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

                                                          BASEBALL 103

1963

    

      Bill Lentini, who had been talking to Angus, contacted me. He said he’d sign me right now if he could, and mentioned a few teams that were still interested in me, though nobody was going to give me any money after getting kicked off a college baseball team—unless I was King Kong. He felt I made a mistake not signing out of high school while I had a chance to, but what was “done was done” and now it was time for me to “get back on track.”

     I visited him at his tire store and the diminutive Lentini put me in a bear hug. His big brown eyes were soft and melting. “How’s my guy? Why haven’t you called or come see me? I miss watching you play. You know I’m your biggest fan, Dell. You’re like my kid.”

     “Awh, Bill, cut it out. You’re killing me.” But it was good to see him and receive his always sunny support.

     He laughed, poked me in the chest, kept his finger there firmly. “I know what’s inside you, Dell. Going to play for that cold fish at Cerritos, you broke Bill Lentini’s heart.” He withdrew his finger. “I talked to Doc Bennett. I’m his right hand man, his bird-dog. I told him I wanted you to come out and play for the White Sox winter league team. They play next Saturday.’

                    

     Bill was the most impressive and relentless salesman and schmoozer this side of my Dad. He convinced me to get myself in some sort of shape while Angus went under the knife. I quit Disneyland and decided to re-enter Cerritos and change my major from physical education to English Literature. When I informed Dad that Lentini had gotten me a try out, he grumbled, “I don’t trust that guy. I’ve seen a thousand like him. They never played ball but they want to hang on and butter up the front office stooges.”

     “He’s a good guy, Dad. He’s intimidated by you. Everybody is.”

     My first game was to be played almost 40 miles away, out in the San Fernando Valley. When I got to the ball park in my new heap, a dented VW, the White Sox were playing a team similar to those I’d played against with the Red Sox, who no longer had any interest in me, though I wore the same uniform Marco had given me. My hair stuck out from under the back of my cap. I saw a lot of decent prospects playing catch and partaking in exuberant chatter and kidding. I had not worked out or picked up a ball. Doc Bennett spotted me and barely nodded, a small, blunt-faced man with a fringe of white hair under a brimmed, light-weight hat of the like scouts wore. I felt he was not originally impressed with me and had been coerced by Lentini to give me a shot. When I reported to him he dismissively told me to report to Don Buford, who was running the team and riding herd on the players in a no-nonsense authoritative manner. I felt Bennett’s attitude a calculated treatment of me, a time-tested test old-timers employed with new prospects.

     Buford was a small, muscular black man with the legs of a whippet. His uniform fit him perfectly, as if tailored. I remembered him as a terrific gutsy football player at USC, and as a baseball player he was an over-achiever, a Nellie Fox-like self-made holler guy. Currently he was a highly regarded AAA player soon to be a big leaguer who’d paid his dues. Upon observing him this first time, his persona seemed fearsome, the kind of guy who had scrapped for everything and demanded nothing less from the kids now playing for him.

     When I reported to him he sized me up from top to bottom. “Who the hell sent you?”

     “Doc Bennett.”

     “He never said anything to me. Go warm up.”

     I got loose and fielded some grounders at second. I was rusty but strong. In the cage I dropped two perfect bunts down each line, and after fouling off a couple pitches I began lacing line drives to left, wanting to put on a show, for this was my showcase. Buford did not look at or talk to me or start me and I sat on the bench at the far end of the dugout with my cap low over my eyes, bored, not knowing anybody or wanting anything to do with anybody, listening to the little rooster talk baseball and display his keen knowledge of the game, which was exactly like mine. He was all business, treating this meaningless game as if it were the final of a World Series. In the 8^th inning he told me to grab a bat, pulled me aside at the bat rack. “I want you to lay down a bunt.”

     “I didn’t drive forty miles to lay down a goddam bunt.”

     “Either you bunt or sit down. We’re trying to win a ball game.”

     I thought of flubbing two bunts so I could hit away, but a guy like Buford would see right through that ploy. Up at the plate, the first pitch was in my wheelhouse and I drilled it on a line into left field for a single. I hadn’t returned from rounding first hard when Buford sent down a pinch runner. I hustled off the field into the dugout, found my bat and glove.

     “You’ll never be a ball player,” Buford barked at me. “Get the hell out of here.”

      I was happy to leave on these terms and didn’t bother to check out Doc Bennett in the stands. When Dad asked how it went, and I told him, he grimaced, told me he didn’t care how goddam far I drove, I should have bunted. Dad once said, “The game I love is not run by people I like, but if you want to play, you have to deal with it.”

