(The beginning of this memoir goes back to 1949 for those scrolling back)

                                  HAMMERIN’ HANK GREENBERG: MENSCH

Big Moe

     Hank and I had a natural friendship right off because we were fellow Jews in a game where there was hardly a handful of us in all of organized ball, much less the big leagues. Hank was a sophisticated man and had good taste in everything—books, clothes, restaurants, women. At that time he was a bachelor, a tall, handsome man, cultured, reserved, far more polished than most of the guys who played in that era, what you call a classy person. He dated Ziegfeld Follies girls. He always had a book to read. His philosophy on hitting was unique and on the money for a power hitter.

     What I remember about him most was how hard he worked to make himself a better defensive player. Although he was one of the best average and power hitters in the game, he was like Gehrig in that fielding did not come naturally to him, and he worked as hard on his fielding as he did his hitting. He’d get the clubhouse boy, a coach, or anybody he could find connected to the club to hit him grounders after a game. He’d take groundball after groundball and throws in the dirt, sweating for hours long after everybody else went home. He made himself a good fielder because he wouldn’t settle for mediocrity at any part of his game.

     When it came to the Jew bating, Hank, unlike me, didn’t have the reputation of nailing a guy in a heartbeat if he heard somebody make a dirty comment about Jews, but at the same time he drew the line when it came to putting up with that kind of bullshit. He was not the trained boxer and fighter I was, but people knew better than to mess with him. He was a proud, serious Jew, and he didn’t like it any better than I did when the front office brought down the rosary beads to the clubhouse. Hank was too successful a player, too big a name to screw with once he established himself as a Hall of Fame caliber player.

     He was the first ball player to join up when the war started.

     Back in 1955 he wrote me when he was General Manager of the Cleveland Indians. He wanted me to manage a bunch of kids they’d signed for the California League up in Visalia, wanted me to teach and groom these kids for the big leagues, and at the same time he wanted to groom me for the manager’s job at Cleveland in a year or two, no more. He promised me that job. He trusted me, knew I understood the game and had the respect of the players and was a good teacher.

     But I had to turn him down. I was doing too well in business. I was stable and in one place and didn’t want to leave home and beat the bushes and drive around in buses, and even if I got the Cleveland job there was no telling what would happen if I had a bad year because players weren’t ready. Hank could get the axe himself or quit out of frustration from putting up with the idiots in the front office, and then I’d be left high and dry, out of work, at the mercy of the baseball fraternity, the organizations. You have to try and hook on with somebody else as a base coach, or hang on as a scout or minor league manager or a front office toady, and that’s the last thing I needed in my life, so I had to turn my old friend down, and he understood.

     As it turned out, Kirby Farrell, a pretty sound baseball man, got the Visalia job and managed the big club in ’57 and lasted one year and of all people was replaced by the biggest front office ass-kisser of all, Bobby Bragan. Hank didn’t hang around long either. He was too smart to. We weren’t great friends. We never hung out together, because he was gone in 1942. What we had in common was that we were ball players, and big city kids, and Jews, and there would always be that trust, that bond, landsmen, and that was enough.

     (Next Sunday installment: College baseball 102) 

The Ball Player's Son

     (The beginning of this memoir goes back to 1949 for those scrolling back)

                                                    BASEBALL 101

 1962

     When I showed up at our first practice, Kincaid checked out my John F. Kennedy-like haircut, wriggled the toothpick around in his mouth, and mentioned I might be showing off for the girl he saw me with in the student union—Dawn Meadows, who’d somehow become my girl friend and fellow student at Cerritos. She was planning our future and believed in my greatness as a ball player and as a potential serious and successful grown-up family man and provider.

     During batting practice, Kincaid tinkered with my method of bunting, which I learned from Dad and Gene Handley, a master of bunting. No coach had ever tried to teach me anything, and didn’t dare tinker with what Dad had taught me. Kincaid wanted me to keep my right foot back in the hitting stance and twist my hips forward to bunt in the usual crouch. I told him I was used to bringing my back foot up even with my front, which gave me a better look. Only time I kept my back foot in place was when I dragged a bunt for a hit.

