Baseball: My First 3 Seasons 1970-1972

I have prided myself through the years on remembering a lot of specific things. For some crazy reason, my memory of when I played my first season of Little League baseball has played tricks on me. For a long time, I was under the impression that I first played in 1969, then skipped 1970 because of my pending move to Eugene, and then picked up again in 1971 once I got to Eugene. But I think I've had this information incorrect for a long time. I believe that I actually started in 1970.
My budding interest in baseball began with the San Francisco Giants while I was living on Franklin Street. Some of my earliest baseball memories are of listening to Giants games on the radio (being called by Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons while they were getting stewed on beer) with my brother Mike. In fact, I even recall listening to the Giants and Padres on the radio one very specific time with him.
In First Grade, I began the process of going over to Buck Shaw Stadium to begin the very special Spring ritual of where St. Clare School would be let out for the day so that the kids could go with their parents to see the Santa Clara Broncos play the Giants. Back then, this was the Giants team which had Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Hal Lanier, Gaylord Perry, Dick Dietz and Bobby Bonds among others. So, this was always an exciting thing.
I was also getting exposed to them on television. It was inevitable that I would eventually go up to Candlestick Park to see my first MLB game proper. That day came in 1969 when I went up to see a doubleheader between the Giants and the Atlanta Braves. The Hank Aaron led Braves lost the first game to the Giants. I got to see Juan Marachal pitch. We never got to see the end of the second game as my Dad was becoming concerned that I had taken in enough baseball for a day, so we left to go back home.
At this time, I was also beginning to watch the Oakland A's on televison as well. It was during this time that my Dad's best man (for one year) worked for the A's. He was responsible for having gotten Monte Moore recommended to become the broadcaster for the A's after Harry Carray left. As a side note, for those of you who think Harry was a lovable drunkard. That is a fable. The late Bob Freitas told me that Harry was an insufferable lout who drove everybody crazy and that he treated people like shit. He was fired from the Cardinals when it was discovered that he was having an afair with one of Augie Busch's relations. I can't remember if it was his wife or a Busch relative's wife.
With this backdrop, my Dad asked me if I was interested in trying out to play some baseball. I said I was. So I went to what would become Carley Field and tried my hand at fielding and hitting a ball. I discovered something very quickly. I could field pretty much o.k., but I was scared shitless of this really hard baseball whizzing by me when I was at the plate. After my tryout, I was assigned to a team. I don't have my team photo handy. Believe it or not, I can't remember if we were the White Sox or the Red Sox. I can't even recall if we were sponsored by anybody. To make matters worse, I don't even recall the names of the coaches I had. I do, however, remember my coach. We barely interacted with each other at all.
There is a hilarious incident from back in this season in 1970. I was at practice one day and I was up to bat taking my swings. Well, the pitcher that the coach was using was scaring the hell out of me by having no control that day. I was crouched very low in my stance. Finally, a ball came whizzing by me that was too close for comfort. What did I do? I ran off and hid in the bushes for the rest of practice. My Dad eventually came over and rescued me from practice. My coach had a talk with him and told him what happened. He told my Dad that the way the kid was pitching, he would have run into the bushes too.
One of my teammates was a kid named Albert Barcellos. Albert and I would become good baseball buddies. It got to be so much so that I would eventually get to go to his house a few times and hang out with him and his parents. I must say this. His late Dad, Manuel, was a prince of a human being in my eyes. He always made me feel comfortable and that I was accepted. He was just such a warm person. He always had the sun in his eyes. His smile was also one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It's no wonder that my Dad liked him so much. For some strange reason which I still can't explain to myself, I was always a little scared of his Mom even though she was friendly to me as well. She told me a few times that I was going to grow up to become a politician. Well, my Uncle was the Mayor at the time.
Anyway, the team that I was on started out great guns to begin the season. I was strangely placed in right field. I think I rarely ever had to make a play out there. The reason why we started out great was because we had a kid on our team with whom was evaluated incorrectly by the people at the tryouts (or else the kid was made to be a ringer). This kid was huge by our standards. We were squirts while this kid lumbered around like Boog Powell. He was enormous. What happened was that he started off by hitting monsterous shots-some being home runs. Us kids were giddy. All we had to do was get on base so that we could wait for him to bring us in. We were slaugherting other teams in the first half of the season by huge margins. Well, the league caught sight of what was happening and decided that he had been misclassified. They called him up to a higher level. And that's when our hopes of winning the championship for our division did a nosedive into the tank. We scraped out some wins. For the most part, we usually got our breakfast, lunch and dinner handed to us most of the time.
It was during this season that I also played against David G., my classmate at St. Clare's for the first time as opponents. When I came up to bat against him, we both smiled at each other. I'm pretty sure that he struck me out.
For my first year in Little League ball, I was scared of the ball when I batted. I walked on most of my at-bats that year. I did not get any hits. I would crouch so low in a stance that I didn't give an umpire a strike zone to speak of to call pitches. If the Westside Little League had kept stats on players back then for our division, I probably would have haeld records for two things-the most walks and the most steals. What I greatly excelled at was in stealing bases once I got on base. I had this knack of timing when a pitcher was at his apex of his pitching moment so that I could take off on him. This accomplishment of mine led to what may possibly be my favorite memory of something I did for my Dad.
The morning of Father's Day 1970 had dawned. I went over to the bedroom of my parents to go and see them for a breif spell knowing that I had a game to play that day. My Mom and Dad were still in bed and I made the following announcement to my Dad. It went something like this, "Dad, I know it's Father's Day except that I didn't get you anything for it. But I'm going to make up for it though. When I get on today (it was a given that I would walk because it happened so frequently), I am going to steal all of the bases for you as a Father's Day present, o.k.?" My Dad must have been thinking that I was nuts. Knowing him, after I left the room, he and Mom were probably laughing their asses off at my bold claim.
