minor league teams went out with parents after games to Foster’s Freeze or
A&W Root Beer for burgers and shakes, we straggled home, tails between our
legs, whupped dogs without treats.
*
The Kelly Field
stands extended from behind both dugouts and climbed to a small press occupied
by a man who announced the names of each hitter and always mentioned I was
Murray Franklin’s son when I came up—“Murray Franklin, formerly of the Detroit
Tigers and Hollywood Stars and now with the San Diego Padres.” I felt like a
giant searchlight was singling me out. A roaring like the ocean filled my head
and I chewed gum furiously and pumped my bat repeatedly like I was not supposed
to, and I ground my teeth and felt humiliated when the son of Murray Franklin
dribbled or struck out.
One night the
umpire called me out on strikes. Next time up he continued to call strikes on
balls just over my shoe tops. The second time he called me out the ocean roar
in my head was so loud I panicked and found myself, bat discarded, pushing the
umpire in the chest protector. His eyes widened in shock as I pounded on his
chest and called him “a fucking blind Tom.” Mr. Roark was on the field pulling
me away. Mother was in the stands and hurried down to the dugout in tears and
dragged me to the car—the crowd eerily quiet and still. We drove home in
silence, and then she began to weep as we pulled up in front of the house.
“I don’t want you
playing Little League,” she said firmly.
That night, Dad
called from Seattle
(he called every night) and mother railed at him on the phone, sobbing, then
she put me on the line. Dad wanted to know why I hit the umpire. I complained
he was cheating me. Mother grabbed the phone and railed at dad some more,
claiming I was imitating him by going after umpires. “He sees you do it, so he
does it. But Murray ,
you’ve never touched an umpire, and never would. Your son punched an umpire
tonight! I don’t think he should be playing. He feels too much pressure to do
well and be like you, and he’s so young and so much smaller than the other
kids. I’m just sick, honey. I can’t eat. I just want to throw up.” And she
sobbed.
I was suspended
for a game. When dad came home he sat me down and explained that from now on I
was never to question an umpire, no matter how bad he was. These umpires were
not professionals. And from now on I was NOT to listen to or look at anything
going on in the stands or anywhere else, but concentrate only on what I was doing
on the field, if I wanted to be a ball player and not a “busher.”
“You can’t get
the rabbit ears, Dell. You’re going to have to listen to a lot of ugly garbage
because of who you are. Mostly they’re just jealous because you’re a good
player and I’m a professional. From now on, don’t worry about anything except
playing the game. The game’s for you.”
Mother still
wanted me off the team, insisting it would not hurt me a bit to wait another
year, especially since I had three more years of Little League.
“Rose, sooner or
later the kid’s going to have to face what he’s facing now. He has to start
working things out on his own or he never will. He needs to play, not be
coddled..”
I was feeling
blue. For the first time, I didn’t want to go to the ball park with dad,
because I knew his team mates and especially Tobin would want to know how I was
doing, and I couldn’t bear to face them when we’d lost every game and the son
of Murray Franklin was hitting .000.
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