HIGH SCHOOL SHOWDOWN

1961

     The showdown with Anaheim for the league championship at LaPalma Park was a huge Orange County event. The O.C. Register sports page ran a feature story on both teams with pictures up front. The stadium was packed with parents, boosters, students and scouts and fans interested in both teams. There was a special feeling of excitement in the air of a big game, where your ass was on the line and you were tested before a sold-out crowd.

     As Stephenson warmed up, I considered dragging a bunt on him, especially since their thirdbaseman played me deep. When I just got on base it unnerved him, because I knew his move to first and took liberties on the base paths that might embarrass him. I felt base running, more than any aspect of the game, defined a ball player, and that scouts often missed out in judging a player only by size, power, arm, and straightway speed instead of instinct and instant acceleration—my fortes. I felt my instincts were a weapon enabling me to single-handedly intimidate and disrupt a team, especially in a close game, where my daring base running and taunting inspired my team mates and excited the fans, and that every eye was on me when I got on base.

     But bunting Stephenson implied I couldn’t HIT him. Anaheim scored 3 runs on us in the first inning. When I came up to the plate there was nobody on and two outs. I took a fastball on the outside corner and lashed it into right field for a single and rounded first hard, skidded to a stop, staring at Jerry, who stared back. I took a ridiculous lead, bluffed a steal, drew several pick off throws; then stole second easily. But he struck out Angus.

     That afternoon I got two hits off Stephenson and ripped two other pitches right at somebody. We came back to go ahead 4-3, but ended up losing 5-4. Stephenson, arm-weary from carrying his team all season, went all the way and had just enough to beat us—the best hitting team in the league. After the game Jerry and I visited. Both our teams finished with brilliant records of over 20 wins and were going to the playoffs as favorites. Our Dads stood nearby conversing as folks filed out. Several young kids sought and got our autographs. Jerry was contemplating signing a big bonus with the Red Sox back in Boston. He suggested I play Legion and Connie Mack this summer and build up more of a reputation and sign the following year. After we parted, Dawn Meadows tried to pigeon-hole me, and I was squeamish and gruff.

     I bridled at the conformity of kids like us coupling up and preparing for a future as husband/wife at such an early age when we had no clue as to what we were doing. I only wanted to fuck some of the girls Angus was fucking. I was embarrassed by my warm feelings for a girl and feeling also that their knowledge of this gave them the upper hand. I had the feeling Dawn was luring me, laying a trap, and I was unable to cope with my increasing need to be with her. Angus was right—I had a crush on a sweet girl who was good only for one thing—marrying, having kids, and facing a world of prediction and conformity. So I shook her off, stood by myself as Bill Lentini, my puppy-dog friendly and excitable American Legion coach approached me, grinning like a child, shaking my hand with genuine enthusiasm.

     “I know you lost the game, Tiger, but you were magnificent today and you been magnificent all year. Nobody attacks the game like you do. You play with a vengeance. The game is yours. You’re exciting. Nothing can stop you now. I can’t wait ‘til Legion season. You got it all, kid.”

      I knew Bill believed everything he said. I knew he was going to be a birddog for the White Sox. Still, I couldn’t quite believe him. When I ate dinner that night, Dad said, “You need a haircut. Your hair sticks out of your cap. It doesn’t look good. It’s bush. All that stuff matters to scouts.”

      “Yeh yeh,” I muttered derisively. No way I was going to get a haircut when one of Angus’s girls said she liked it.

     (Next Sunday installment: The Big Dago—Joe DiMaggio)

                                              MEETING TED WILLIAMS

1961

     Dad had no interest in going to ball games, did not follow the big leagues, but conceded to take me to a Red Sox/Angel game at Wrigley Field when Joe Stephenson left us box seats. The game was unexciting, and Boston, with Ted Williams recently retired, was an uninspiring team. We left in the 7^th inning to avoid traffic so Dad could get home early and sleep before going to work in the morning. The bowels of the dank old stadium were near deserted, concession stands closing as we hurried toward a ramp that would take us to the parking lot. Near a concession stand I recognized a tall, familiar figure talking on a pay phone attached to a post. I grabbed Dad and pointed.

