COACH MAKES ME RESPONSIBLE

1961

     Coach Merk pulled Angus and me into his office before our first practice, and sitting at his desk, feet propped up, said, “I know you two don’t give a hoot and hell about school and I know you’re running amuck. Well, here’s my advice: If you’re going to skip class, don’t get caught, and make sure you do enough to stay eligible. We’re going to have a great team this year if we get any kind of pitching and you two knuckleheads stay out of trouble.” We promised in unison to stay out of trouble. Then coach looked me in the eye. “I’m moving you to second base, so you’ll be more relaxed. At second, you can become the best ball player in the league, in any league anywhere. Dell, you have unique insights into the game, a second sense, so I’m giving you the green light at the plate and on the bases. I’m also making you, along with our catcher, Gary Martin, co-captain. I expect you to lead this team and set an example. You know what to do. I believe in you.”

     All business, I began running practices for coach. No more clowning. Angus, Martin and I were the first ones on the field, hauling out the equipment, playing pepper while the rest of the team straggled out. I pitched batting practice until coach had his pitchers prepared. Some of the JV’s who played Legion ball were improved, and we had some decent arms on the mound, though nobody special. When the pre-league schedule began, we pounded good teams from large schools. I hit third and Angus clean-up. I held my temper at all costs but still cussed and drew complaints from a couple religious members who recoiled with distaste when I wrathfully informed them cussing and talking about pussy and insulting team mates was a vital part of the game.

     Coach remained mum when I blistered team mates for dogging it or playing stupid. I began to execute with discipline and key into every situation, every hitter. I crowded the plate with belligerence. Our flashy new shortstop, Roy Nash, who had good hands and a cannon for an arm, grudgingly accepted my harsh goading as we worked for hours on the doubleplay. I encouraged and chastised him. A finicky switch-hitter with a picture-book swing but a hole in it inside, he took too many good pitches, and I knocked him down in BP when he took a strike and nagged him constantly to be a “fucking hitter and swing the bat, stop being a goddam beggar!”

     In games, I took gigantic leads and either bluffed a steal or stole. My speed had improved, allowing me to challenge and outrun all the top sprinters on the track team in spikes. The game was mine again. I was on a mission, riding the crest, capable of doing magical things. I was a frothing animal on the field, wishing to cut the guts out of my opponents, bonding with my team mates like a fanatical Marine. Coach nodded at me, winking. He knew me inside out, knew the best way to handle me was to leave me alone.

     Dad said, “Looks like you’re finally maturing.”

     Our league was one of the strongest in Southern California. Every team had prospects drawing scouts—Stephenson, Peters and a pitcher named Ron Yett at Anaheim; pitcher/shortstop Ed Sukla at Huntington Beach; Rich Rison at Newport Beach; Jim Campanis and a catcher named McCauly at Fullerton; hulking pitcher/outfielder Roy Gleason at Garden Grove; Angus, Nash, myself and a tall, goose-necked outfielder named Tom Quick who had blossomed at Western.

     We started out winning in league and ran neck-and-neck with Anaheim, a team on a crusade as Stephenson dominated like a colossus. Before our first game against them at LaPalma, Peters sidled up to me, unaware I’d made it my personal agenda to hate all opponents, and said, “Guess you’re doing it all this year. Must be less pressure at second, huh? Maybe short was too much responsibility.”

     I walked away. We battled Stephenson and beat him in a tight game. I walked and reached first on an error and unnerved him on the bases, causing a wild pick-off throw, though I still hadn’t got a solid hit off him. After the game, I went out of my way to avoid Jerry and Peters. I was one hard-bitten motherfucker.

     I was choking up on one of 6 of my Dad’s model bats from Hillrich & Bradsby in Louisville that he’d ordered straight from the manufacturing plant and pounding out a plus .400 average, balls exploding off the major league grain and finding gaps in the outfield, my level top-hand swing creating topspin on hard grounders that ate up infielders. I was on a tear. Guys pitched around me, and the Big A feasted—a one-two punch.

     I had not forgotten the day I lost my guts on the doubleplay against Centennial as a sophomore at Compton, a bad dream that still haunted me in the middle of nights. Late in the game against Huntington Beach at La Palma Park in which I’d already pivoted on two doubleplays, a burly football player named Tom Parker—a notorious hard slider—was on first base. Sure enough, our crack thirdbaseman, Mike Mathias, fielded a bouncer and flipped me a strike at second. Parker was on top of me with a big jump, yelling like a Kamikaze and neglecting to slide in an attempt to run me over. I straddled the bag and in one motion turned and released the ball at his face, causing him to dive just short of the bag as the ball carried to first to complete the DP. Parker lay on his side. I stepped over him and jogged off the field as Angus, on the run, slapped me hard on the ass.

