BEANED

1959

     Our Bellflower American Legion team played a little better than .500 ball and finished in the middle of the pack in our league. Not much was expected of us in the 80 team prestigious Anaheim tournament at La Palma Park. We didn’t have enough pitching, or a prospect at that position. Our prospects being scouted were Schaal, Milt Swift and me. At bat I had run into a brief slump and Dad had me hit an hour of pepper, just meeting the ball, running the choked up knob end of the bat through my wrists and forearms, a training exercise to induce me into keeping my right shoulder level and my top right hand following through. He told me I was being too anxious, and although it was alright to be aggressive, I didn’t need to be jumping at the ball with my quick wrists; I could wait.

     We won our first two night games and I hit several line drive singles and doubles and the scouts in the stands picked me as shortstop on the regional all star team. I stayed overnight at Jerry Stephenson’s house the night before our next game. We spent the entire day working out. I had dinner with his huge family. Then we were up all night talking baseball, baseball, baseball. I got very little sleep. We kept going on and on about our dads, this player, that player, whether they were in high school, college, the minors, majors. Both of us wanted to sign baseball contracts out of high school. Jerry was an excellent student, I just got by making B’s.

     That night we played Torrance. They had a very tall right-handed pitcher who threw hard, but he couldn’t get his curve over and my first two times up I whistled line drives past his ear into center, knocking in runs. He had a slow move to first and I stole bases on him. My third time up I didn’t pick up a fastball high and in quick enough and the ball smashed into the bottom-back of my head and helmet and sounded like an explosion going off inside my skull. Next thing I remember was sitting in the dirt trying to get up, my Dad and coach urging me to stay down, stay down…I refused and stood up when a doctor came down.

     I was not wobbly. My helmet had ended up at the screen behind home plate and was partially shattered. Dad and coach wanted me out of the game. The doc wanted to look into my eyes. We were ahead in the game. I don’t know why, but I started to go after the pitcher, who was apologetic and back-pedaled. Dad grabbed me.

     “He wasn’t throwing at you. You lost the ball in the lights. Leave that kid alone, he’s as shook up as you are.”

     I shrugged Dad off and sprinted to first base. The ump came over to ask was I okay. I told him I was fine. My ears rang and my brain buzzed, like a faraway ocean. Otherwise I was fine and stole second base. The pitcher, a prospect, was so shook up he walked three straight hitters, not coming close, always outside, and they took him out. When I came up next, I felt my ass oozing out of the box. I didn’t step out. I swung at the first pitch and blooped the ball into right for a single. But I realized I was flailing to get the hell out of the box as the public address announcer boomed out I was the son of Murray Franklin and I got a huge ovation from a packed house as I stood on first.

     After the game, Dad told me I should have taken the first pitch. Mother was irate at my staying in the game and wanted to take me to the hospital for x rays. I refused.

     “You don’t have to be like your Dad!” she scolded.

     Dad said, “He’s okay now. He knows what to do. This might never happen to him again.”

     My pals who didn’t play baseball were often in awe of my style of hugging the plate and almost daring the pitcher to come in tight on me. I tried to explain to them that hitting and all that went with it, including getting away from balls at your head and body, were just part of it, and though a huge part of it, something I was used to, and that wearing a helmet added a whole new dimension to fighting the fear every hitter felt when he watched a hard thrower warm up or stood in against a wild flame-throwing prospect where the ball literally hissed as it jumped that last foot into the catchers mitt and made that resounding pop echoing throughout the stadium.

     This was the ultimate challenge and why I played, why I could not wait to test my courage and dig in against these pricks with the “serious terrifying velocity and heat,” and who reveled in intimidating you, like Jerry Stephenson, who told me more than once that he would “dust” me if he faced me because of my aggressive, arrogant crowding of the plate. Jerry, while warming up before high school and American Legion games, always fired a wild pitch over the catchers head from the mound as the first hitter stood by, to “plant a seed” in that hitter and his team mates minds.

     Our next game I was fine. I took a pitch. I realized my initial response would be to jump at that first pitch to convince myself and whoever was watching that I was not frightened, but I was frightened, and fought it off. I pretended I was playing pepper, just tried to calm down, stay back and meet the ball, and stroked a single to left.

    But we lost the game and were eliminated from the tournament, and so I did not make the all tournament team as the only shortstop out of 80, and realized also that though I had more range and quickness than the other shortstops in contention, and had a quicker release of the ball, they all had stronger arms than me, powerful “major league ready” arms, which I did not. I had big time major league speed and range, something Dad said could not be taught or coached, but he also added you couldn’t teach or coach a stronger arm either—you either had it or you didn’t. I was determined to overcome this deficiency. At any cost.

     (Next Sunday installment: Off the Block and into the Suburbs)