A WASTED SUMMER

1960

     During the summer I worked for Dad and played American Legion ball for West Anaheim. Three mornings a week I followed Dad in my Chevy to arrive at the store at 7:30, where a dozen or so shoemakers awaited him in eager anticipation of donuts, coffee and kibitzing, Dad’s mood was instant sunshine the second he arrived, no matter how worried or pissed off he was about other matters. These men were not customers of Dad, but friends whose life breath was attuned to their morning visits, which were lively and full of laughter and gossip, led by Dad, who always had new stories, jokes and “hot poop.” He made a fuss over each shoemaker, as if they were special, and it occurred to me that they were, and that he found something in everybody to appreciate or like, even his so-called “Cheap Sams” who squabbled over every cent and felt they were getting screwed; even the characters lacking any amiable traits, even the assholes.

     When Dad became nervous and flustered during hectic rushes when we wrote up orders together, I often went too fast and he occasionally lashed out and sometimes exploded at me to “slow down and stop making mistakes,” because any tiny mistake was a catastrophe of massive proportions and drove him into rages. I yelled back at him and he threatened me and I held my ground, knowing to back off from the beast was total submission, and we went chin to chin in blood-curdling, snarling-dog screaming matches, driving his beloved shoemakers outside or to the back of the store until the two of us cooled off and acted like the confrontation never took place, like a switch was turned on and off, and as the shoemakers trickled back to the big wide counter up front business resumed as usual, as if nothing so volatile had occurred, almost as if these grimy, hard-working mostly Italian American men were used to it and even understood and enjoyed the spectacle.

     When Dad asked what I wanted to be paid, I told him to give me what I deserved or the minimum wage. He insisted I was worth more than the minimum wage despite being a chronic pain in the ass because I did work hard and besides needed a little extra money—for the girls. But I had no girl friend. Most of the girls at Western High looked upon me as a clown-around-baseball player or a morose idler in class, staring at breasts and asses and fantasizing. Whenever I worked up enough courage to talk to a girl in hope of perhaps making a date, I was gruff and blurted out questions or statements, not about to be some mawkish lover-boy kissing ass, and was doubtlessly regarded as a pestilence. Oh well.

     I began boozing with Sturrock, who’d graduated and worked steel downtown days, and a Legion pitcher named Mike Shaw, who worked for his Dad who managed a drugstore. We found any number of local drunks to buy us beer and Southern Comfort and drove around with no special destination or direction in the flat drab O.C. wastelands, chowing down on burgers and talking sports and women, though both these guys were already hog-tied by girls who had planned their lives together since junior high and kept a tight wary eye on them to make sure they didn’t stray, distrusting me as a threat to their dreams.

     Our American Legion team was as big a mess as the high school crew, with a sprinkling of Junior varsity players and John Huarte, a jut-jawed All American high school football quarterback from a nearby Catholic school. A pitcher with mediocre stuff, he was a phenomenal football player headed to Notre Dame and the Heisman trophy and became our unquestioned leader who tried not to show his disgust when we flailed miserably and I continued kicking at things and flipping my bat and cursing savagely, feeling like a penitent little boy beside John, who was the epitome of excellence and character. But I couldn’t help myself, was like a tortured dog biting himself up and down

gnawing at fleas.

     Our coach, Frank Blunt, a tall bulgy man who loved baseball but had never played much and knew less, was too intimidated by my being the son of Murray Franklin to offer me advice on how to play and conduct myself. He’d enlisted an assistant coach named Bill Lentini, a small, curly-headed man with intense brown eyes who owned a tire store in Stanton. Lentini was a street guy who knew little about baseball, had never played much, but, like Blunt, was so in love with the game he donated free balls and bats and helped run practices. He was excited about all aspects of baseball and indeed possessed a visceral instinct about the guts inside a player, and a person, and stroked me with flattery every time I screwed up, almost as if he was trying to single-handedly rebuild in me what had been reduced to ashes. Bill became friends with and worked as a bird-dog for Chicago White Sox head scout Doc Bennett and reiterated to me over and over that “You have everything there is to be a great big leaguer—those wrists, those wheels, your instinct…”

     I felt he was making this up to salvage me, but much later I learned he meant it. Meanwhile, I began to consider getting away from baseball for a while and was forced to suspect I lacked some vital ingredient to succeed in this game, a mental make-up that held me back, which caused me to lose hope when things went bad, to get too down on myself and distrust the encouragement of a generous, compassionate man like Lentini. 