     (Next Sunday installment: Creative Writing 101)     

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

                                                      BASEBALL LIMBO

1962

     I had not picked up a ball, bat or glove in months. Nights after work, and mornings when I awoke, were spent reading excessively and exhaustingly, with a newfound hunger for literature akin to eating. Steinbeck, Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Herman Wouk, Thomas Wolfe, Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Faulkner (with great difficulty), Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Bertrand Russell, Somerset Maugham, D.H. Lawrence, Mark Twain. Grampa Charley on mother’s side donated old, dusty paperbacks by the Russian masters. I was not ready for “Crime & Punishment.” Dad was stumped at my hermetic reading discovery. It took him three minutes to fall asleep reading Harold Robbins blockbusters at his bedside table.

     “So what are you going to do with yourself, Dell? Work at Disneyland until you get drafted? Go back to school? What about baseball?”

     “I need some time off from it, Dad. I’m waiting for the old itch to grab hold of me.”

     “You let me know when that itch starts. I know some people. All you’ve got to do is get on the field and show ‘em what you can do.” He smacked my knee in a fond manner. “And look, if you don’t want to play ball, well, far as I’m concerned, it’s all right with me.”

   “Mother’s been talking to you, huh?”

    “No, I’ve been thinking. I know it hasn’t been easy for you, being a ball player’s son, and especially a ball player like your old man. I’ve been hard on you, but it was always because I expected so much from you. What I didn’t mean to do was make you so damn hard on yourself. I was always hard on myself, but in a different way, I guess. My Dad was no athlete, so there was no pressure. Maybe things were less complicated for me. I could just go out and play, with nothing to lose, nothing expected of me. I was always loose in my approach to the game. I know baseball is a simple game, Dell, and it’s not for a complicated person, who can’t shut things out and thinks too much and lets the game drive them crazy. I could always concentrate on the game, and nothing else interfered or mattered. Then I became a professional when I’d never really considered it as a kid, because I loved it more than anything in the world. If it’s no longer that way with you, well, like I say, that’s okay with me, but if you still got that fire in your gut like you used to, I’ll find a way to get you back in the game—if you miss it? Do you?”

     I shrugged. Then: “Don’t try and do anything for me, Dad. I wish it was like Little League, when nobody knew who I was and I made it. I feel like driving to Florida when spring training starts and just showing up to see what I can do and what they think of me. Just some walk on. I’d even consider switch-hitting at this point. I don’t know why. It’s just a thought.”

     He was staring at me. “Damn boy, you’re making a habit of doing things the hard way. There’s a limit to that. I know. I tried it and you’re working against near impossible odds.”

     I thought to myself, “If I don’t play ball, it’s the waste of a lot of talent for a game I love and know how to play, and of all the years I dedicated to it.”

     “We’ll see how it goes, Dad.” As I watched him walk away, not happy because his kid was not happy and on an unsure path, I felt bad for him, felt like asking him to play a little catch and pepper in the front yard, but it was far too late for that now.

      (Next Sunday installment: Baseball 103)

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

                                     FACING FELLER WITHOUT A HELMET 

BIG MOE

     When Feller warmed up on the sidelines near the dugout before a game you actually saw his fastball rise about a foot, and the sound it made when it popped into the catcher’s mitt was a sound unlike you heard from any other pitcher, even the hardest throwers in the league, guys like Virgil Trucks, who I played with, and Newhauser and Phil Marchildon. Feller threw harder than the legends old timers talk about, and probably harder than Drysdale and Koufax and Herb Score or anybody around today. The closest to Feller is Nolan Ryan and Satchel Paige, but Paige’s  ball didn’t have the late movement Feller’s had, and nobody cracked the catcher’s mitt like Feller and had it echo all through the stadium…it was like the difference between Marciano or Joe Lewis punching the heavy bag compared to some light heavyweight, like Billy Conn.

     Certain guys got that “green-around-the-gills” look—like they were going into combat the first time—and came up with mysterious ailments on days Feller was scheduled to pitch, and certain guys up at the plate, you saw their knees shaking and knocking from the dugout. They were paralyzed with fear, couldn’t get their bats off their shoulders. Other guys went up there and swung like they were going through the motions and in a hurry to get the hell out of there, because Feller was wild as hell and put the fear of God in you. He had this high leg kick that hid the ball until the last possible second, and his curve ball broke about nine inches to a foot very sharply when it was right on top of you at nearly the same speed as his fastball, making it hard to distinguish what was coming at you, so a lot of guys were bailing out.

     I always felt the advent of batting helmets ended the separation between the men and the boys. Without batting helmets you took your life in your hands when you faced Feller, and Feller knew that, fed off it, fed off the fear. He was cocky and arrogant and ornery on that mound, had a big mouth, which he constantly shot off, even in the Navy, where it was common knowledge nobody popped off unless you wanted the brass to give you the shaft.