     Kincaid sighed. “Let’s try it my way and see how it goes. The game is constantly evolving, and sometimes a new, innovative way to do things improves your game and helps the team. I understand you have sound fundamentals. I know who your father is. I’m not trying to undo what he’s taught you. But I want everybody on this ball club doing it my way. So far we’ve been pretty successful.”

     I tried it his way, laying down several bunts. Kincaid nodded his approval. He was right. While hitting, he observed my propensity to pull every pitch. He asked me to go to right, and when I did, he nodded his approval. Then he suggested I didn’t need to choke up the bat too much with my kind of strength and felt I should cock it a little lower on my shoulder. He felt what I was doing was too exaggerated. I told him I’d hit this way all my life and had good success.

     “Try it my way, just to see what happens. You’ve got a good level swing. I’m not messing with your swing. I’m trying to make you better.”

     I stubbornly conceded, realizing I’d considered doing exactly what he suggested in the past. Kincaid was a sound, studious baseball man who’d dedicated his life to the game, his players; the program. But he seemed strictly by the book  He was a general, holding himself aloof from his players, occasionally showing his personal side by initiating traditional baseball pranks, like having one of his veterans put itching powder in my jock. It was Kincaid who did the kidding, the bantering, orchestrating everything that took place on the field and in the clubhouse, and it was Kincaid who nicknamed us, referring to me as “Peanuts” after the comic strip character. Dyer felt Peanuts was all wrong.

     “Kincaid knows you, Franklin,” Dyer said. “But in some ways he doesn’t. He’s trying to get through to you. You’re not easy.”

     Kincaid had played semi-pro/barnstorming ball, but not pro ball. He was a bright man. He worked with his players, getting out on the field, going over technical points, but he never, like my Dad, fielded or stood at the plate or took a hummer on the backside. He was never excited. He was low-key, seldom smiling or raising his voice. There was a certain imperious aura about him that I felt served him well. I actually liked him.

     “What’s this guy like?” Dad asked.

     “He knows his baseball.”

     “I asked you what he’s like. What’s his make-up? What kind of man is he?”

     “I’m not sure yet, but I think he’s a pretty solid guy.”

     “Well, you don’t seem too crazy about him. You should’ve found out something about him before you went and played for him. That fella from Fullerton, Skoba, he’s a helluva good guy and a pretty fair baseball man, and he raves about you, thinks you’re a great kid. He believes in you. He’s the kind’ll go to bat for you, Dell, and you don’t find many of those in this business, trust me.”  His eyes penetrated me, the hard eyes that flared with disappointment at his son. “Where did Kincaid ever play? I’ll bet your ass he couldn’t hit a bull in the ass with a base fiddle. Well, what can I say? You made your bed, so you sleep in it, make the best of it. Keep your mouth shut and go along with him and play ball. What bothers me is I know a lot of good college coaches, like Dedeaux at USC and Winkles at Arizona State, and I could’ve gotten you in there despite your rotten grades and horseshit attitude toward school. But you never consulted me, your father, who if anything has your best interests at heart more than anybody else on this earth.”

     “I realize that, Dad. I wanted to do things on my own, my way.”

     He was baffled. “Okay, let me ask you this: how do you stack up against the kids Kincaid recruited?”

     Most of Kincaid’s kids had been all leaguers from local area high schools. I’d played against most of them and felt I was better because I was faster and I could hit with anyone and play anywhere. But Kincaid wanted a certain kind of player and person and had a plan, a mission, something he’d spent his life researching and working at. And this mission was not to be fucked with.

     “None of Kincaid’s players are better than me, Dad, but they’re different than me.”

     “Different? How so?”

      “They’re like a fraternity of squeaky clean boy scouts who feel it’s an honor to play for Kincaid. They are the model of the image Kincaid wants his team to project. They are a bunch of really good kids who study hard, and they’re smart, but they’re quiet, too quiet for me, and they ain’t Angus, and they ain’t me.” I gave my Dad a look he didn’t like. “Maybe I should’ve signed, huh?”

     “Jesus Fucking Christ,” he fumed, flailing his hand at me in disgust and walking off.

                                                           ********

     (Next Sunday installment: Hammerin’ Hank Greenberg)

(The beginning of this memoir goes back to 1949 for those interested in scrolling back)

                            WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING IN COLLEGE?

