EPILOGUE
1978
When Dad died too young at 63, I had no choice but to take
over his business. I had to collect money, pay bills, reassure customers of
continued loyal service and special discounts, make deliveries, deal with
worried salesmen who feared I’d stiff their suppliers and run down the
inventory, maintain the stock and premises, and try and sell the kind of
enterprise being squeezed out by major corporations in a town that had become a
rundown dangerous ghetto.
At the time I was a carefree bartender in Manhattan Beach , 12 miles down the road,
living the good life. Nobody expected me to succeed, except mother, but I
managed to hold the business together for 2 years while working full time at
the beach, then sell it and the building, turn the money over to mother, and
get the hell out of a situation I hated and go on with my life as a good time
Charlie and aspiring writer just beginning to place articles in the local
alternative weekly.
At Dad’s funeral, a young rabbi urged me not to attempt the
eulogy, explaining that “these things tend to be very difficult when one is too
close to the deceased.” His face was full of careful sympathy and
understanding.
“You give the standard eulogy,” I told him. “But I’m giving
mine. I know him in a way nobody else does, because we both played baseball.”
The Jewish chapel at the cemetery was packed, every seat
taken, people standing in aisles and in the back. Only three old baseball
players attended—Chuck Stevens, representing baseball, and his two closest
friends in the game, Tom Morgan and Jack Paepke. Besides relatives, the throng
was made up mostly of shoemakers in their Sunday best and salesmen in their
elegant suits.
I wanted to tell the throng about Jack Fessel, a kid who
played on dad’s championship American Legion team back in 1955, but realized it
would take too long. Fessel was a dead-end kid, wrong side of the tracks,
already in trouble at school and with the law, unruly, lost, spawn of lowdown
white trash. Fessel, hearing Dad was coaching the team, showed up with his
bulky body and ill-fitting uniform and wild blond spiky hair sprouting out from
under his cap. He drove a dilapidated pick-up truck.
“Don’t let him on the team,” warned local coaches, and Dad’s
assistant, who’d booted Fessel off his junior high team years back. Fessel was
an unorthodox, awkward player, but he threw accurately from the outfield, had a
left-handed woodchopper swing, and good judgment of fly balls. The team, composed
mostly of reasonably straight-arrows considering this was Compton, and a few
golden boys, and four kids who would go on to sign professional contracts,
sighed and rolled their eyes when Fessel showed up.
Dad watched him hit in the cage. He made one adjustment—hold
your bat lower on your shoulder and swing from there. Fessel hit ropes. He was
stocky-strong. Dad encouraged him, smacked him on the ass after BP and then hit
him every kind of fly ball and line drive in left field. Then he trotted out to
left and talked to Fessel. He faced him, touched him occasionally on the
shoulders. Showed him how to charge groundballs and get off his throws in one
motion.
From this point on, Fessel was the first player to practice
and the last to leave. He hustled like a madman. He was a smart base runner. He
was always looking over at Dad, wanting to please, and Dad clapped his hands,
nodding, calling him “Big Fess,” though he was only about 5’11.” Big Fess
turned out to be our best clutch hitter. He hit a ton. He dove after fly balls,
threw people out. He became part of the fabric of the team and the golden boys
with nice cars and cheerleader girl friends accepted Fessel, and Fessel,
morose, kicked around like a dog with his tail between his legs when he first
showed up, was happy. He was Dad’s bobo.
Later, toward the end of our Anaheim tournament triumph, I asked Dad why
he was so good to Fessel and so hard on everybody else.
“Dell,” he said. “Always treat the underdogs with care, the
black sheep, and they’ll come back and pay dividends. You’ve got to give a kid
like Fessel a lot of love, because a blind man can see he never got much at
home, he was neglected, probably beaten. To see that kid blossom, it means more
than winning. I don’t know what will become of Fessel, he’s a pretty scarred
kid, but one thing he’ll always have to lean on is that Murray Franklin, a big
leaguer, liked him, believed in him, and he’ll know he was a big part of
winning a championship.” He looked me straight in the eye. “Sometimes in life, things
get tough, you feel like the world’s got it in for you and you lose heart, and
a kid like Fessel can look back at this summer, and, well, it might make a
difference whether he sinks or swims.”
******
Dad fought a virulent form of cancer. His 17 inch neck
became a saggy beanpole, his blacksmith forearms sticks. His voice reduced to a
whisper. Before we ordered the doctor to withdraw life support systems, Dad
asked me if he had any chance, and I told him he did not, and he nodded and
whispered his thanks for my honesty and claimed he’d see me “down the line.” I
spent hours with him at his bedside. Even when he was totally incapacitated, he
knew I was there, always reassuring him I’d take care of the business and
mother.
So at the funeral I was long past tears. And in the eulogy I
told the sea of mourners that the manner in which my father played the game of
baseball was a reflection of his strong character, a quality he carried through
life as a family man, veteran of war, businessman. More important than the
surety that every ball player who’d ever played with and against Murray
Franklin respected him, was the surety that every one of these men sought his
respect. My father was incapable of letting a friend or even some helpless soul
down, just as he was, as mother said, incapable of an indecent act.
When I stepped off the stage, the rabbi’s eyes were
strangely bright as he grabbed my arm and nodded solemnly. “You were right,” he
said. “You did well.”
Goddam right.
There was a sort of wake. Friends and relatives drank and
nibbled appetizers at the house on the hill in San Pedro with the panoramic
view of LA and the Pacific Ocean , Dad’s dream
house, in which he loved to entertain, and of which he was so proud. My girl
friend at the time, an artist/atheist/animal rights zealot with several cats,
who felt close to Dad, repeatedly claimed to see a tiny light bobbing just over
my shoulder, and she assured me this was my father watching over me, a guiding
light. I believed her, and still do.
When all the guests were gone, mother, who had nursed,
bathed, dressed and fed my father the last months of his life, and witnessed
the day-to-day disintegration without once breaking down or losing her
tenderness, or complaining, finally collapsed in grief. My sister Susie and my
girl friend tended to her. I wandered into the living room to finally inspect
the numerous cards of Dad in his Detroit
uniform that had been accumulating for weeks on the front table. They were from
cities and small towns throughout the country, sent by fanatical baseball card
collectors to be autographed. Enclosed in all the envelopes were five and ten
dollar bills, as payment. Dad always signed the cards and added his best wishes
to the names of all senders and returned them, via stamped and self-addressed
envelopes, with the money included.
“I’ll never take money from a kid for my autograph, Dell.”
“Well, everybody’s doing it, Dad. It’s become a racket, a
business, even an investment. Grownups are in on it, too. Lot
of the old players didn’t make much, so they’re making up for it now. Like
Feller, your old republican pal.”
“I don’t give a damn. It’s horseshit. Your father never took
anything out of the game he didn’t deserve, and he’s not starting now. I make
enough money. Sure, I used my name to help get the business started, but that’s
different. I had associations with people. We were friends. I’ll never take
money for autographs. It desecrates the game and stinks of freeloading, and
I’ve always hated freeloaders.”
When Dad took his last breath in my arms, and the life went
out of him, I removed from his finger the 1949 Hollywood Star championship ring
he had been trying to give me without success for 20 years and placed it on my
finger. I felt an immediate surge of strength, and hope. At the table I
squeezed the ring and sat down and began answering the autograph seekers with
small notes explaining my father was unable to sign their cards because he had
died on March 16, 1978. I returned the cards and all cash, sealed the envelopes
and walked down the street to mail them off.
I was a ball player’s son, Murray Franklin’s son, and this
was the way we did things.
THE END