     I faced him in service games on the east coast before we all shipped out. We had great players on our Navy team—Hugh Casey, Peewee Reese, Phil Rizzuto. One game we turned six doubleplays. The best ball in the country was probably being played along the east coast among service teams. Once, late in the game, I was up, Feller was pitching, with men on base, and an admiral, who pretty much put his team together and liked to have his say, like they all did, and bet on the games with all the other brass from all branches of the service like they all did, came out to the mound. This admiral tried to get Feller to walk me and load the bases, so he could face a weaker hitter he owned, a guy who couldn’t touch Feller with a paddle.

     I’d had fair success against Feller. I was a dead pull hitter and liked the challenge of hitting off him and you had to be that way or there was no use playing the game. But Feller was as stubborn a sonofabitch as there was in the game, and no goddam officer was going to tell him what to do on a ball field. He chased the guy back to the dugout in no uncertain terms and was so distracted he piped me a fastball down the middle on the first pitch and I sent it on a line right past his ear and drove in the winning run. This felt good, because he’d dusted me a week earlier.

     He stormed off the mound, and that night on Armed Forces Radio he popped off about how no Navy big shot was going to tell him how to pitch and who to pitch to and so on and so forth, and a few days later they shipped him out on a battleship, headed for the South Pacific like the rest of us, and I hear he gave a pretty good account of himself out there, which doesn’t surprise me. He was never short on guts or heart and he always stuck up for the black players during barnstorming days when other guys wouldn’t. He’s what you call a good American, a patriot, and you have to say overall he’s a good man, despite being a goddam mule-headed Republican and as tough to take off the field s he was on it. He was self-righteous as they come, and he could never keep his foot out of his mouth.

     (Next Sunday installment: Baseball Limbo)

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

                                      ANGUS AGAIN TRIES TO SET ME STRAIGHT

1962

     Angus was back in town after a summer of playing ball in Harlan, Kentucky, where he had a respectable year considering he was hobbled by a bad knee. The swollen, ugly knee needed surgery, which would be paid for by the White Sox, who had released him (as Dad had predicted) and the organization was peeved because they felt Angus’s knee was damaged before they signed him, a secret he kept from Bill Lentini and Doc Bennett. Angus played the whole season on a bum knee he’d originally hurt playing hockey,

     Always up and optimistic, he was a little subdued but not disillusioned or demoralized. He conceded there was very little glamour in the bushes, only hardship. In Harlan he could be playing a day or night game and hear gunshots from some of the Hatfield/McCoy-like mountain people downtown shooting at each other over century old feuds in front of innocent bystanders who took it all in stride as a way of life in that blighted region of America. Angus described Harlan as poverty-stricken, poorest of the poor, meanest of the mean, kindest of the kind, all in all good folks.

     “What about the girls, big A?”

     “Awh, Jesus, Dell, you could spend a lifetime there and never find a girl half as good lookin’ as the average ones back here. Yah gotta feel sorry for ‘em, havin’ to hook up with the uncouth bastards gonna end up treatin’ ‘em like shit. The half decent ones’ll do anything to get knocked up by a ball player and get out’a that poor coal mining area.

Yah gotta feel for those folks, but I’m glad I’m out-a there and back home.”

     He’d lived in a boarding house with several other players who were either hicks or city kids and they had little in common but their individual ambitions to make the big leagues. The bus rides were miserable, the food terrible, the caliber of ball probably no better than college, the life draining, sleep-deprived, no privacy, lonely. He was almost glad it was over.

      “I only saw one player on our team with a real chance of makin’ the White Sox, a guy named Ken Berry, the best outfielder you’ll ever see. He could play center in the big leagues right now, he’s that good, but he doesn’t have much of a stick. You’re a much better hitter. I didn’t see a guy in the league any better than you. I can’t believe how yah fucked up, and went and played for that poop at Cerritos when yah could-a signed or played for Mike Skoba. I never seen a guy fuck up his career worse than you. It just makes me sick. I talked to Bill Lentini and he just shakes his head. I thought you had some brains. I mean, you’re twice as smart as me, cuz I’m just a bloody hard-headed hockey player from Moose Jaw, but you don’t have a lick of sense, Dell. Jesus fucking Christ!”

     When I got off work, we shot pool. I told him about Dawn Meadows giving me the boot and he issued me the usual razzing over my stupidity and ineptitude around girls. Already he’d set up a date with an old flame still in high school. He was going to “make up for lost time.” I warned him to be careful, but he laughed me off. On my lone night off he set me up in the back seat of his clunker on a double-date, fogging up the windows as he fucked in the front seat and I necked in the back seat with a 16 year old but was terrified of getting a girl pregnant and facing the consequences of having to get hitched and ruining my life more than I already had.

     Angus claimed I was a “lost cause.” After dropping off the girls, we drove around, drinking, talking. Angus had made up his mind to use his experience as a pro ball player to try and get into radio and TV broadcasting. He could do hockey and baseball. What about an education? Angus flashed his winning smile, pointed to his noggin, winked.