     “Fuckin’ A!” he shouted.

     The following day the Orange County Register had a front page photo in the sports section of Parker hurling his body at me while ducking at the last minute as the ball flew an inch from his ear. Under the photo was the caption: “Tom Parker’s rough tactics go for naught as Dell Franklin completes his third doubleplay of the game.”  An accompanying article went on to report I led the league in DP’s, doubles, stolen bases, had made only one error, and struck out once this season. The same game of the three DP’s I roped two doubles. Dad was at the game, sitting with Baltimore and Milwaukee scouts. When I got home that night, he said, “You’re really wracking that pea, but you’re not getting enough steam on your doubleplay relay. You can nail these high school kids, but in the big leagues you need more carry on your peg.”

     “I thought I hung in there pretty good.”

     “You’re supposed to.”

     (Next Sunday installment: “Angus Steers me through the Female Labyrinth”)

                                              TED WILLIAMS DOES IT HIS WAY

Big Moe

     Sometimes Ted would go to a bar in Boston and order milk and wait for a sportswriter to come by, maybe looking for some dirt, and if he was in a real surly mood, being the surly guy he was, he’d show the writer the glass of milk and pour it on his head.

     “Write about that,” he’d say.

     This was one of the few ways he could get back at them. He was fair game, and didn’t play up to anybody, especially writers. Some guys, like Boudreau, went out of their way to accommodate writers and never had anything bad to say about anybody, knew how to hold court and schmooze, and in the long run it helped him and his team, but Williams was the opposite, wouldn’t bow down to anybody and let his hitting do his talking. He didn’t care about getting along with people. He was his own man, and refused to wear a tie and nobody could get him to wear one, not even the President, who he didn’t like anyway, being a dumb-ass republican like Feller.

     As players, we mostly liked him. He was a good guy, a stand-up guy. You couldn’t help but like him. He was like a big kid that wouldn’t grow up, looked like a big gangly kid, even after he hung ‘em up and started getting all those wrinkles from hunting and fishing. He was always gung-ho about the things he liked, and pooh-poohed what he didn’t like, and that was the way it was with him—obstinate, opinionated as hell. If he was going to do something for somebody, he didn’t want anybody, and especially the press, knowing about it. He got enough glory being the greatest hitter in the game. He liked to hobnob with the trainer, the clubhouse man, the grounds-keeping crew at Fenway. He could be himself around those guys, and he made sure to help them out when they had family or financial problems. On the other hand, if you were a big general in the Marines, or a politician, and wanted your picture taken with him, well, he didn’t come to you, you came to HIM, because he kissed nobody’s ass.

     When I played short against him I positioned myself behind second base, because as a left-handed pull hitter he refused to hit to left field, disdaining the “Williams shift” that was originated by Boudreau, who knew Ted was too stubborn to do anything but blast the ball right by you or through you. When I played second I was always in short right field, while York played deep behind first base along the line, and he still ripped rockets by you, hit the ball so hard you had trouble reacting. He hit the ball harder than anybody, and hit it with a topspin that caused the ball to explode off the ground and eat you up, and you’d better by God wear your cup when Ted was hitting! I’ve seen him hit line drives at Briggs Stadium that never got over 12 feet high, caromed off the right field wall and bounced back into the infield for a stand-up single! I remember Ted hitting balls that ricocheted off infielders’ chests and knees, nearly dehorning them, and afterwards he’d stand on first looking up at the scoreboard, knowing the official scorer was a sportswriter, and sure enough the scoreboard would put up an E-3, or E-4, or E-6, and the crowd booed, and he’d glare up at those guys in the press box—Knights of the Keyboard” he called them—and he’d spit in their direction, because he hated them, hated them because they never got it right and were always stirring up trouble and blamed him for everything, including losing to the Yankees year after year when everybody knew the Yankees at that time had the greatest team in baseball and maybe the best ever.

     When the scribes came around the clubhouse fishing for stories, if he wasn’t in the trainer’s room, he insulted them with profanity, called them gutless, stupid, you name it. He always did things the hard way, his way, on purpose, it seemed, losing MVP awards when he hit for a triple crown, and my God, can you believe that? And God knows how many points they took off his lifetime batting average screwing him on errors everybody in the ball park knew were hits. But he didn’t give a damn, because he knew who he was and how good he was. Ted was as difficult as he was brilliant, and who knows, maybe all geniuses at their trade are temperamental pains in the asses.

