The Ball Player's Son

                                        BIG MOE GOES OUT IN STYLE

      1953

         

     Dad continued to hit well and make plays at three positions. On my birthday he took me to a weeknight game at Wrigley, got me a box seat behind the Angel’s dugout, and went 4 for 4 and made a great catch against the wall in left field. On the way home he said that game was dedicated to me, a birthday present. “Sometimes things don’t work out the way you want, but tonight everything turned out as well as I could’ve asked for—might be my last time.”

     I never wanted much from Dad on my birthdays. He always wanted to take me shopping and buy me nice clothes, but I hated clothes, preferring to wear old rags until they disintegrated, which seemed to bother him, because the way a person dressed, according to Dad, showed one’s pride. He said that part of being a father was giving kids nice things. But I told him I didn’t need anything but baseballs, a glove, a bat, a football, a basketball, an old radio to listen to games in my room, and nothing else except going to the ball park with him. What else was there?

     Dad kept hitting the ball well, until September, when he began tailing off. One Saturday afternoon he dropped an easy fly ball in left field, which just popped out of his glove. He displayed no anger or disgust as boos rained down. During the drive home I asked him what happened.

     “I just dropped it,” he said, annoyed.

     “Did you lose it in the sun?”

     “No. A good ballplayer knows how to shade out the sun.”

     “Did you lose it in the high sky?”

     “That high sky bullshit is for Alibi Ike’s.”

     “Then how could you drop an easy fly right to you? a can of corn? You never had to move!”

     “Dell, you don’t go a whole season without booting one. Sometimes you make a good play on a tough chance, rob a guy, and then you turn around and boot an easy one. But I will say one thing: I never make an easy play look hard.”

     “How many balls you dropped in the outfield, Dad?”

     He winked at me. “Today was my first.”

     Even as the sports pages revved up the Angel-Star rematch to a fevered pitch, the series was without incident. Before the first game, Jack Phillips of the Stars, a big man at 6’ “4 and over 200 pounds, one of the easiest going guys around and perennial peacemaker, asked Dad why he clobbered him, and Dad explained, “Jeez, Jack, I was hitting anything in a home uniform, sorry about that.” Cops still stood near both dugouts throughout the series. The Stars showed themselves to be the superior team, the best in the PCL, with players like Dale Long, Lee Walls, Kelleher, Phillips and Tom Saffel putting the slug on the Angels. And the last road trip of the season was the end of Dad’s career. Mother, Suzie and I drove up to San Francisco to meet him on a Monday evening. Right off, Dixie Upright took charge of me so Dad could join Mom and take Suzie shopping and out to eat seafood on the wharf.

     “Where we goin’ today, Meat? Ride the cable cars? Hit the snake-pits? How about a double-dipper at the movie house? It’s yore day, kid. Y’all and Dixie, that’s a team, boy.”

     Dixie treated me to bunkhouse breakfasts, hot beef sandwiches at Tommy’s on Van Ness, all the coke and popcorn I could hold and, all week long, took me to shoot-em-ups and war movies. We were not about to have anything to do with dramas, musicals or romance. It was like being with another kid, only a full grown one. I told Dixie that Dad cried when they shot the dog in “Old Yeller.” Don’t tell nobody, but old Dixie bawled too. Ain’t nothin’ worse’n seein’ a dog get it.”

     During games, Angel management allowed me into the dugout, in street clothes, for the season ending series. The team was still fighting with Portland and San Francisco for third place. Dad was exhausted. He’d played almost every inning of every game since coming out of retirement—but he kept plugging away, and the Angels plugged away and ended up in third place, which ensured Hack the Cub job.

     “Can’t happen to a nicer guy,” Dad said. “But Christ, Chicago’s a horseshit club. Dumb organization. Stan won’t last long there and he deserves better—he’s a good baseball man.”

     Dad’s last time up in professional baseball was a clear sunny September afternoon. Tony Ponce was pitching for San Francisco. Seal Stadium, spacious, known for its fog and damp air, often deadened long fly balls and kept them in the park. But on that day the ball Dad hit exploded off his bat as if whopped by a golf club. The crack of the bat resounded throughout the ball park and the little white pill arced to impossible height as it climbed toward and then hit the top of the light tower beyond left-center field. The Angels jumped off the bench to follow the flight of the ball as it soared and Dad rounded first base hard and then slowed to a trot refusing to smile or show any emotion as he crossed home plate, where he shook hands with the next hitter, finally smiling, then getting butt-pats and back-slaps from all his team mates, really grinning big and proud.

     Later, strolling through the lobby of the downtown hotel where we stayed, Dad picked up a newspaper and found an article on the front page of the sports section claiming Mickey Mantle had hit the longest tape-measured homerun ever—565 feet! He grinned at me. “Mine would’ve gone farther if it hadn’t hit the light tower.”

     I browsed the paper. “The Mick’s hit a beer sign after clearing Griffith Stadium, Dad. They call that the airport, don’t they?”

     “Best ball I ever hit today. If I’m at the airport, I hit the beer sign.” He clenched his fist to show off his bulging forearm. “I’m still learning. What I learned today is you don’t have to take that big a hard swing to hit one out. It’s like that short, compact punch that always knocks a guy out. You hardly feel it it’s so light. That’s how it felt today when I hit that ball off the light tower. Hot damn! It’s a helluva feeling to get a hit your first time up in pro ball, and then go out the same way.”

     When the Angels had their after-season awards banquet, Dad and Mom dressed up in their best, taking turns at the mirror and checking each other out and making a huge deal about what to wear before finally deciding. They smelled of cologne and perfume and were brimming with happiness, and in the morning, when I woke up, they were in the kitchen, all lovey-dovey, and sitting on the kitchen nook was an ashtray with a trophy on it of a boxer, and beneath it, on a brass plate, were the words—“Puncher of The Year.”

     Dad leered at me. LAPD Chief William Parker, evidently having listened to his troops describe the great battle between the Stars and Angels, presented it to Dad. I guess his team mates gave him a pretty good ovation.

     (The next installment jumps ahead to 1957, with the Ball Player’s Son trying to play American Legion ball at 13 for his Dad)