     “Don’t worry about old Angus. He’s got an education all his own upstairs, and he’ll come out smellin’ like a rose. It’s you we gotta worry about. I gotta get you playin’ ball again. It took me about a month to see I’d never make the big leagues, not with my abilities. If I hung on as a player I could maybe reach double A ball and later be a coach. But I don’t want that low-payin’ dog’s life. But you? Except for yer arm, you can go all the way, and there’s ways to cover up the arm if you can catch up with the high heat and run the bases and play like you do. I’m gonna talk to Lentini. Yer a sorry-ass excuse for what yah used to be right now, but big A’s gonna take care of his buddy. If I gotta get yer ass signed, I bloody well will. Yah fuckin’ weasel, yah don’;t deserve as good a friend as me.” He grinned and chucked my cheek like a big brother. “Fuckin’ Disneyland. What the hell yah doin’ out there—imitatin’ Mickey Mouse?”

     I shrugged. “It’s the cleanest, most wholesome place on earth, A. Totally synthetic.”

     “Synthetic?”

     “Artificial. Phony.”

     “Yeh, well, now yer talkin’ about the world we live in, Dell, in case yah haven’t noticed. Better get used to it or find a way to play the game, or yer in deep shit. Between that, and the bloody crooked politicians, that’s life.”

     “Well, I don’t seem to fit in anywhere.”

     He placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder and looked me straight in the eye. “We gotta get you signed to play ball. If yah don’t play ball, or at least give it a try, yah’ll regret it the rest of yer life and wonder if you were good enough to make it.” He squeezed my shoulder for emphasis. “We gotta get yah signed, if it’s the last thing either of us do. You not playin’ ball, lovin’ it like yah do, and workin’ at Disneyland, that’s bloody criminal. It makes Angus sick in the gut.”

     (Next Sunday installment: Big Moe: Facing Feller—without a helmet)

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

                                               MY OWN PRIVATE DISNEYLAND

1962

     I quit school and applied for a job at Disneyland, presenting myself to the interviewer as a clean-cut college student, and was hired as a sweeper at the “Happiest Place on Earth.” I was issued a white uniform and clip-on black bow tie and handed a broom and dustpan and sent to scoop up butts and all small debris in Fantasyland, my territory as one of the employees keeping Disneyland spotless and wholesome for swooning, camera-toting tourists. My supervisor, Roy, was a clean-cut guy around 30 in dark slacks, dark string tie, black shoes, white short-sleeve shirt, with a chain of keys dangling from his belt and a row of pens in his breast pocket. He was an intense team player who immediately set forth to motivate me: “If you work out, Dell, there’s no telling how far you can go. This is the greatest place to work in America. You could end up a ride operator, or a supervisor, like me. Sky’s the limit!”

     Since Disneyland was non union, everybody was underpaid but supposedly ecstatic because it was a privilege and honor and a status symbol to work at Disneyland. I was paid $1.67 an hour to sweep. Right off I found myself gravitating to implement my new trade at an area close to the Fantasyland snack bar, which was operated by a crew of pretty college girls with chirpy, upbeat attitudes, like Dawn Meadows, who was engaged to a fraternity boy and informed me I was an “immature child who needed to grow up and be a man!” She refused to acknowledge me.

     Occasionally I spotted a lonely butt perhaps 20 feet from the snack bar and jetted across the near spotless pavement, niftily skirting tourists like a field hockey player, and pounced like a dog chasing a ball upon this butt and snapped it up. The snack bar girls found this entertaining. When the coast was clear of snitches, which Disney employed in touristy disguises, I swept in pirouettes, behind my back, or fiendishly swept at nothing, flying back and forth before their area while they pointed and laughed. Later, when I ordered lunch, they lay extra cheese and onions on my burgers and piled on the fries. Still, when I cornered them in conversation at the lunch area and asked them for dates, they backed off warily and made excuses while refusing to meet my eyes.

     These girls were interested in male ride operators and supervisors and there was a pecking order involved in the mating ritual, which included Snow White and Alice in Wonderland, two beauty contest winners that had the employees in shirts and ties fawning over them like pandering lackeys. I made it a point to ignore them.

     To keep my mind off the demise of my baseball career I volunteered to work 6 ten hour shifts a week and Roy was very pleased, though he warned me to cease hovering around the snack bar and distracting the girls who were there for customers only! Every evening I witnessed tourists oohing and aahing at the sight of the sizzling, soaring, popping constellation of fireworks filling the Orange County sky just before closing. The deadening, mindless job was transforming me into a detached, robotic dullard. I began to despise Disneyland and its contrived, aggressive PR campaign of wholesomeness. I made no real friends and sought none. I worked, went home, ate, read in my room, avoided my parents; spent my day off body surfing in Huntington Beach.

