THE PHEE-NOM HITS A ROAD BLOCK
1957
The Anaheim
American Legion Tournament consisted of 80 teams throughout California and was the most prestigious of
its kind, arguably, in the country. It was played at La Palma Park, a beautiful,
sculptured stadium with stands and outfield bleachers like a minor league
stadium.The tournament drew huge crowds throughout August, and scouts and
bird-dogs from every big league team sat in their plaid shirts and straw and
linen hats and alpaca sweaters with note pads and time-watches up and behind
home plate below the press box like birds perched on rows and tiers of
telephone lines. In 1955 Dad coached Compton
kids to seven straight wins and the championship, our reward being seven days
in a paid hotel in Catalina the week before Labor Day, with $5 a day for
expenses. Most of the players on that
team were playing out their last years of Legion ball (a few signing big league
contracts) and while in Catalina completely tore the place apart and were
kicked out of our hotel the second night, kicked out of our second hotel the
third night and kicked off the island the fourth day.
Dad’s words to
the boys when they got off the ferry at the dock in Catalina were, “You boys
get as much snaff and boogair as you can, but don’t get thrown in jail.”
I tagged along
with my best friend, Jimmy Henrich, son of our Junior High coach at Roosevelt
and Dad’s assistant, Ed Henrich, (His oldest son, Bob Henrich, signed a big
bonus with Cincinnati) and watched these guys get drunk, peroxide their hair
blond, chase women, brawl with guys from certain parts of LA, and generally
represent rowdy Compton in a manner described by islanders as “the most
horrible representatives of American youth ever seen.”
In 1956, Dad and
the team nearly repeated, and this year, with a thirteen year old at second
base on our first game before a full house at night, Dad was introduced to the
crowd from the press box as former Detroit Tiger and Hollywood Star and coach
of past Anaheim tournament champions and received a rousing ovation to which he
came out of the dugout and doffed his cap; the Dodgers hadn’t come out from the
east yet and he was still a hero.
So far, his kid
had held his own. I was choking up on a 35 inch 35 ounce Nellie Fox coke-bottle shaped model bat, standing on
top of the plate like Nellie, and chipping away, not quick enough yet to pull
heat but managing to whack a few shots up the middle and into right field. When
I came to bat my first time, I was introduced as the son of Murray Franklin,
and I ground my teeth and seethed. My Dad coached third base. He clapped his
hands. His uniform fit him perfectly with his socks high at the knees, while
his kid wore his uniform baggy with his socks low like Mickey Mantle. Our
relationship had evolved to my working for him in his store as a means of
learning the business and earning a little money, which gave me independence,
and realizing I was not in agreement with everything he said and did, and thus
we argued, and I was accused of being disrespectful and a wise-ass and when he
snapped and snarled at me suddenly spurting venom, I felt myself gorged with
visions of retaliation but had none, and therefore talked back and was chased,
gleefully discovering that since I had become the fastest white kid of my age
group in Compton, he could no longer catch me.
Yet all was
different on the ball field. Dad was king and never to be disputed. You gave
him a long look when he gave signs. Just by watching him coach and talk
throughout the game you learned invaluable baseball knowledge. Of this I was
still in awe, and after grounding out my first time at bat, I settled down and
played well enough as we won our first two games with a younger team lacking
the older prospects of the past two years.
Dad was coaching
several young kids around my age, including Jimmy, and two of our team mates,
Pat Pomeroy, who Dad felt was a natural hitter with a major league arm, and Ken
Bowlin, a rangy pitcher, already a prospect with a live fastball and good
control and a cocky attitude—quarterback on our Roosevelt football team, on
which I was a halfback. The four of us hung together and played over-the-line
baseball at Roosevelt, two-on-two basketball and tag football, cussed and talked
pussy though only Jimmy seemed to be getting anywhere with the budding teenage
girls in skintight skirts who chewed gum and tried to ignore our awkward and
obnoxious attempts at conversation. Among the four, I was by far the most
backward and ineffective, a drooling drooler..
Dad referred to
us as “The Four Stooges.”
Bowlin and I did
not like each other, though we weren’t enemies. He hinted I was the privileged
son of a former big leaguer and had all the advantages. The fact we were team
mates was our only bond, unlike with Jim, who was my best friend and fellow
baseball junky. We were playing a heated football game at Roosevelt the day
before our third game when Ken and I, opponents, got into a vile argument and
he said something referring to me and my father and I attacked him, had him
back-pedaling as I snorted fire, and just as I was about to punch him again he
threw the football as hard as he could at my face and when I put up my hands to
block it red hot pain seared through my thumb as I hit the ground clutching my
wrist and staring at a thumb that had dislocated to the other side of my hand—a
sight so grotesque nobody could look at it.
In agony, I
sprinted a half mile to my dad’s store, barged in and he took me immediately to
the emergency room, where the doc took an x ray and then lay me down while the
three stooges looked on as Dad held me down. The doc pushed and jiggled until
he wrenched the thumb back into place. I took no pain killers. He put a cast on
me. Bowlin delivered a weak apology. Dad just stared at him, said nothing. He
knew about Bowlin—he hung with Ron Bart, now 16 and huge, our first baseman and
starting tackle going both ways on the Compton High football team, and now a
virulent racist whose hatred of blacks was never hidden as he referred to and
used the word “nigger” like a bludgeon. He had a car, and Bowlin drove around
with him.
So I sat in the
dugout with a cast on my left hand while Dad coached our young team to the
final game, until we were beaten by a huge bonus baby from Chaffey, Larry
Maxie, who threw big league heat and was headed straight to the big time until,
like a lot of kids, hurt his arm and labored in the minors for years.
The kid who took
over second, a Mexican kid named Franco Cruz, played great, and Dad asked at
the dinner table, “You think you’d’ve held up to the pressure like he did?”
Franco played great defense, turned double-plays, but
couldn’t hit, and didn’t hit.
I wasn’t sure,
but of course I told him yes.
“I think so,
too,” Dad said. Then he stared at me for a few seconds. “You think you could
have hit that big kid, Maxie? He struck out seventeen of us and we only got two
hits. He throws as hard as most big leaguers.”
“Well, he
wouldn’t strike me out.”
Dad glanced at
mom and Susie, winked; then offered me the slightest of grins. “That’s my boy.
Guard that dish!”
(Next Sunday
installment: Big Moe’s Crusade.)
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