1962

     I visited Cerritos baseball coach Wally Kincaid in his office in the first-class athletic complex and announced I wanted to play baseball there. Kincaid leaned back in his chair at his desk, not quite prepared for me, then sat forward and shook my hand without a lot of conviction and removed a toothpick from the corner of his mouth. He was around 35, about 6 feet tall, with small features, short hair.

     “I watched you in a playoff game in high school,” he said. “You threw your bat after hitting a groundball and argued with the umpire after you got thrown out and I thought it was pretty bush. Frankly, Dell, this is not personal, because I think you’re probably a good kid, but you strike me as a hot-head and a bit of a hotdog. I don’t need that in my program.”

     I watched him replace the toothpick back and told him I realized I was all of what he described of me but that I was working hard to mature and was embarrassed at being a damn busher and that beneath it all I was a team guy who pulled for my teammates and “went to bat for them.”

     Kincaid was inscrutable as he moved that toothpick around, not really looking at me. He took the toothpick out. “There’s no doubt you can play. There’s a lot of kids in this area who can play, and I don’t recruit them all, because some of them don’t fit. Can you understand that?”

     “I sure can, coach.”

      He leaned back, sized me up. “I usually trust my first impressions.” He sighed. “I’m going to tell you right off there are no promises. But I’ll give you as good a chance to play as any of the kids I’ve recruited to play for me, because I do think you can produce. I like the way you run the bases. And you can steal. We can use that.”

       Coach Kincaid stood and we shook hands and he welcomed me aboard. Kincaid had already won several championships and, like an assembly line, fed players to major colleges and the professional ranks and in fact bird-dogged for the St. Louis Cardinals. Crew-cut, he wore sunglasses and positioned his cap just right. I felt his persona was one of darkly-shaded windows into which one couldn’t see, though he could see out. He talked slowly with no regional accent. He seemed methodical and meditative. He had not only established this baseball program, but pretty much designed their state-of-the-art ball park and clubhouse.

    Kincaid sent me to my class counselor, basketball coach Caine, who sat behind his desk studying my high school transcripts, then paged through my entrance exams, raising his eyes to survey me with some concern..

     “You scored in the 90 percentile in math and English.” He told me. “Those tests indicate you’re an extremely bright underachiever as a student. You won’t have to take bonehead English or remedial math, like a lot of these jocks. What happened with your grades? You kept going downhill from your sophomore year on and barely graduated.”

     “I didn’t study. Just read stuff I liked.”

     “Well, you don’t study here and maintain a C average, you won’t play ball.” After he got me my classes, he told me I should get a haircut the minute I left his office and then he led me through a tour of the athletic complex. While doing this, two scary-looking Marine-like football coaches snapped at me to “get a goddam haircut!”

      When school started I made sure to attend all classes and found studies more stimulating and the environment less restrictive. Certain classes were conducted in cavernous lecture halls and when the professor’s paused in a meaningful manner students scribbled feverishly in notebooks before looking back up, and I characterized these fellow students as on missions to earn diplomas that would enable them to find good jobs and become vital cogs in the machinery of American commerce or wherever their majors fit in, and I scoffed at them in a superior manner because I was going to be a professional baseball player so as to avoid this predictable path set down before me by my parents and the parents of all my friends and just about everybody else who preached education, career, family, suburbs, etc.

     My new teammates to a man were well groomed, neatly and smartly dressed, hair cut close at the neck and around the ears, polite, quiet, serious students. The only one who seemed to relate to me in even the most minute way was a third baseman named Fred Dyer, who I remembered as a fellow Anaheim tournament all star. Tall, rangy, muscular, with a blond bowl cut hairdo over a suspicious, worried face, Fred was from Whittier, where he’d been all league in baseball and basketball, a good prospect with a power bat. We shared two classes and struck up an interest in literature that led to exchanging books, as Fred was another serious student with a rare intellect among jocks. Early on I was able to coax Fred to a local pool hall in a slum and we both agreed we were wary of Kincaid. I asked him why he chose to play for Kincaid, who’d nicknamed him “Grumpy.”