     “Dad, that’s Ted Williams over there.”

     He halted, peered. “I think so. I think that’s Ted.”

      “You know him, right?”

      “Well, we said hello a couple times, twenty years ago. He’s a loner, Dell, doesn’t like to be bothered. He can be a real pain in the ass.”

     “I thought you said he was a good guy.”

     “He is…”

     “I gotta meet him! He’s the greatest hitter of all time. You said it!”

     We walked up to him as he talked on the phone. Williams wore a loose fitting sport coat over a plain white shirt open at the throat. He alertly eyed us, looking trapped and edgy, like a cornered animal. He finished his conversation and stared at us in a confrontational manner. Dad quickly told him he’d played against him before the war, with Detroit, and introduced himself. Ted’s face softened and he smiled, shaking hands with Dad.

     “I remember you, Franklin—line drive pull hitter, good anchor, level swing. I always played you near the line.” He relaxed, asked Dad what he was doing these days, and when Dad told him about his business, Williams said he was glad to see a fellow ball player doing well, and then he glanced at me, as if he’d just noticed my presence, winked at Dad, and nodded toward me. “Who’s the kid, Franklin?”

     “That’s my son Dell, Ted.”

     “Ball player?”

     “Helluva ball player. Good prospect. Infielder. Got the good hands.”

     Williams appeared insulted. “Hands? Hell with the hands. Can the kid hit?”

     “Got a double, triple, homerun today, drove in six runs. Hitting over .400. Great pair of wrists.”

     Ted’s face lit up and he offered me his paw, which shook mine lightly while I squeezed hard. “Thattaway, kid. Keep swingin’ that bat.” He shook Dad’s hand again. “Good to see yah, Franklin.”

     Then he was gone, like a phantom. Dad placed an arm around my shoulder as we walked out of the stadium. “Quite a day, huh? You drove in six runs, saw a big league ball game, and met the greatest hitter of all time.”

     “He played you on the line. He knows your game.”

     “He knows everybody’s game. He probably remembers every goddam pitch he ever hit or didn’t hit. He’s a mad scientist. That’s why he’s great.”

     (Next Sunday installment: “High School Showdown.”)

                               BIG TED KLUSZEWSKI SHOWS ME HIS KNUCKLEBALL

1961

     Scouts from the newest expansion team in the big leagues, the LA Angels, asked me to work out with them at Wrigley Field during their first series with the fabled New York Yankees. I got to the field early, and dressed beside Ted Kluszewski and Steve Bilko, two immense firstbasemen, possibly the strongest in all of baseball, who platooned against right and left-handed pitching. Both men were late in their careers and weighed around 250 pounds of solid muscle and nodded at me in a kindly manner as I slipped my 160 pounds into an Angel uniform. As a child, I had baseball cards of both behemoths. Kluszewski was one of the great power/high average hitters of his generation, a borderline Hall of Famer with a perfectly level pendulum swing, while Bilko languished though still popping prodigious tape-measure home runs.

      I hit early batting practice against their pitching coach, Marv Grissom. I was over anxious, trying to hit balls out, kept pulling low line drives foul, hitting the fence twice. Grissom gestured for me to calm down and then threw me pitches that dove or rose, grinning as he tied me up in knots. I hit the fence twice more at 340 feet and then went out to shortstop as the Angels hit BP and began flagging down their wicked shots, wanting to impress whoever might be watching me.

     Kluszewski, wrapped in an olive-green nylon sweat jacket, glove in his back pocket, walked out and stood by me as I pretended I was in a big league game. Somebody hit a hard groundball his way and he skipped out of the way, grinning at me.

     “Pretty dangerous out here, kid—a guy could get hurt.”

     I found my voice. “I figure I got to stop the hard ones if I’m gonna be any good, Mr. Kluszewski.”

     “Klu,” he said. “They call me Klu.” He watched me. “You got a good pair of hands, kid, and you swing level.” Then” “I got a helluva a knuckleball. Maybe some day they’ll let me pitch.” Then he wandered out into leftfield, where a cluster of pitchers kibitzed with outfielders, snuck up on Art Fowler, enfolded him in a headlock, talked casually to the group, then dragged Fowler by his neck into centerfield to discuss something with diminutive outfielders Albie Pierson and Lee Thomas, and then continued into right field, where he released Fowler and resumed conversations with other Angels.