     But without baseball, what would I do, and what was my life, other than a passage not worth living? And how would Dad feel about his son being a quitter?

     (Next Sunday installment: Mr. Korfman plants a seed)

                              BIRDIE TEBBETTS—BENCH JOCKEY

BIG MOE

     Birdie Tebbetts was a fine catcher and a pretty fair hitter and knew the game inside out, and especially pitchers. He knew just how much gas a guy had left in his tank, when he was losing his stuff and ready to get shelled, and he could get on guys pretty good, really get under your skin. He was smart and had a piercing, twangy voice, which was why they called him “Birdie,” an obnoxious, irritating voice that carried all over the field and cut right through you, and he had a sarcastic way of saying things that always got your goat—he was a first rate needler, a sniper, an original, maybe the best in the game. He was what you call a bench jockey, a lost art these days, what with all these guys making so much money and swapping teams and having agents and fraternizing like bosom buddies, being so sensitive and all and not wanting to hurt each others feelings.

     One day in St. Louis Tebbetts was on a pitcher with the Browns named Vern Kennedy, a guy he’d caught a few years earlier with Detroit, a strapping guy from Kansas, a former track star and football player. It was very hot, sweltering, and it doesn’t get any hotter than it does in St. Louis in the summer. You can’t breathe on a day like that, the outfield grass is baked brown and the field hard as concrete, almost like the field breathes fire. Birdie was riding Kennedy. At first it was playful, because they were old team mates and all, but then Kennedy started struggling, and Birdie’s saying he ain’t got this and he ain’t got that, “you’ll be gone by the fourth inning, Kennedy, your fastball’s straight as a string, you’re dead meat…,” just sniping away, and sure enough Kennedy doesn’t have it that day, gets knocked around, and by the fourth inning he’s gone, and Birdie’s crowing and gloating, and Kennedy, he’s sopping wet, got beat up for a bunch of runs suffering in that heat, watching line drives whistle past him and bounce off the fence and guys circling the bases, and he gets an unmerciful booing when he walks to the dugout.

     Birdie’s on the bench that day, not catching, and he keeps right on crowing and gloating when Kennedy walks to the dugout. But instead of leaving for the clubhouse and taking an early shower, like all pitchers do after they get their brains beat out, Kennedy sits down in that stifling hot dugout with a towel around his neck and takes his cap off, and he sits there like that for the rest of the game, and all during that time Birdie sees him over there and stays on his ass. Well, out ball club has to get to our clubhouse through their dugout, and when the game ends and we pass through their dugout, it’s empty except for Kennedy, who’s still sitting there, towel around his neck, a very quiet and polite gentleman who minds his own business and never has anything bad to say about anybody. He stands up and asks Birdie if he has anything more to say, and before Birdie can open his mouth Kennedy decks him with one punch, knocks him down and out, hits him so hard that for a minute or so we think he might be dead.

     Kennedy picks up his glove and cap and walks out of the dugout, the towel still around his neck, and we carry Tebbetts into the clubhouse and lay him down on the training table where the doc attends to him, gives him the smelling salts. He’s pretty groggy, and the next day he’s pretty quiet, and misses the game, and everybody on the club’s on his ass, calling him “:one punch Tebbetts” and “Old Canvas back.” He took it pretty well in stride. Birdie knew the business and took it as well as he gave it out, and the next time we played the Browns and Kennedy pitched, Birdie got on him again, but he made sure to stay away from the personal stuff, and nothing came of it.

(Next Sunday installment: A Wasted Summer and a respite)

                                           TRYING TO BE THE MAN

1960

     The ball field at Western High was second rate and the school without athletic legacy, had been converted from a junior high. Our first practice coach Merk put me at shortstop. I felt quicker, faster, stronger, and watched my batting practice grounders eat infielders up. We started out the pre-league schedule winning four straight and because we had nowhere near the talent of Compton, I felt it was my responsibility to lead the team by example and production. I was an established prospect and played with swagger, knowing I made a difference. We were excited about being league contenders instead of perennial doormats. I was the “Big Dog,” perhaps to my new team mates a savior, seasoned by continuous winter league play with the Red Sox, with other prospects like Andy Etchebarren. I was almost “there.”