     One day Roy called me into his office. “Dell,” he said, bouncing up from his desk. “We think you’re a good worker, a real go-getter, great enthusiasm, we are happy with your performance, and we love it when our employees are happy, enjoy their job, but you seem to think having fun is your full time privilege. Our customers, who are precious, are the ones supposed to be having fun and are entertained by Disneyland, by the fireworks and rides, and our ride operators…not our janitors. You have to cease putting on a show for our customers, even if they do like snapping pictures of your…uh…act.” He issued me an understanding, uncle-like smile. “It’s not a good reflection on our park. Okay?”

     “Sure, Roy. Sorry. I get carried away.”

     “Otherwise, you have an excellent work ethic. We like you. Okay?”

     “Thanks, Roy.”

     We shook hands like earnest grown-ups. I became a model Disneyland employee.

     (Next Sunday installment: Angus again tries to set me Straight).    

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

                                              DILEMMA AND DESPAIR

1962

     Driving the eight miles home from the Cerritos athletic complex through the flat, featureless boulevards wedged in between housing tracts and strip malls and the dwindling dairy farms, everything looked different and seemed suffused in a grey pall. Slowly dawning on me and infiltrating me like a clammy fever was the bludgeoning reality that not only for the first time in my life I was officially extricated from the love of my life, baseball, but that there was a change going on in me that was not good; I did not understand it but it was verified by the looks of my ex teammates as I left the clubhouse—this kid is a fuck-up and there is something very, very wrong with him. I was isolated and exposed as a psycho, trapped in the shell-shocked ruins of my surroundings like the last man on earth.

     When I got home, mother had just returned from her job as school nurse at Bolsa Grande high school in Garden Grove and was in the kitchen preparing dinner. I didn’t want to face her in this state, but she took one brief look at me and dropped everything to ask what was wrong, and when I explained what had transpired her eyes filled with far less sympathy than I expected.

     She calmly told me to sit down. I sat down. She sat down. “Sometimes,” said my mother. “Certain things are meant to be. Nature must take its natural course, and for whatever reason it ultimately works out for the best. Sometimes an experience you feel is terrible turns out to be a blessing in disguise, despite the pain I know you’re feeling right this minute and will feel for a while.”

     “I don’t see any blessing in disguise, mother. I should’ve signed. I could be off with Angus, beating the bushes, instead of wallowing in this…goddam suburb. I hate it.”

     She reached over and took my hand, making me feel squeamish. “Dell, I know it seems hopeless right now, but whether you come to realize it or not, you are the kind of person who is going to have to bear up to some very tough periods in your life, a lot of pain and disappointment, because you are not like other people. You don’t accept things as they are. You have always been independent, and rebellious, and people who are like that pay, always. In the end, this will make you a stronger person who sees more, and feels more.” She actually smiled at me. There had never been a time when she didn’t make things feel better for me at my lowest moments. “How lucky you are, believe it or not, to be more perceptive and sensitive, to suffer more, because there will be that much more to experience, so many more horizons to cross! You’re never going to be dull, and the world is full of dull people. Who you are and what you’re going to be are as opposite from the limited world of baseball as you could possibly imagine, and believe me, I was in baseball, with your father, for a good many years, and I know what you’d be up against. Your father, in case you didn’t know, knocked heads with coaches and managers and the front offices all his career, and he paid for it, and I’m not sure HE was cut out for that life, but he was such a brilliant athlete, and loved baseball so much, he didn’t seem to have any choice. In an era when men ended up doing what their parents wanted them to do, or took what was available, your father did what HE wanted to do, and so will you.”

     Later, at the dinner table, Dad said, “Well, a blind man could see the writing on the wall.”  He gazed at me, not happy. “What about school? You staying in school?”

     I was thinking, it was shameful to be eating my Dad’s food under his roof like a freeloader while my friends were either away at college or playing pro ball or working. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do, Dad.”

     “Well, if you’re not going to school, you can work for me.”

     “Maybe I’ll join the marines.”

     “Don’t go off half-cocked for Chrissake! You’ve already screwed up one part of your life—don’t ruin everything.”

     “He is NOT going in the marines,” stated mother. “Not over my dead body.”

     Later, mother came into my room, where I lay on my back staring at the ceiling. She sat on the side of my bed. “I think you should seriously consider writing. That English teacher at Western thought highly of your talent and felt there was something inside you that was a writer. And I think as long as you’re living here you should find a job other than working for your father. I think you need a change. You need to think about things. It’s been baseball baseball baseball since you were a little boy. Maybe down the line you can play again, honey, but right now you need a break from it.”

     She kissed me on the head, smiled at me in a manner that said things would be okay, and left the room.

     (Next Sunday installment: My own Private Disneyland.)                          