     When starting shortstop Joe Koppe joined me at short, I moved over, and the first ball hit to him took a crazy hop and broke his nose. Blood spurted and he hustled into the training room. When we finished BP and I ran to the dugout, Angel manager Bill Rigney asked me if I wanted to take infield at 7:45 while they set Koppe’s nose. Of course I did! He grinned at me. The Angels retired to the clubhouse while the Yankees took the field and I remained in the dugout to watch them hit BP, their power hitters like Skowron, Maris, Berra, Howard and John Blanchard popping flyball homerun after flyball homerun into the stands or over the leftfield fence. When Mantle came up, there was an electric buzz around the cage as sportswriters closed in and Yankees joked with Mantle after he missed the first pitch. He grinned and then, left-handed, launched a ball that left his bat with a different sound than the others and cleared the right-field scoreboard like a golf tee shot. Nobody else had even reached the towering scoreboard wall; his blast had gone a hundred feet farther than the rest. His show of power was otherworldly.

     Sitting on the front step of the dugout, I snuck glances at move star Angie Dickenson, who sat in the adjoining box seat and occasionally met my sneaky glances with knowing grins. The Yankees left the field. I returned to the clubhouse while the ground crew dragged the infield and re-entered the dugout and ran onto the field to take infield in front of a full house. Kluszewski was at first. I fired the first ball over his head and nearly hit somebody in a box seat and he told me to calm down. From then on I was snappy and accurate, except on the 3-6-3 doubleplay, when Klu had me lurching awkwardly trying to corral his knuckleball and remain slick on the return throw. He gave me the knuckler on every throw and kept a straight face, and when we ran off the field he slapped me on the ass with his glove. Rigney nodded at me, very affirmative.

      I showered and joined Angus and a couple team mates and their parents high up in the stands, including Angus’s Mom and Dad. I asked Angus if he’d watched the Angels take infield.

     “Of course I did. Watched everything. Some arms out there, ey?”

     “That was me at short—all alone.”

     “Yer bloody full of it.”

     “Joe Koppe broke his nose. That was me, Big A, throwin’ to Big Klu, my buddy. How’d I look?”

     “Tell yah the truth, yah looked as good as any of ‘em.”

     Angus’s Mom chimed in” “He looked slick as the pros.”

     I nudged Angus. “Angie Dickenson’s sitting in a box seat next to the dugout, and she gave me the eye.”

     (Next Sunday Installment: “Meeting Ted Williams.”

                        ANGUS STEERS ME THROUGH THE FEMALE LABYRINTH

1961

     Besides winning a championship and signing a baseball contract, Angus’s major mission was getting me laid. He now had a main girl friend named Tammy and two others who were after him, and he was trying to palm them off on me, but it was obvious that girls who were hot for Angus had no interest in me.

     “Yah know, Dell,” he told me, the wild glint in his eye. “If rogues like us make it to the big leagues we’ll be fightin’ off the pussy, and they’ll be cream of the crop. Any guy ever wore the big league uniform’s had more women than he can count.”    

     On the ball field, we continued to win. The O.C. Register wrote up our team, and the student body, always obsessed with football and sometimes basketball, filled LaPalma Park for the first time ever. Walking down the corridors with Angus, fellow students—even girls!—smiled and waved at us like we were celebrities. The most popular pretty girls began to show up at our games with members of the political class of strivers and achievers, stomping during rallies and cheering our successes.

     One afternoon, sitting directly behind my Dad and a cluster of scouts, was Dawn Meadows. As always, she was clad in billowy ankle-length skirt revealing nothing, high-necked sweater, hair perfect, posture prim and self-assured, legs crossed, occasionally clapping, a smiling queen paying homage to her minions. We won the game, and I hit some rockets and ran the bases like a wild man, dirtying my uniform.

     Next day in English class I slouched in back studying her white neck in the front row. She had the clearest, pearliest skin, the bluest eyes, wore no make-up. When she talked she looked right at you. She listened intently and liked to smile. When class ended, she stopped me outside the door.

