(Scrolling back to 1949 in this memoir will provide baseball junkies with the very essence of the game and the father/son relationship to it)

                                                    BACK TO BASEBALL

1963

     A figure out of the past showed up at our house, somebody I hadn’t seen since I was a small boy in Compton: Little Jules, dad’s old friend from the Mountain State League. He was bald as a marble, nattily clad, the same old lefty with hooked beak and the grotesquely bent arm from throwing decades of breaking stuff in the low minors. Exuding irrepressible effervescence, he was lavish in praise of our digs and Dad’s success. He was now scouting for the Houston expansion team and working under head scout Fido Murphy, who was out in southern California trying to sign players to stock the rosters of their minor league system. Jules nearly crushed my hand when dad re-introduced us, and regarded me with admiration.

     “Look at the forearms on the kid, Murray, just like you, chip off the old block, spitting image, grown into a man.” He grinned at dad. “He’s you with a good head of hair.” I was sure Jules knew I’d been booted off the Cerritos team and run off the field by Buford and consequently tabbed a flake, malcontent, psycho. But Jules told us he’d heard I had “big league tools.” He believed that if I had anywhere near the ability of Dad, which Dad quickly confirmed, there was no reason I could not sign and begin my climb to the big leagues, especially since I’d made the Anaheim tournament all stars. “Almost all those kids are playing pro ball somewhere, and those who aren’t are in college and will sign someday. You’re the only one who hasn’t, and look, with expansion, you got a great chance with the dilution of talent.” He smacked my arm playfully. “It’s the perfect opportunity.”

     Tryouts and exhibition games among prospects were being conducted on the UCLA home field at Sawtelle off Wilshire Boulevard. I’d played there numerous times with Boston in winter league. I drove out with my old pal, Dave Sturrock, who was going to Long Beach state to become a coach and wanted to bring me moral support. He kept reminding me I was the best ball player he’d ever seen, better than all the guys we’d played against and that were now playing in the minor and major leagues. But when I arrived at UCLA I felt sluggish, like my body was in quicksand. For the first time ever, the sight and sound and smells of a ball diamond felt alien as the smack of ball into glove and the knock of ball off bat melded with anxious chatter and a couple coaches yelling at players. The diamond was crawling with players warming up and playing pepper and taking infield. I’d never seen so many players on one field.

     Jules spotted me and called me over and I was introduced to Fido Murphy, a very short block of a man at least 60 whose face resembled that of a rumpled bulldog with under-bite. He stood with along the first base line, his X ray eyes quickly appraising my entire presence. Jules here,” he said in a gruff voice. “He tells me you’re a helluva a ball player, a chip off the old block  I remember your dad, and he was a helluva a ball player. Good to have you aboard. Go warm up and we’ll see if you’re the player Jules says you are.”

     . Among the excited, high-energy, chattering mob, anxious to display their wares, I found an older guy perhaps 25, a first baseman, to warm up with. Most everybody out here was a free agent, and we were all looking each other over, and I realized I was the only one out here with a mop of hair protruding from under my cap like straw and a stubble of beard. I didn’t FEEL like a ball player. Dad had urged me to get a haircut.

     Fido had me at shortstop, where a few players awaited their turns to pounce on grounders and throw to first, reminding me of my Little League tryouts at 9 years old, a lifetime ago. I recognized a few players I’d once competed against. Some sleek black kids were being timed running down the first base line after their last hit in BP. Fido’s assistant coach rapped grounders to the infielders between pitches. Houston, like the Dodgers, was scouting black track stars and trying to convert them into baseball players to intimidate teams on the base paths, like Maury Wills. I wondered did they possess the stealing and base-running instincts I did. Did they understand the fanatical, nuanced, neurotic, blood feud of facing a hateful and hating pitcher? Did they have it in them to so infuriate an opponent with every tactic imaginable that it rallied your own team to go to war against them?

     From shortstop the field seemed slanted uphill and first base a hundred yards away. I felt a sudden urge to tell Fido I was a centerfielder, where, for a very short time, before I went into the doghouse at Cerritos, I felt a natural freedom and ease. Flat-footed, the first few groundballs handcuffed me, one bouncing off my chest. I didn’t feel coordinated.

     “Yer rusty, kid, hang tough,” Fido hollered, and his coach lashed me another, which I trapped awkwardly on one knee (a no-no) to keep it from going through my legs. Then, not planting my right foot, I bounced a throw to first. The heavyset guy I’d warmed up with scooped it up, then pointed a glove at me and shouted, “Relax, kid! Take your time! You’re okay, babe!”

     Then Fido roared, “Where’s the arm, Franklin? I thought you was supposed to have an arm. I thought you was a stud!”

     I had no rhythm or feel for the game, continued to scuffle. I blocked balls, aimed throws that lacked zip--goosing the ball. “Jesus Christ,” I heard Fido grumble to Jules, loud enough for me to hear, no doubt trying to motivate me, but clearly losing patience as I lost heart. “He looks like he’s afraid of the goddam ball! He ain’t half the player as his old man!”

     Jules clapped his hands. “Shake off the cobwebs, Dell baby. We know it’s been a while. Give the kid a chance, Fido.”

     Later, in BP, Fido and Jules stood by the batting cage while I hacked away. I hit one ground ball after another, but no rising ropes. Where was my pop and snap? The bat felt like 40 pounds of cement. The harder I tried to quicken my swing, the more I flailed away. I felt like slamming the bat over my own head.

     “His timing’s off, he’s got a good level swing, like his old man,” Fido conceded, “Okay, that’s enough, Franklin. You got a game tomorrow night at eight. Yer startin’ at short. Then we’ll see what you’re made of. Now hit one more and run down the line!”

     I pulled one in the hole and took off for first and felt like I’d never get there. My uniform felt like a strait-jacket soaked in ocean water. Driving home, Dave said, “God, that Fido’s an asshole, the prick couldn’t stop bringing up your Dad. It’s bullshit.” At home, Dad asked how it went. I told him my timing was off at the plate and in the field. He asked had I practiced. I told him I had, but I hadn’t.

     (Next Sunday installment: The Metamorphosis)