The Ball Player's Son

                                  UP AGAINST THE BIG BOYS

1958

     I was nervous about my debut against grown men in winter league ball. I was still a skinny kid of around 145 pounds and what had saved me as a coltish brat playing against fully grown teenagers was my ability to hit a fastball with the quick level compact swing my dad had taught me and stressed over and over; a philosophy of hitting that was simplified to succeed in the hardest, most complicated endeavor in all of sports—hitting a baseball hurled at you at various speeds from various angles involving curves and drops meant to baffle and defeat you. I stood close to the plate to protect the outside corner. My bat was ready just above my shoulder, wrists cocked, elbow down. I took a short stride. I kept my back foot planted. With two strikes I choked up on the bat and “guarded the dish,” determined to fight the bastard on the mound as a mortal enemy. I seldom struck out and felt almost deranged with anger when I did. To me, the batters box was my private domain. My identity was of a hitter, a “stick,” even if I had not yet acquired power

    “That’ll come,” Dad told me. “Take your vitamins and swing the weighted bat and the line drives’ll carry farther.”

     A huge ex catcher in the Boston organization named Marco, who ran the Red Sox winter league team for Joe Stephenson, picked me up at our house in Compton. A kindly man, he looked me over and fished a Red Sox uniform out of the trunk of his car. It was at least a size too big for me, but I was awed by it. He drove to a stadium in Huntington Park, explaining I would hit batting practice, take infield, and probably get in the game around the seventh or eighth inning.

     When I jogged onto the field, after meeting and shaking the hand of the large, bearish, cigar chomping ex catcher and now head scout, Joe Stephenson, who was in street clothes, I felt like a skittish ragamuffin among grown men who’d played in the low minors and were still members of the Boston farm system. Marco told me some of the players had already been released and were trying to hook back on and re-sign. They were slick and quick and had stronger arms than me, and glanced in my direction with what I felt was amusement tinged with disdain. I wore my socks low and pants baggy. My cap fit low over my eyes. I needed a haircut. Dad sometimes mentioned that I did not take enough pride in looking like a ball player in my uniform, which was “bush,” and perhaps a negative reflection or perhaps an embarrassment on him.

     A tall skinny kid who could have been my age but did look like a ball player in a perfectly fitting uniform, stared at me in a slightly irreverent manner as he warmed up with a catcher. Watching him throw, it was evident he was a pitcher, and there was about him an aura of cocky confidence, like HE was destined for greatness. I had to step in and warm up with two infielders to get loose, neither of whom invited me. I relished the idea of being seen by fellow players as a joke; I would show them!

     After watching the pros whistle line drives all over the field, and fly balls to and over the fences, and flagging down their hard grounders at second, I tried too hard in batting practice and felt embarrassed at pulling so many high bounces and foul balls. I was over anxious. Marco, pitching BP, kept urging me to relax, stop trying to kill the ball.

     When the game started, I was on the bench, and sat in a far corner of the dugout away from the bat rack and the horseplay among tobacco chewers and cussers who’d played together for years. Finally, the lanky kid who’d sized me up in a superior manner sat down beside me. A left-handed hitter, and right-handed thrower, he’d hit the ball well in BP. He offered his hand, and we shook. “Jerry Stephenson,” he said. “I’m Joe’s kid. You’re Murray Franklin’s kid, huh?” When I nodded, he smiled. He had fine features and intelligent eyes and beneath his coolness a high-strung energy. “Ball player’s son, like me. They kind of resented me at first, too,” he said, nodding toward the players. “But now they’re cool. Don’t sweat it. You got a nice stroke at the plate, very unique. Your Dad teach you that?”

     I nodded. We started talking, like instant good friends. Jerry, too, played Legion ball at 14 and held his own. He said his Dad started him out as a pitcher as soon as he could walk. As we talked, we watched the game, and, as innings passed, tension rose as I anticipated my chance. In the seventh inning, Marco called us over and told Jerry to pitch and put me at second.

     Jerry showed unusual poise and command of his pitches. His technique was perfection and his fastball had movement and his curveball was more a slider and had bite. Nothing was hit to me. At the plate I faced a hard throwing right-handed low minor leaguer. After timing his warm-ups, I choked up on the bat and rifled his first pitch past his ear into centerfield and tore down the line, rounding first and faking to go to second. Marco, coaching first, clapped his hands.

     “That’s the stroke, kid. You’re a singles-doubles hitter.”

     When the game was over (I did not get up again) Marco told me to keep the uniform and he’d pick me up the following Saturday; Joe Stephenson, standing beside Jerry, puffing his cigar, meaty face inscrutable, nodded at me. Later that night, at the dinner table, I was nonchalant when I told Dad I was one for one (a rope). Ho looked at my mother and nodded, then winked at me.

     “That’s my boy.”

     (Next Sunday installment: “Rip City.”