(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)

                                               MEXICO, CUBA AND CASTRO

BIG MOE

     A bunch of us jumped to play ball in Mexico, including Mickey Owen, and a close friend of mine, Sal Maglie, who looked mean as a mafia killer but was as sweet and gentle a guy you’d ever want to meet. You were usually the only American player on your team, and winters, when I played in Cuba, you were usually the only white player.

     In both countries, the fans were wild and packed the stadiums, and no matter where you played, that city pretty much closed down for the ball games. Nobody loved baseball like these people. Shops and government offices shut down, and people who didn’t go to the games listened to them on the radio, and the fans bet on every game, every inning, every player; they were madhouse crazies, but great fans, fine people, and if you played well they treated you better than you’d ever been treated before in the states. You were a hero, never paid for a thing, and lived like a king.

     But if you stunk it up and choked a few times in the clutch and lost them money and let them get to you, the boos and catcalls and insults and the garbage they threw at you, like rabid animals, they’d run you out of town, out of the league, have you on the first train home, like they did with Dino Restelli, who came in with a big reputation but never got going. A lot of guys with big names quit and went home, because they couldn’t take the fans, couldn’t take the poor conditions of the ball parks and transportation, were scared they get lynched or shot, and they bitched about everything—the food, water, heat, humidity, language, the people, you name it.

     I loved Mexico, and I loved Cuba. First thing I did was make sure to learn the language, and if you tried hard to learn the words, well, these people bent over backwards to work with you, and you could do no wrong, they would take you into their homes and hearts like you were family, because they were the warmest, most generous people…poor as they were they’d literally give you the shirt off their backs, or their last dish of black beans, if they liked you. I made good friends with my teammates and the people, associations I’d never forget and always cherish.

     You can’t imagine what places like Tampico and Mexico City and Havana were like in those days. Havana was bursting with life, never went to sleep, it seemed. You could walk down the street and every café, every cantina was full, the streets crowded, the trolleys running, the parks packed, and there were little bands everywhere, on street corners, in parks, in the cantinas and cafes. The music never stopped, and the people loved to dance and sing, there was such happiness, like a festival that never stopped. A very romantic place for Rose and me.

      I had some of my best years down there. I was still in my prime. I hit for power and average, led my team. Rose and I had the greatest time of our lives. We were together again after being separated for two years in the war, and we really learned to appreciate and enjoy the little simple things, like sitting outside a café drinking a rum and coke and watching the people. It was probably the happiest time of our lives, and we both knew it, and milked every minute together.

     There were some fine ball players, and some real characters down there. Minnie Minoso was one of the most fearless, flashiest players on the field and the splashiest off and was just a great kid, always in a jubilant mood because he was playing a game he loved and would run into walls to flag down a fly ball. Bobby Avila, who later won a batting championship with Cleveland, adopted a style of hitting I taught him and learned to make the doubleplay as a secondbaseman when early on he was “spike shy.” One of the best pitchers and hardest throwers was a mean Cuban with a missing front tooth replaced by a diamond. And there was this tall skinny kid with high pockets who hung around the ballpark in Havana, wanted to be a ball player in the worst way. His father was some kind of bigwig at the university and the kid was studying to be a lawyer, a very polite, bright kid, very respectful and eager to learn, followed me around like a puppy dog. I worked with him. He had a pretty good pair of hands, a decent glove, but he couldn’t swing the bat, and you can’t really teach that if the reflexes and hand-to-eye co-ordination and wrist-action isn’t there, and so the kid went on to bigger things, a kid by the name of Fidel Castro.

     I don’t know how long I would have stayed down there, because after all I am an American, wanted to come home at some point, and when the President of the league, Jorge Pasqual, a very rich man who bankrolled the league and paid us all our bonuses, died in a plane crash, the league fell apart. I had to get out of there anyway, because we played in tropical places like Tampico and Vera Cruz, and the malaria I caught in the South Pacific came back and nearly killed me. I lost 30 pounds and nearly burnt up, was weak as a kitten. So I went home, waited for my suspension to life, and when Danny Gardella challenged major league baseball and got us all reinstated, I started out all over with Hollywood in the PCL.

     It’s funny, but sometimes events in your life, and especially in baseball, take you to places you wouldn’t dream of going to, and those places turn out to be the most pleasant surprises, the fondest, warmest memories. I think everything I learned down there, everything I experienced, made me a better, more thoughtful person, and helped prepare me for life after baseball.

     What Rose and I experienced in Mexico and Cuba was a lot of love, a lot of joy, pure and simple.

     (Next Sunday Installment: Throwing in the Towel.”