(Next Sunday installment: Coach makes me Responsible)

                                      ANGUS TAKES CHARGE OF ME

1961

     I was eating lunch at a bench by myself at school when a kid who looked to be around 25 came up and introduced himself as Angus Taylor. He’d heard I was the star baseball player on campus and informed me he’d moved down here from Moose Jaw, Canada to pursue a professional baseball career as a centerfielder. He was stocky with a husky voice, wavy black hair, heavily lidded eyes and a bold, direct manner. I invited him to sit down. He told me he played junior hockey and had a chance to turn pro in that sport, but, much as he loved hockey, he loved baseball more. His family had sold their home and moved everything they owned to this area because it was a baseball hotbed where he had a better chance to “sign.” He said there were hardly any scouts in the vast regions of Calgary, so his family had taken a big gamble for him. His Dad, a plumber, had managed to find a good job and his older brother, a roughneck, worked and lived at home.

     We began hanging out and one afternoon pitched batting practice to each other. He was strong, fairly fleet and graceful, had a level pendulum swing, and did things right. He didn’t have a strong arm. He poked me in the chest afterwards.

     “I hear yer a fuckin’ prima-donna, throwin’ bloody temper tantrums like a little kid. Christ, I wish I had half yer talent. An idgit can see yer a fuckin’ natural. But I ain’t  playin’ with a bloody flake. This is our senior year, and I’m shapin’ yer ass up, because this is OUR team, your team and MY team, and since yer gonna be my best friend, I’m gonna take yer sorry ass under my wing, and we’re gonna win this league and we’re both gonna sign and be playin’ pro ball…okay?”

     Okay. I became his personal project. Right off he accused me of having a negative attitude toward women; and right off it was obvious he had a way with the girls, like it came second nature. “Listen, I’ve got more pussy than you might get in your whole life. I been at it since I was thirteen. I already got my eye on a couple hoo-ers. These babes down here are dynamite compared to the farm heifers back home.” He poked my chest. “Yah just gotta know how to talk to ‘em. You don’t. Yah never look at ‘em when yer talkin’ to ‘em, because a blind man can see yer afraid of girls.”

     “Bullshit.”

     “Oh yes yah are. First of all, yer a decent lookin’ guy, but yah dress like a bum. First impressions mean a lot. And I seen the way yah gawk at that goody-goody Polly Puritan Dawn Meadows. Stay away from that wench, and follow the big A, and I’ll set yah up with a bloody hoo-er, and once yah nail one of them, all ‘of ‘em’ll be after yer scrawny ass if yah throw ‘em a good fuck. All yah gotta do, Dell, is hang out with the big A and let me do the talkin’, and yah’ll get laid.”

     The Big A, like me, didn’t give a hoot for school. We spent our time in pool halls in bowling allies in Orange County, where the big players shot for money. Angus grew up above a tavern and was a crack shot able to run rack after rack in straight pool. He corrected my bridge and taught me how to hustle and soon we were gambling every weekend. Angus befriended perfect strangers with his big innocent and disarming smile and instant charm. We began making money, the Big A always making the final kill against older, more experienced players. “Don’t mess with the A,” he whispered to me after each conquest, his eyes dancing with mischief and conquest.

     When we hunted down girls—mostly gum-chewing twitchy-hipped sophomores in tight dresses who seemed drawn to Angus as if he was Elvis--he watched me act interested in them and try to make friendly conversation, and chastised me afterwards. “Just feed ‘em the Southern Comfort,” he urged. “They don’t give a flyin’ fuck about what you got to say. What yah do is give ‘em a buncha shit, keep ‘em off balance, maybe make ‘em cry, then make up, and then they’re fulla passion, and yah nail ‘em like yah love ‘em, only yah never get stupid and TELL ‘em yah love ‘em, because then they either get bored and drop yah, or they try to trap yer ass in marriage.”

      I didn’t dare admit to him I couldn’t stop thinking about and keeping my eyes off Dawn Meadows of the porcelain skin and perfect posture and prize-winning smile that oozed easy self-confidence and was pursued by student presidents and those already headed for the American Dream success story. I hated myself for being attracted to her and thus ignored her when she said hello to me like I was special--like she did everybody else--and actually snickered, following the Big A’s advice, causing her to pause and stare at me in shock and then purposely ignore me in English class, which I relished.

     Since my Chevy was filthy and cluttered, Angus borrowed his brother’s big roomy smoke-spewing, clanging Packard with the big back seat after he convinced one of his squeezes to talk a friend into going out with me on a double date. When he came to our house my parents looked him over pretty well and he talked baseball with Dad. Mother winked at me and said Angus had “the devil in his baby blue eyes.” Dad was thrilled I had a baseball buddy, mentioned that Angus was much more mature than me, felt he was “good for me.”

