RIP CITY

1958

     The following Saturday after my debut in winter ball, Marco picked me up and drove to the ball park at UCLA. Again I struggled in batting practice, took a snappy infield at second base, pinch hit against a minor league lefty and roped a shot into left center for a long single. The guys in the dugout jumped up and cheered me. Then, after tearing around the bases and sliding under the catcher’s tag to score, they were all laughing. Marco exclaimed, “Some guys are batting practice hitters, some guys are gamers. Franklin’s a gamer, the kid’s hitting a grand!”

     Next at bat I walked and scored again. I made plays in the field. When Marco dropped me off at home, Dad, after working all day (he was putting in close to 70 hours a week), was waiting. “Kid’s doing great,” Marco told him. “Takin’ some good licks at the plate, like his old man.”

     After Marco left, Dad asked me what I hit. I told him fastball.

     “They probably figured they could throw it by you, because you look like a pipsqueak. Now that they know they can’t, they’ll start curving you. You’re hitting minor league heat. You’ll tear it up in high school.”

     The following Saturday Marco drove us to Amerige Park in Fullerton, a spacious yard with long fences. I hit better BP and this time faced a young prospect with serious heat and chipped off several pitches before lashing a blue darter between third and short. High-tailing it down the line, I heard one of my team mates shout, “Nobody can get that child out!”

     Jerry, who went to Anaheim high, pitched well, a prodigy. Joe, watching both of us, nodded at me, puffing his cigar. So far he’d said nothing to me—man was like a Buddha.

     The following Saturday we played at Blair Field in Long Beach, a beautiful facility that was the first that winter to have a clubhouse. Marco claimed it was as good as most Triple-A league ball parks. Walking into the clubhouse, I felt a keen sense of excitement, as if I was back in the Hollywood Star clubhouse, only this time as a player. We were to play the Pittsburg Pirate winter team.

     “Gonna face some real heat today, Franklin,” Marco told me. “Couple of their pitchers are on the Pirate roster. I’ll get you in against them, see if those guys can get you out.” He grinned at me.

     My stomach rumbled. As always, I sat with Jerry, watching the game, talking baseball, chewing my gum furiously. The Pirate pitcher was a lanky black man, a spot starter and reliever with the Pirates.

     “This guy throws harder than anybody we’ve seen all year,” Jerry told me. The Pittsburg team built an early lead. The Pirate shortstop, Bob Bailey, was a local Long Beach phee-nom, a high school sophomore like me, but a year older than me and already fully developed and built like a grown man. He was better than his reputation as a future bonus baby and hit a towering homerun to left-center and ran it out like it was no big deal. Meanwhile, the Pirate pitcher stayed in the game, because he was mowing people down and throwing a no hitter. They brought me in to pinch hit in the top of the eighth. I choked up on my 35 inch 35 ounce bat two inches and nicked a whistling fastball at my chest. I figured he had no respect for a skinny kid with a uniform hanging on him like sack-cloth, and could blow me down with heat. I fought off several fastballs and finally sliced one foul down the right field line. My team mates rooted me on.

     I was beginning to time him and worked the count full, still waiting for his big curve and excellent change-up, but he threw me another chest-high fastball and I tomahawked it on a vicious line over the shortstop into leftfield, a one bounce single. I grabbed my cap as I tore down the line and rounded first, which I’d never done before. I’d vaguely heard whooping from my team mates. Jerry, from the top step of the dugout, yelled, “Franklin, you’re the worst looking ball player on the field, but nobody can get you out!” The pitcher glowered at me as he shuffled off the mound, shaking his head. Bailey stared at me from short. “Christ, the worst hitter on the team breaks up the no hitter.”

     The umpire at second based sidled up to him. “Hey, nobody’s got that kid out in a month. He’s the real thing.”  Up in the stands, where I shouldn’t have been looking on strict orders from my Dad, I spotted Dad sitting beside Joe Stephenson and Ed Hughes, a big nosed rumpled man who was the head Pittsburg scout. The game went into extra innings. I walked twice and scored twice. We won. Afterwards, Dad drove me home. It was the first time he’d managed to get to one of my games, because he was making a delivery to a shoemaker in Long Beach.

     “I got there just as you broke up the no-hitter. When you rounded first and took off your cap, I got chills up my spine, because that’s what I did when I got a hit off Satchel Paige and broke up his no hitter as a twenty year old college hotdog. That’s the only time I took off my cap. I’m still tingling. It’s all in the genes. I’m a believer in that.”

     (Next Sunday installment: Big Moe faces Lefty Grove)