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

BIG MOE

     Almost everybody in baseball who was young enough and able-bodied (hell, we were professional athletes, in our prime, cream of the crop of American manhood) went off to war, or at least joined some branch of the military. It wasn’t a time to think about yourself, or your career. Joining up was the decent and honorable thing to do. You didn’t want anybody patting you on the back for it, even though you were giving up everything you’d worked for all your life. A pro ball player only has so many years, and here I was, 28, just finding my niche, in my prime, and I had to go, knowing I was going to lose my best years, years I could finally make some decent money and establish myself, knowing the guys taking my place were either too old to go, or young guys who found a way to get out of it for their own good.

     We had this young kid, about 21, 22, a big left-handed pitcher, a real horse, had just about the best stuff in the league next to Feller, and he said he wasn’t going, and his mother supported him. He was a Momma’s boy, spoiled, arrogant, a bratty kid, couldn’t stand to lose or not get his way…I remember him tossing a card table over when he lost in cards…and then the big dummy went on radio in Detroit and popped off about why he wasn’t going, something about fighting his own people, and ended up getting some kind of medical deferment on some kind of heart condition.

     A couple of our players were cleaning out their lockers and getting ready to check out and go into the service, and they bounced him around pretty good. Tebbetts really went after him, boxed him around, called him yellow, and believe me, there were a bunch of us who wanted a piece of him.

     I thought about guys like him when I was over seas in the South Pacific, living the dogs life, the heat so bad the ground cracked and you went a little crazy, and the malaria, the crotch-rot, and wondering if you were ever going to get out of this hell-hole alive or in one piece; and you wondered about some of those poor kids storming those beach heads, little guys from the end of the line, taking it on the nose for the rest of us, doing the right thing, and you think about this big strapping kid back in the states, with his heart condition, having his biggest, best years, winning over 20 games, throwing more innings than anybody in the big leagues, making a reputation for himself, getting famous, a hero to kids, an all star, making good money, and you wanted to puke.

     The fans, they forget, because they’re fickle, and later on all you hear about is a guy’s great years and great records, and he WAS a hell of a pitcher, I admit, but as a man everybody on Detroit knew he was a horse’s ass, selfish, no guts, put himself before his country while the rest of us did the dirty work while he took the easy way out.

     Sometimes in life it’s the things you don’t do that haunt you, but then sometimes you have guys who don’t know any better, or do know better but don’t give a damn, and guys like that, well, you wouldn’t change places with them for anything in the world, because at least you wake get up in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror and know your team mates see the same guy you do

     (Next Sunday installment: “Dilemma and Despair.”)

    

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

                                                    THE INVISIBLE KID

1962

     I was hanging out in no-man’s land in the outfield during BP when I noticed my Dad confronting Kincaid near the first base dugout. All activity on the diamond ceased. My heart thumped deeply in my chest as Kincaid lowered his head and looked to the side as Dad, arms-folded, gave him the “look” as he talked to him. When Kincaid finally spoke, he lifted his head slightly, at one point spreading his arms in a gesture of futility. Then Dad strode off in an angry gait and I steered clear of Kincaid, showered quickly and drove home, where Dad fixed me with his hard, angry eyes.

     “I can’t stand a man who wears sunglasses when you talk to him. I can’t stand a man who chews a goddam toothpick and mumbles and won’t look at you. That man doesn’t have a hair on his ass.”

     “I told you to stay out of my business, Dad!”

     “I watched his team. I’m not saying this because you’re my son, but nobody out there is any better than you and none of them can carry your bat. I don’t know what you did to piss this guy off, but he’s not the kind of guy you should be playing for.” He sighed, bit at his lower lip. “You really screwed yourself.” He shook his head slowly, in disgust. “I know how you’re feeling, Dell, believe me. There’s nothing tougher than sitting on the bench and watching somebody who can’t carry your jockstrap. I watched guys like Bloodsworth and Hitchcock and Mayo and Webb, guys who couldn’t hit a bull in the ass with a base fiddle, playing my position, and it’s an organizational thing, and it drives you crazy, you feel like your losing time, it beats you down, but you can’t let it, you’ve got to keep your dauber up, and we’ll see if we can get you signed.”

      But the looked we exchanged said something different.

                                                                *******

     On a road trip to Visalia for a JC tournament, we took a caravan of mini buses. Team managers and Kincaid’s assistant coach, Howie, did the driving. Howie, a muscular, burr-headed ex marine and former Kincaid catcher at Cerritos, drove our van, Kincaid sitting shotgun. I sat in back. Harmon and a few infielders sat in seats up front. Unlike the riotous banter and nonstop chatter of my high school team, these guys were cautious clams, treating conversation as a disease and clubhouse cut-ups and kidders like myself as possible heathens.

     At one point Kincaid nudged Howie, and cracked, “Franklin’s pretty quiet. Must be going crazy back there with nobody to talk to.”