     “He wanted me here. I was going to go to UCLA, and I could’ve signed, but I’m not ready to leave home. I want to graduate college. I think Kincaid’s the best coach around, and I can learn a lot from him. What I’m trying to figure out is what YOU’RE doing here. If anybody isn’t Kincaid’s type, you’re it. You’re an outcast, Franklin, an outlaw.”

     “I like going against the grain, Fred—doing it the hard way.”

     “Why? We’re talking about your baseball career, your future, your life. We’re talking about going where you’re wanted. Look at Mike Skoba at Fullerton. He doesn’t care if you grow a beard, as long as you can play. He’s a good guy. I almost went there. Why didn’t you, when he wanted you?” 

(Next Sunday installment: “Baseball 101”)

(The beginning of this memoir goes back to 1949 for those interested in scrolling back)

                                           THE LAST GOOD SUMMER

1961

     We reached the quarter finals before El Segundo slaughtered our pitching staff with booming homeruns, one by future big leaguer Bobby Floyd, and our high school careers were finished. School consisted of Angus and me playing pool and barely graduating, so that a couple major colleges wrote me off as an athlete/student because of my terrible grades. I had no desire to pursue college. I wanted to play ball. I wanted to play every day or night out from under Dad’s shadow. In Connie Mack and Legion I played shortstop and began tearing up both leagues in the summer, hitting over .400 and driving in more runs than anybody in the line-up and stealing bases and tearing around the bases like a precision madman. Bill Lentini wanted me to sign and felt I could steal 50 bases in the minors. He told me it was a “natural course that I, like any other kid my age, sign a contract, get away from home, and spread my wings playing ball somewhere a thousand miles away.”

     Bill informed me that if he had the power to sign me he would in a heartbeat. I asked him if Doc Bennett, his White Sox boss, who was sold on Angus, liked me.

     “He’s scared of your temper, and he’s not sure about your arm, but he’ll sign you if I ask him to. He trusts my judgment.”

     When I discussed the possibility of signing with Dad, he grimaced, and said, “Listen, a guy like Lentini, he’s never played ball, he doesn’t have the sense to realize you’re not ready for pro ball. When the time comes that you are, well, you’re a late bloomer and you’re going to be better than any of these 18 year old kids like Angus. None of these kids’ll last a season in the minors, trust me. I’ll know when you’re ready.”

    Sometimes Dad sat with scouts at my games. I had no idea what they talked about, but realized no scout could bullshit my Dad about baseball. One of them signed Bob Bailey for over $100,000. Stephenson got around $60,000 and through a loophole was able to pitch for our Connie Mack team, a literal Orange County all star team. He was sensational, mowing down hitter after hitter with an overpowering fastball and tight slider, throwing shutouts. Angus signed with the White Sox. Tom Quick and Nash signed. Our Legion team won a few games in the Anaheim tournament and this year I was picked as the starting second baseman out of 80 teams to play the Dodger rookies team. Every player on our team eventually signed, except Keith Erickson, a shortstop who went on to play pro basketball in the NBA. Several of the all stars made the big leagues.

     “Just be patient,” Dad urged. “You’re blossoming, getting stronger and faster. It’s a big advantage if you start as a man, not a kid.”

     “You waited until you were 23,” I countered. “By the time you got to the big leagues you were 28 and they wanted to play younger guys. I’m playing better than any of these guys who’ve signed.”

      “Look, you’re not ready. You’re not gonna get a big bonus because you’re not strong enough yet. In a couple years you’ll have more power, you’ll be mentally more mature to deal with the ups and downs, you’ll be strong enough to hold up to the grind of a long season, and you’ll get more money, believe me. Right now you’ll just be another expendable kid with a small bonus, playing for $400 a month, Angus, Nash, Quick, none of ‘em’ll last a year, trust me.”

     If I didn’t sign, I’d have to play in junior college. Already Mile Scoba, coach at Fullerton High and due to be the coach at Fullerton JC, promised I’d be their starting shortstop. “You demolished our pitching staff,” he told me. “I think you’re the best ball player in Orange County. Come play for me. I can’t promise you much at the JC level in terms of scholarships, but I’ll get you a job.”