     “Yer Dad, he’s something,” Angus said, heading to the home of a couple sophomore vixens with a trunk full of Southern Comfort and Beer bought by his brother Bill. “I can see how yah ended up such a great ball player with a Dad like that, but Dell, if I were you I’d sign and get out from under his shadow and play ball a thousand miles away.”

    (Next Sunday installment: Ted Williams Does it HIS way).

                                        MR. KORFMAN PLANTS A SEED

    

1960

     Without consulting Dad or Joe Stephenson, I decided to take winter ball off, but Dad was more disgusted with my grades in school than not playing baseball, wanting me to go to college like he did. My grades sunk to below C as I shirked my studies. I wanted no part of school. My only meager talent seemed to be in English, where my teacher, Mr. Robert Korfman, a square fuddy-duddy in vested suits and bow ties, exercised no-nonsense control over his class while verbalizing a passion for literature that was not to be compromised. He shocked me by reading one of my compositions of fans at a ball game to the class. Students roared with laughter and hung on every word, unlike with other readings, where they yawned and dawdled. Girls, and especially a popular beauty named Dawn Meadows, who’d previously cringed at the sight of me as I slouched in the back, actually turned to smile at me, like I was an actual human instead of a deadly disease.

     Mr. Korfman, a Kansan, had me stay after class and looked me in the eye and chastised me gently for being so “tunneled into baseball at the exclusion of everything else,” an anti-intellectual charade he found “childish and mindless.” Wow!

     “Sit down, Dell Franklin.” I complied, clutching my ragged notebook. “You, my fine-feathered friend, are NOT just a jock. You’re a writer, whether you like it or not. You possess all the sensibilities and instincts of a writer, even if you are so confined in your development you can only write about buffoons sitting in the bleachers at ball games. You have a rare gift. Don’t waste it being a one-dimensional person. The fact that you’re a terrible student should not matter if you pursue a passion for reading and writing. You might even surprise yourself some day. Sometimes the most errant kids, the worst students, the most mixed up souls, go on to do great things in the arts.”

     Despite myself, I was flattered. “So what should I do, Mr. Korfman?”

     “There’s a creative writing class run by Mrs. Rogers. I can recommend you and you can pay her a visit. The class has been going on for a couple months, and some of the students are skilled and been writing seriously since they were young. But none of them have what you have…” He smacked his gut. “I see a seed growing there. Water it. And when you report to Mrs. Rogers, be sure to make an effort to be humble. Tell her you want to write. I’ll put in a good word for you. I’m counting on you now.”

     I was inspired by Mr. Korfman. I did like writing. It went hand-in-hand with my propensity to entertain, embellish, fabricate, relate stories from what I’d observed on a daily basis, like Dad, who was a riotous story teller at Hot Stove meetings. Often I amused Sturrock and Shaw with tales of the shoemakers at the store and off-beat characters I’d seen in Compton.

     When I reported to Mrs. Rogers, a heavy woman who wore baggy dresses, she immediately informed me it was too late to enter her hand-picked class of budding prodigies who worked on the school paper, the yearbook, were members of the poetry club, and entered fiction contests.

     “What have you written so far, Mr. Franklin?”

     I explained my baseball piece written for Mr. Korfman. She sighed, rolled her eyes. “There’s simply too much work to make up.”

     “Ma’am, how many assignments would I have to make up?”

     “Several essays and two short stories.”

     “I’ll do them all tonight. I’m a fast worker. I’ve got ideas.”

     “I’ll have to talk to Mr. Korfman.” She dismissed me.

     Next day, Mr. Korfman informed me Mrs. Rogers wanted no part of me in her class. He was smiling at me. “She finds you exceedingly arrogant and feels you’ll be disruptive. So you see, Dell, perhaps you will learn a lesson. You should have said you’d TRY and write the assignments you were behind on in a few days or a week, and you wished to write about subjects other than baseball, instead of bowling her over with your confidence.”

     “I was going to write about a bunch of shoemakers, sir. With all due respect for one of your fellow teachers, Mrs. Rogers is a pompous snob.”

     He erupted into laughter. “Well, whatever your views on that subject, it would have given you the opportunity to write.” He placed the tip of his pencil against his chin, scrutinizing me severely, yet with a glint of humor in his eyes. “You could have LEARNED something. It would have been a good experience to get thrown into a different mix. Now I can only implore you to write on your own, and to read voraciously. Read the American masters first—Twain, Steinbeck, Hemingway. Read everything you can get your hands on. I can recommend other writers as you grow. Good literature will train you to think and force you to feel, and you will become more in touch with your emotions and intellect, and better able to cope with what life throws at you. I’m counting on you to read and write, young man.”

     “I promise I will, sir. And thank you.”       

(Next Sunday installment: “Angus Takes Charge of Me.)