     Visalia had a cozy minor league park. We stayed four to a room in an old hotel with fire-escapes on the main drag. That evening Howie assembled us in his room and told funny stories of past Cerritos teams and his days in the Marines, which “shaped him up when he was a cocky lost soul with no direction.” Rock solid and brutally honest, he kept his eyes glued on me when mentioning a certain person on the team who would “benefit by going into the military, where they’d force him to grow up.” There were lots of glances and nods.

     After he excused us I managed to corral Dyer and a big, amiable second year outfielder named Charlie Neal, who I recognized immediately as minimally corruptible and not quite a Kincaid clone, down to the Dairy Queen on the main drag where we tried to pick up girls but ended up paying a wino to get us a bottle and a 6 pack. We watched the locals drive up and down the boulevard and struck out with the girls and eventually showed up slightly tipsy in the lobby an hour after curfew to discover Kincaid sitting in a chair and peering up at us from a magazine as we tip-toed sheepishly past him to our rooms.

     Kincaid never said a word. The tournament was rained out and on the bus ride home he never said a word, the entire trip grim and silent. The next couple games I did not pinch hit or pinch run, not even when the situation glaringly called for it. In a rout, Kincaid used everybody on the roster but me. We were all anticipating a prestigious JC tourney in Fresno, another road trip as defending champions. When I walked into the clubhouse to read the traveling roster, my name was missing. Everybody else was on it. I gazed at Dyer and he shook his head and then his eyes widened with extreme alarm at the sight of me as I made a beeline across the clubhouse toward Kincaid’s office. Two pitchers, Bailes and Raines, tried to waylay me but I shrugged them off, pounded on Kincaid’s door, ripped it open and burst inside to find myself facing Kincaid as he sat in his swivel chair behind his desk, toothpick drooping in his mouth.

     I felt myself the maniacal version of Murray Franklin as I started toward his desk. He stood facing me, no longer the phlegmatic stoic. Howie was behind me. I was breathing too hard to talk. Kincaid glanced at Howie and nodded toward the door, and he left, closing the door while I stood snorting fire at Kincaid.

     I said something like, “What the fuck are you trying to DO to me? Why the fuck am I not on your goddam chickenshit traveling roster?”

     Very evenly, toothpick out, he said, “You fell asleep on the bench. That’s inexcusable.”

     “What?” I was aghast. “Bullshit. You can’t be serious.”

     “I asked you twice to grab a bat, and you ignored me. Your cap was pulled low over your eyes. I figured you were sleeping, or else your mind was on anything but baseball.”

     “That’s bullshit, too, and you know it. Goddam lying bullshit.”

     “And you’re off the team. Get out of here. I’ve had enough of you. I never asked you to come play for me. You’re a disruption. I’ve got 25 kids here. I’m running a program. You don’t have the first clue how to be a teammate.”

     I began trembling. Maybe thirty seconds passed. Kincaid stood leaning forward in his sweat jersey, hands balanced on his desk. He shook his slowly, wearily, revealing deep creases in his face. “Look, I don’t dislike you, Dell. I think you’re a good ball player, but you’ll be better off playing on another team, for another coach, but not here, not for me.”

     I felt utterly depleted. I was speechless. Kincaid sat on the corner of his desk. He seemed to be studying me, his first display of some shred of personal interest. “Have you ever considered doing something else, besides playing baseball?” Suddenly he seemed sympathetic.

     “No.”

     “Look, baseball isn’t everything in life, especially if it drives you crazy. Be a painter, a lawyer, a doctor, a carpenter, a teacher, try something else. Maybe you’re really good at something you don’t even know about.”

     I couldn’t look at him. “I was out of line busting in here. I know better. I’m sorry.”

     He looked troubled, but at the same time I realized he was relieved to have me out of his hair. “You know, I had battles as a kid,” he said. “So I joined the military. It gave me direction and purpose. I saw how the other half lived, got a bigger picture of the world, and where I might belong. I thought about what I wanted.” He looked straight at me, sans shades. “I’m not telling you to do the same, but it’s an idea.”

     By this time my legs were noodles. I was about to collapse.

     “Listen,” Kincaid said. “I’m truly sorry the way things turned out. If you intend to play somewhere else, I’ll try and help you. I would never do anything to hurt the career of you or any kid.”

     I walked out of his office realizing I didn’t give one iota about his team, or any team. It was dog-eat-dog and we were all obsessed with getting ahead in our own baseball careers, using every level as a stepping stone—Little League, high school, Legion, college. Team spirit? Bullshit. I hated the whole concept. In the stock still clubhouse, none of my former teammates said a word as I cleaned out my locker. Steve Wright flashed me a look of commiseration. Only Dyer came over to say tough luck and we’d hook up soon.

     (Next Sunday installment: Big Moe: “A Time to Serve.”)