     Lentini told me to go play for Scoba, a fair man who knew baseball, if I didn’t sign. But the school was over 20 miles away. I began to consider nearby Cerritos JC, a baseball power dominating its level of ball and felt to be on a tier with most major colleges under a great coach, Wally Kincaid. I made up my mind to visit him, with no idea what I was getting into, feeling I was good enough to play anywhere and succeed on a grand scale.

(Next Sunday Installment: “Nobody’s Clean-cut All American Student/Athlete.”

                                      THE BIG DAGO: JOE DIMAGGIO

Big Moe

     Scuttlebutt passed around by players was that DiMaggio was so quiet when he first came up to the big leagues that he’d go days without speaking to anybody and it wasn’t because he was unfriendly, or a snob, but that he was awkward and unconfident around people. He’d been very poor as a kid, like most ball players, and uneducated, spoke mostly Italian at home because his father was an immigrant fisherman. His first few years as a Yankee he had such a problem speaking he went to diction lessons with a private tutor so he wouldn’t embarrass himself around the press, because hell, he was the biggest celebrity in New York, and probably in the country, outside of heavyweight boxing champ Joe Lewis and President Roosevelt, and here the guy could hardly express himself.

     I’ve never seen a ball player make the game look so easy. He was never a guess hitter, because a guess hitter can’t be consistent (except for Rudy York), but Joe just seemed to know what was coming, had an instinct or knack for knowing a pitcher’s patterns, and it was almost scary the way he couldn’t be fooled at the plate, all spread out in his stance with a short step into the ball. Same thing on the base paths. He always knew when to go from first to third and never got thrown out, and he always knew when he could score from second on a single. Even when he booted one, he never looked bad, had a way of gliding effortlessly in the outfield. The year he hit in 56 straight games he only struck out 13 times as a power hitter! I don’t care much about statistics, because statistics do not always make a ball player, but that statistic was the most amazing.

      There wasn’t one part of Joe’s game that did not excel, and he was the best clutch hitter ever, better than greats like Ruth and Cobb, he’d break your heart every time, and nobody should ever believe Mantle or Mays are as good as he was, because they’re not, that’s just sportswriter crap, and they mostly don’t know their asses about baseball from a hole in the ground.

     Joe didn’t trust many people, just a few teammates. He was well liked by ball players, though there was a certain amount of jealousy and carping among guys who played against him, guys who liked to poke fun at him and say he was dumb and stupid and arrogant and of course he was a Yankee, and nobody liked the Yankees, they held themselves aloof from the rest of us, like they were superior, which is probably something I hate to have to admit is true.

     They were bigger men, had a great farm system, players who came up out of the same mold, so to speak, and the moment they put on those pinstripes and walked on the field, especially Yankee Stadium, they smacked of an arrogance and conceit that galled you. You hated them. They were intimidators. They were just men, like the rest of us, but they seemed special, and Joe, he was royalty, a king even among that bunch, though he never showed off and quietly went about the business of beating your brains out.

     I saw him in the hotel lobby where our ball club stayed whenever we came to play the Yankees. He had a room there. In those days, there were strict unwritten taboos about fraternizing with players on other teams. You didn’t say boo; they were the enemy. But hell, I was a rookie, and like everybody else I was in awe of DiMaggio, or the Big Dago, as he was known among ball players. He was having an incredible year, doing it all, in his prime, on top of the world. There he was, by himself in the lobby, standing browsing a newspaper, perfectly dressed and groomed, a polished man by this time.

     I just went up to him and offered my hand and introduced myself, told him how much I admired the way he played ball and respected the game. He put down his paper and shook my hand. He wasn’t the kind of guy to stare at you, being so shy, and standoffish, almost like he was embarrassed by being who he was.

     But he kept his eyes on me. “Franklin,” he said. “I know about you. You’re hitting the ball pretty good yourself.” He kept staring at me. “Is it true you’re a college man—that you got a college diploma?”

     “Why yes, Joe,” I said. “The University of Illinois.”

     Those dark eyes dropped, looked inward, then back at me, and I thought I saw real sadness. “I envy you,” he whispered.                                       

(Next Sunday installment, “The Last Good Summer.”)