     We continued winning in league play and were to play undefeated Anaheim at La Palma Park—their home field—in a game highly publicized in the Orange County Register. Anaheim was strong, with a great tradition, led by Stephenson and a gifted shortstop, big, raw-boned Frank Peters, a kid with enormous hands and a cerebral application to the game. Frank, a power hitter, also played winter ball for Boston and alternately exchanged banter with me as we vied for playing time. He accused me of being a “punch hitter” and told me before the big game, “I got six homers to your one,” and then: “Jerry says he owns you—he knows your weakness.”

     “We’ll see about that,” I countered. “And by the way, how many stolen bases you got? I got twelve.”

      I was so pumped for Stephenson, with whom I’d been talking trash for two years, I could hardly breathe when I came up to hit, batting third. As expected, Jerry brushed me back on the first pitch with a ball that hissed by me like a freight train. I grinned and made a show of digging in. He threw me a bunch of sliders away, which I fouled off. He jammed me with a fastball, which I fouled back. Then he froze me with a perfect fastball on the low outside corner, the first pitcher to strike me out all year.

     I was furious, my brain roaring. Anaheim bombed our pitcher. Frank hit a homer into the stands, lumbered past me at short, head down. Stephenson shut us out, got me to hit two weak ground outs. Afterward, Peters paused as he headed toward their team bus as we racked up our equipment. I was smoldering. “Don’t feel bad, Franklin,” he said. “Nobody’s touched Stephenson all year, except me in intra-squad games. Someday I might give you my secret.”

     The Anaheim loss burst our bubble. We went on a losing streak. Our pitching fell to ruins. I tried to do too much, began pressing at the plate and went into a tailspin, feeling responsible for each loss. The more I pressed and fought myself, the worse I played. The stunned and disbelieving looks on my team mates faces gave me pause as to my own sanity when they watched me kick and throw things, fulminating, cursing savagely, losing control of myself and entering a mindless derangement I felt consuming me and which I was helpless to combat or escape. Coach Merk came over and told me to calm down. He seemed concerned, peering at me as if I was some new person he did not recognize. I found myself panting like a mad dog on the verge of frothing at the mouth. What the fuck was happening to me?

     I needed Loman Young to set me straight, as he always had, but now I was the “Man,” a supposed leader, and only Sturrock, whose batting helmet we shared, was furious when I kicked it so hard the bill tore off and he had to face a pitcher with a helmet looking like something a Nazi troop would wear. He let me have it, calling me a “goddam spoiled baby.” This stopped me. He also came over later as I sat seething quietly in the corner of the dugout, put a hand on my shoulder, and said, “I know it means everything to you, but it’s just a game, and I’m worried you’re going to seriously hurt yourself, the way you’re thrashing around.”

     Dad, not able to catch my games very often now that he was working 20 miles away, finally sat me down one night. “You’re so goddam herky-jerky and nervous, I’ve never seen anything like it. Since when do you start throwing things around like a half-cocked busher? You can’t throw your goddam bat every time you make an out. You’re gonna make out six or seven times every ten times at bat, even at this level, because that’s just the way it is. You’re up there fighting yourself after one pitch. You’ve got to stay on an even keel if you’re gonna play this game, Dell. You can’t let the highs and lows destroy you, or you’ll never snap out of a slump. You can’t go hangdog when you’re stinking it up, and you can’t think you invented the game when you’re going good. And goddammit, the worst thing about you acting like a fucking maniac is it’s selfish, you’re only thinking about yourself, and your team mates and your coach’ll end up hating you.” He put a hand on my shoulder. He was genuinely worried. “If the game’s gonna drive you crazy, don’t play, or take a little rest. I mean it.”

     To counter-act what was happening to me—I felt like a prisoner to my moods and emotions—I found myself clowning. In practice, I ran the bases backwards; I imitated a penguin and made crazed slides into bases and had my team mates laughing, though strangely. I realized I possessed a slapstick talent that had people rolling over, holding their bellies. This act seemed to relieve the pressure somewhat and turn my game around, even as my new team mates called me “Cut-up, Flake, Clown, Mad-dog, and Psycho.”