     “Dell, I just wanted to tell you what a good game you played yesterday. You are such a good baseball player.”

     I shuffled and grunted as she held her books against her ample chest. “I also think you’re a very good writer, and should be in Mrs. Rogers creative writing class.”

     “Yeh well.” I shrugged. Angus lurked down the hallway, holding hands with Tammy, who he was fucking on a regular basis in his brother’s car at the drive-in movie, and his eyes twinkled with lascivious mischief.

     Dawn stepped closer. “Dell, I don’t think you’re anything like you act. You put on this tough-guy act, so gruff, but inside I think you’re soft as a marshmallow. The act is just a cover-up, because you’re afraid of being sensitive. I think deep down inside you’re really a nice guy.”

     “I ain’t so nice.”

     “Why must you talk like a…street thug? You’re not fooling me one minute, Dell Franklin.” She smiled at me in a very wise and knowing yet fond manner. “I’d really like to be your friend. I think you’re an interesting person.”

     “I blushed. “Yeh? Well, yah wanna go out some time then, ey?

     “I like to have men friends. Sometimes girls are so…catty.”

     I turned abruptly and walked off. Angus winked as I passed by. From this point on, I went out of my way to ignore Dawn. Once, when I passed her in the hall, she slowed down and her eyes widened and pinned mine, as if to seek some explanation for my swinish behavior, but I huffed on by, snorting disdainfully. Later on she spotted me with Angus at the lunch benches and came right over. Angus leered and walked to another bench to observe the proceedings. Dawn was upset.

     “Why do you hate me, Dell?”

     “I hate everybody in this stupid school except my team mates, so don’t feel so isolated.”

     “Oh that’s a bunch of nonsense and you know it.” She thrust her delicate chin at me, blue eyes fiery. “Know what I think? I think you’re afraid to really like a girl, because Angus over there’ll make fun of you. And I think that’s so pathetic and spineless on your part. I thought you were your own man, but you’re just another follower, bending to peer pressure.”

     She walked off with haughty dignity as I stared at her white calves. I’d spied on her in gym class, and, though totally un-athletic, her boobs jounced and her legs rippled in her blue shorts, a sure sign that beneath the matronly attire was the voluptuous body of a blossoming woman at its most tender.

     “Yer bloody sweet on her,” Angus said after she stalked off. “Look, she’s the kind’ll get under yer skin and fuck with yer baseball. She’s a bloody virgin, I’d bet, the kind yah take home and marry. Yah pop her cherry and yah gotta marry her. And I’ll bet my ass and yer ass that once yah giver a good ram she’ll turn into a fine piece of arse, because that’s the way it is with the ones holdin’ back waitin’ for the right guy.” He pinched my cheek, leered. “She’s comin’ to all yer games, ey?”

     We continued winning, and I continued ignoring Dawn. One of her poetry class friends stopped me in the hall and asked who I was taking to the prom. I informed her I didn’t go to proms. She said a bunch of guys, including one of the brainy social climbers, who was going to Yale, had asked Dawn, but she hadn’t yet made a decision. At dinner, Dad asked, “Who’s the girl with the flawless skin and pretty blue eyes?”

     I shrugged. “Just another devoted fan.”

     He winked at mother. “Nice girl, Rose. He’s like his old man—good taste in women.” He glanced back at me. “You still a fighter, or you a lover?”

     Dawn finally pigeon-holed me outside English class. “Who are you taking to the prom—Angus?”

     “I hate proms. I ain’t wearin’ a damn monkey suit for nobody. I hate dancing. I hate everything about the whole stupid tradition. I’ll go to the all night party and get drunk.”

     She rolled her eyes. “You takin’ Angus to the all night party, too?”

     “Angus is taking Tammy. Maybe you can give him a big graduation kiss, ey?”

     She stormed off, but came to my game the next afternoon, sitting directly behind my Dad and the scouts, and when I happened to glance over at her she looked right at me, and smiled knowingly.

     (Next Sunday installment: Big Ted Kluszewski Shows Me His Knuckleball)