BOO-BIRDS
1953
The fans at Lane
Field had been booing Dad. He and Mom were having a lot of whispering conversations
out of my earshot. He looked worried all the time, fearing the inevitable
unconditional release every ball player receives when he is no longer able to
produce and is cast into the real world of dog-eat-dog survival.
While home during
a series against the Angels at Wrigley Field, an old friend named Jules, who’d
played against Dad in the Mountain State League in 1938, came to the house.
Small and wiry, with a bald dome and a severely hooked nose, Jules admired Dad
as a fellow Jew and kept an eye on his career. He dressed in slacks and sport
coat and an open-collared shirt and wingtip shoes with white toes. Dad told me
Jules was a little left-handed “junk-baller” who got no higher than A ball and
eventually became a player/coach on low minor league teams. Finally he tired of
the hard life of grimy busses and fleabag hotels in the Midwest and Appalachia , and became a ‘bird-dog’.
Jules was an
exuberant, jovial man who solemnly informed me that I was the “spitting image”
of my father. He told me what a great ball player my Dad was and how he got the
“royal shaft” from Detroit .
Jules stayed for dinner, raving over mother’s cooking and coddling Susie.
Afterwards he gravitated to the living room where he picked up Dad’s silver bat
from the mantle above the fireplace and respectfully inspected it, admiring the
mirror sheen from my weekly polishing.
“I don’t care
where you play. To hit .439 is one of the wonders of the world. I hated facing
your father. I never saw a player like him. Powerful man. Playing shortstop and
hitting ropes all over the field. And run? Fastest man in the league. He should
have been up with Detroit
the next year. Musial went right up. Boudreau went right up. Your dad was good
enough to play right then.
After he left,
Dad told me Jules knew he’d been playing badly, and since he was in the area
scouting, wanted to “lift his spirits.” He also explained that Jules couldn’t
sign a prospect, combing high schools and reporting what he’d seen to a head
scout, who is the only one can sign a kid. “Most scouts try and play down the
talent of a kid and steal him, sign him up as cheaply as possible. Scouts are
not to be trusted.”
“Not Even Jules?”
Dad shrugged.
“Jules is a fine, honorable man. He’s one of those guys in love with the game.
Even more than me. It’s like being in love with a beautiful woman who never
loves you back, but you keep loving her all your life. That’s Jules. The game’s
everything to him. He’s what we call in the business a “lifer.”
I asked Dad why
Jules thought Detroit
gave him a raw deal. He explained that the owner of the Tigers, Spike Briggs,
was a Catholic and played favorites. He’d actually handed rosary beads around
in the clubhouse and he’d find them in his stall. Dad said they played Charley
Gehringer, a hall of fame legend, when he was “so far over the hill he was
finished, useless,” while he sat. But he never said a word, swallowed his
pride, even when Mother, who knew little about baseball, could see he was
getting the shaft and urged him to demand to play or be traded. But Dad said
that no amount of demanding would’ve made a difference because “they owned
you.”
“What’d you do with the rosary beads?”
“Gave ‘em back
and kept my mouth shut.”
“What about Hank
Greenberg? He’s a Jew.”
“Hank was already
established, a legend like Gehringer. But he put up with his share of
Jew-baiting. He out-worked the bastards and shoved it down their throats.” He
paused, looked at me. “Sometimes, Dell, you have no control over the events in
your life. You have to eat a little crow, and sometimes a lot of crow, and you
gotta make the best of it because there’s no other choice. It’s no different in
baseball than in life.”
******
Dad and I drove
to San Diego
while Mom and Susie stayed home. We talked baseball all the way down, at my
insistence, relentlessly quizzing him about everybody he played against,
especially the great ones like Williams and DiMaggio. I had a shoe box full of
baseball cards and shocked my parents by memorizing the batting average of
every player in the Sunday sports page statistics. I also wanted to know about
Earl Rapp, the Padres new star player, one of the best in the PCL, an
outfielder who carried himself with quiet dignity. Rapp was graceful on the
field, fluid at the plate, a fine left-handed hitter. Rapp had all the tools—a
pretty good arm, some speed, good fielder, decent power.
“I think the
front offices of most teams get it in their heads that Earl can’t hit lefties.
I think he can. But after a while, if THEY think that way, well, YOU start
thinking that way too. Earl goes up to the big leagues, and time after time, he
stops doing the things he does in the PCL. I think it’s a mental thing.” Dad
pointed to his head. “And he’s an outfielder. An outfielder has to hit or it’s
no dice. A great infielder, like, say, Eddie Miller, even if he can’t hit,
he’ll find a place in the big leagues.”
“Rapp’s tearing
up the league. Will he get another chance?”
“Not now. He’s
over thirty. Too late.”
******
Dad remained
mired in the most brutal slump of his career. The best part of his game had
always been his hitting—his trademark as a ball player. But now he couldn’t buy
a hit, and I wondered if he was ever going to hit again. I sat with Mullins and
listened to the fans boo, accusing Dad of being over-the-hill and ready to be
put out to pasture and replaced by somebody who could produce. “He’s barely
hitting his weight,” I told Mullins. “He always said he’d quit when the day
came he couldn’t hit his weight.”
“He’ll hit,”
Mullins reassured me, adjusting his glasses, showing me his tobacco-stained
teeth. “Besides, your daddy’s the kind of player don’t always need to hit to
help the team. He does everything right. Some day you’ll understand that.”
But Dad had a
miserable game, booting a routine play at second, hitting into a double-play,
getting called out on strikes with the bases loaded. The boos rained down.
Later, he was pulled for a pinch hitter. The next day I sat with Mullins again,
and Dad was on the bench, but pinch-hit in the ninth with the winning run at
second, and connected on a pitch that sent the leftfielder sprinting to the
fence. At the crack of the bat it sounded like a home run. Mullins and I and
everybody around us stood as the leftfielder punched his glove and caught the
ball eye level, his back against the fence. Dad kicked dirt as he rounded first,
then chugged off the field, head down.
“Snake bit,”
Mullins muttered.
After the game we
stopped at a diner for burgers, and he told me about a game in the Texas League
where he hit nine line drives in a double-header and went 0 for 9, either
hitting one right at somebody or getting robbed. “Next game I dragged a bunt
for a single my first time up, then hit a ball off the plate that bounced so
high I was on first before it came down, then broke my bat blooping one into
right field for another single. My last time up I hit seeing-eye-dog single up
the middle, went 4 for 4 and never hit the ball hard. So what that tells you
is, if you’re a good hitter everything evens out. I’m not sure I’m a good
hitter anymore. It’s hard to keep your confidence up when your body no longer
responds.”
Back at the
apartment, Dad put me to bed and phoned Mother, and they talked for a long
time. I couldn’t sleep. Dad came into the room and sat on the bed. “I quit
baseball tonight, Dell. I called O’Doul and told him I’m done. I don’t have it
anymore. Right now I’m hurting the ball club. I’m embarrassing myself. I always
told myself that when it came to this I’d hang it up. Thing is, it’s a helluva
a lot harder to do than I thought it’d be.” He hugged me, and it felt like my
chest was going to explode, bursts of sobs erupting, snot all over my face.
Like somebody died. Dad said it was okay. He was okay. He’d prepared for
retirement. He’d had enough.
“I gave it
everything I had, every play, for damn near twenty years. I never cheated the
game or anybody I played for. I earned every cent they paid me. That’s the way
I played the game. All in all, your old man had a pretty good career and lived
a life few men experience.” He managed a
smile, smacked my shoulder. “Now it’s your turn.”
Great piece, Dell.
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