     When we played Anaheim the last game of the year, I no longer felt like the “Man.” I had become over the course of the season some other person. Peters launched another homer and Stephenson shut us down. I made three outs, none hit hard, but didn’t strike out. Anaheim won the league, and it was announced by the public address system after the game that they would enter the state playoffs, representing our Sunset League, and that Peters and Jerry made first team all league. They posed together for the photographer from the O.C. Register. I scooted quickly to the bus, avoiding them.

(Next Sunday installment: “Birdie Tebbetts—the Sniper.”)

                            OFF THE BLOCK AND INTO THE SUBURBS

1960

     There was sudden upheaval in my life as we moved into a 3 bedroom home in the planned suburb of Rossmoor, which was on the fringe of Orange County and had no downtown, no community center, no churches or stores or gyms, no blacks, Mexicans or hooligan white trash, no crazed dogs chasing you or your car down the street, only identical freshly minted homes in a perfectly symmetrical town-size grid—a sprawling mosaic walled in and isolated from the world. All the trees were new and small. The streets seemed deserted and devoid of the hum and babble of block life, where everybody knew everybody. There was no visible dissension among the white collar families slipping in and out of electrically opening and closing garage doors in their shiny sedans and station wagons. I was exiled from all I’d ever known and sentenced to this strange and utterly vapid utopia that had me unnerved  and feeling like I’d lost all individuality and identity. Nobody waved to me, asked how I was doing in baseball, or how my parents were. I had no crew to run with.

     Worst of all, I would not be playing at Compton High, beside my pals, Paul Schaal and Loman Young, where I was established as an important entity.

     I now attended Western High in Anaheim, a cross town rival of Anaheim High, where Jerry Stephenson starred. I drove eight miles to school in my jalopy. The Orange County kids were cheerful, wholesome, directed, white, the school work harder than at Compton, where many of the black kids migrated from inferior black schools in the south. The baseball coach, Roy Merk, a compact, bald man, rose quickly when I entered his trophy laden office and shook my hand, welcomed me to his program, informed me Coach Edgmon had called and given him a glowing report on my character and baseball skills.

     “He didn’t need to,” Coach Merk said, smiling. “I saw you play in the Anaheim tournament. You’re a helluva a ball player. We’re more than pleased to have you aboard. I think you’ll like our kids and we’ll have a pretty good team.” I was already aware that their team last year had been terrible.

     While we talked, a stocky kid with coke-bottle glasses and a big friendly grin came into the office, and I was introduced to the football team starting guard and baseball catcher, Dave Sturrock, a senior. We shook hands.

     “I saw you play at LaPalma. You’re a great player. I can’t wait for baseball season to start. And hey, I grew up in LA and idolized your Dad when he played for the Stars. I’d be honored to meet him. I’ve still got his autograph from Gilmore Field.”

     It wasn’t long before Sturrock was at the house meeting Dad, who now drove 20 miles to work. By the time baseball season arrived, I’d met all the varsity players through Dave, my immediate good friend, and more than a few of them made the pilgrimage to meet Dad, who regaled them with baseball stories while they admired his silver bat. Gone from our walls were the framed baseball pictures that filled our den in Compton. Our new modernistic furniture was uncomfortable. Mother was now school nurse at Bolsa Grande high school in nearby Garden Grove. Susie took a bus to school.

     In Rossmoor, everybody seemed well dressed and well off, except me, as I still wore rags. Our neighbors prevailed in a sort of smugness, as if they had achieved a level in society higher than ordinary folks like those in Compton. I felt alienated. Something brewed inside me that I was struggling to comprehend—an attitude of denial I was part of this plasticized cornucopia, and a rancorous disdain for what so many had aspired to all their lives—the American Dream and all its luxurious trappings. I despised this place; it made me feel squeamish. I wanted no part of it. I itched to get away from it so I could breathe again. I refused to go into our pool, of which Dad, though no swimmer, was so proud.

      When I tried to explain my new feelings to Mom, she said, “You’ll adjust and make new friends and everything will work out. You’ll discover that people are essentially the same everywhere and observing them and getting to know them will enlighten you. Change can be good.”

      When Dad sensed my discontent and asked what was eating me, I shrugged, and said I couldn’t stand Rossmoor. He seemed confused. “All I ever wanted is to give you a better life, Dell, and better things than I had.”

     “I don’t want any of it, Dad—it’s bullshit.”   

     He just stared at me, as if to say, “Is this my fucking kid?”

     (Next Sunday installment: “Trying to be the Man.”)