 

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

                                                         BASEBALL 102

1962

     In early spring Kincaid gave me the second base position and in preseason games I hammered the ball and played air-tight defense. I felt I was set. Kincaid seemed to have accepted me despite his initial misgivings. Then he brought in a highly regarded second baseman named Jerry Harmon, who’d gone to the University of Arizona and been disenchanted with the program and transferred to Cerritos. Harmon was a speedster, built like a whippet, appearing streamlined when he ran, but he was nowhere as explosive at the start or as fast around the bases as I was. He was a good ball player with an average arm and an awkward-looking slinging sidearm motion. Quietly intense, serious, private, Kincaid immediately gave him second base and moved me to the outfield as a platoon player. He liked me in center but said he had a kid coming out from the football team who had played that position.

     I felt he had to play me somewhere to get my bat in the line-up, but he had his outfield set and sat me down when we played Fullerton. I watched some of my ex teammates and kids from Fullerton and La Habra who’d witnessed me tearing up the Sunset league and Legion and Connie Mack ball. I felt ashamed and could not look at Skoba or any of them. They played us tight, and in the bottom of the ninth, down a run, men on base, Kincaid pinch hit me. My teammate and friend at Western, Gary Martin, was catching. “What the fuck are you doing pinch hitting?” he asked from his squat. “Skoba can’t believe you’re on the bench. I haven’t seen one guy in their line up who can hit or play like you.”

     “Gary, I don’t know what the fuck’s going on. Christ, I’m hitting around .400.”

     “Why are you playing for a guy like Kincaid? You should be with us. You know all our guys, and they know how crazy you are. You’d be our best player. You’re getting the royal shaft, man. This makes me sick, Dell. I ran into Angus and he says you’ve lost your fucking mind.”

     I ended up anxiously hacking away at every pitch and then took a half-assed curve on the outside corner from a pitcher I hit .700 against in high school. As I walked off the field, Skoba stood staring at me, shaking his head slowly. Kincaid was silently furious, as if we’d lost the final game of the college world series, which detracted from our reputation of invincibility, like the Yankees. He would not look at me or say a word, and I felt a cold draft from his coaches and second year players. I’d let everybody down.

      From this point on I was relegated to pinch runner. No matter how hard or well I played in intra squad games, I didn’t play in games. I was ignored, a scrub, and began to feel estranged from my teammates, except for Dyer, who had injured his elbow and expressed a desire to leave Cerritos, which he felt was a bit of a “meat factory.”

     “Franklin,” he said. “I hate to say it, but Kincaid’s not gonna play you.”

     Dad wanted to know “what I’d done to get benched.” He wanted to confront Kincaid. I told him to stay out of my business and let me handle it, not wanting a scene. On a Saturday afternoon I pinch ran and Kincaid gave me the steal sign in a tight game and I stole second and scored a big run on a single to left, thundering across the plate. Kincaid clapped his hands and smacked my ass and exclaimed “thattaway, Peanuts” as his coaches and veterans got in on the adulation.

     I hated the nickname, resented his attempts to “blend me in” with his chosen recruits, and it became more and more evident I didn’t fit. I was an oddball, a contrary kid incapable of conforming to a certain brand of college uniformity and rah rah bullshit. I didn’t hang out with any of my teammates. I began haunting a pool hall with Dyer between classes. I warmed the bench for several games, watching Cerritos roll over mediocre teams and licking my lips at mediocre JC pitchers. Everybody was happy but me. I was slowly becoming unhinged on the bench, could not sit still, having never warmed a bench and in the past found it intolerable coming out for one inning! I began secretly rooting against every teammates; hoping they’d fuck up so I could get into the line-up and impress Kincaid, but it was beginning to dawn on me that he was not going to play me, that he flat out did not want to play me, and I wondered was he trying to deliver me a message he felt I needed as a person and a ball player.

     When I peered up in the stands to spot some of the same scouts I’d seen over the years, one of whom offered me a contract, I felt like crawling into a hole and dying.

     Dyer felt I should be playing. My average was still around .400. One of our tall, right-handed pitchers, Steve Wright, who had already been offered contracts, whispered to me before an intra squad game that he was going to “pipe” me every pitch. He did and I whistled two ropes for singles into left field. It did no good. Dyer was right—he was not going to play me. Angus, Skoba, my Dad, they were all right.

     I said nothing to Kincaid, who treated me in a manner indicating there was no problem between us. Dad and Mom sensed my despondent mood and tried to talk to me, but I locked myself into my room. I had no idea what to do. I had no idea what I was doing. Somehow I was averaging close to a B carrying 15 units. I didn’t want to talk to anybody, and especially Angus, who was headed to spring training with the White Sox and scheduled to play in Harlan, Kentucky. I could have been with him if I’d stuck with Bill Lentini, whom I could not bear to face.

    (Next Sunday installment: The Invisible Kid) 

        (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.”)

                                              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)