So, the game arrived later in the day. Lo and behold, when I got to bat, I got my usual walk due to my barely existing strike zone because of the crouch that I used to protect myself from that evil baseball. When I was on first, I told myself to remember what I had promised Dad. I carefully watched the apex of the pitcher's motion. I took off and I stole second base. I'm thinking to myself one down and two to go. I let the pitcher throw a few pitches as I still put out a lead from second just so I could keep him nervous. I knew I would head back to second after each pitch until I decided the time was right to make my move. And then he decided that I was going to stay there. He let himself get vulnerable during the apex of his motion for a fraction too long. I took off and I stole third base with no throw. Now I'm thinking that I just have one more left to fulfill my promise to Dad. I knew my Dad was at the game and in the stands watching me.
At this point,I clearly remember that both the pitcher and the catcher were very nervous. They were really keeping an eye on me now. I didn't give myself much of a lead as well. The guy threw some pitches. I don't know if another batter had come up or not. All I know is that I was itching to get to home. Well, I had frazzled the pitcher. He eventually threw either a wild pitch or a pass ball because the pitch ended up in the dirt and flew by the catcher in the interim. This was my big moment. I took off. The ball slid almost to the backstop. The catcher went running frantically to get he ball while the pitcher came running up to the plate to take a throw in an attempt to get me out. I came charging in feet first like I always slid. The catcher came up to the plate and tried to tag me. Apparently, my feet made it before he applied the tag. I scored. I did it! I kept my promise to Dad. I tried to find him in the stands, but I couldn't see him as the crowd had jumped up in excitement. I saw him later on and he sure had a grin from ear to ear.
When I moved up to Eugene, baseball was going to be completely different for me. I tried out and was classified to play in tee ball in order to help me overcome my fear of the ball. In 1971, I had just got done being in Third Grade and my mind was filled with music to go with the baseball. I played for the team I would play on in both 1971 and 1972-the Cascade Lions. They were coached by a man with whom I would come to love and respect. He was Bob Straub. Mr. Straub was not a spring chicken. He was old even back then. But he was an exceptionally gentle person who was very encouraging. He took us kids to heart. We held our practices at the Meadowlark School. One of my teammates was somebody I would know later on at Marist High School. This would be none other than Charlie N. Charlie was a notorious prankster and troublemaker. He frequently loved to bring firecrackers to practice and set a few off before Mr. Straub would roll into practice in his red and white VW van (I guess it would be a mini-van today).
Mr. Straub apparently had a special thing for me. He noticed that I was different and that I carried myself a little differently than the other kids when I was at practice. He stunned me once. As I was standing beside my Mom one time either after a practice or before a game one time, he told my Mom that I reminded him of Joe DiMaggio in how I carried myself. My Mom and Mr. Straub had both seen DiMaggio play. My Mom got to see him and his two brothers play when all three brothers played in the PCL. Being from San Francisco originally, Mom got to see the San Francisco Seals a lot.
The tee helped me a lot. I got plenty of hits and I still got around on the basepaths. Because of the fact that kids were getting plenty of hits, I never had to steal bases. Mr. Straub did notice that I could field pretty well. As a result, I played second base. My best play of the the two years I played there occurred at Meadowlark. A kid on the oppsoing team hit a ball to right field and hit first base. He decided to try to stretch the hit into a double. The kid in right picked up the ball and threw it to me. The only thing was that I knew time was running out and that he was going to get in safe if I didn't do anything. I also knew our right fielder was a weak thrower. I think what happened was that he threw as hard as he could and ball rolled to me. I was smart enough to decide that I couldn't try to get this guy out by just standing there in the regular way. I stuck my right foot on the bag and then I stretched myself as long as I possibly could while holding on to the bag with my foot. The ball rolled to my glove just in the nick of time. When the kid slid in, it was as if time stood still. The umpire came over to see what had happened. The crowd was hushed in silence. I was crumpled on the ground but my foot was still on the bag. And then I turned up my glove and showed the umpire that the ball was in my glove. The umpire excitedly called the guy out. That's when I heard a roar come from the crowd. I was a hero for a small bit.
The 1971 season was a really fun one. Mr. Straub was our only coach that year. He had no assistants. I think we finished either second or third in our division. So, I was feeling good about things.
The 1972 season came around and things changed. Mr. Straub was still the wonderful human being he always was. He had decided to bring in an assistant coach. He was a fairly young coach. He had been to Vietnam and he was intense. In fact , he was too intense. He made everybody on the team feel way too jittery. As a result, we began to lose games frequently. Plus, we used to always go have an icecream cone after a good chunk of our games at the Dairy Queen on Coburg Road. We used to have fun there no matter if we won or lost. But this guy who was hanging out with us was just driving us nuts. About halfway through the season, Mr. Straub let him go. As a result, we started winning games again. Sadly, it didn't salvage our season.
Because of my baserunning andy my telling hims stories of my first season in baseball, Charlie N. bestowed upon me the nickname Roto-Rooter. Mr. Straub also knew I had speed on the basepaths and he wanted me to become a better runner. He noticed that I ran with my feet facing outward way too much. Little did I know what he had in store for me. I had no idea who he had connections with, but he knew people around town. He told me he was going to bring somebody over to the next practice to help me with my running and to make sure that I was there. I showed up for the next practice. Imagine my surprise when Coach Straub introduces me to none other than the famous University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman. Bowerman took time out out of his busy day to come over to teach me to not run like a waddling duck. He ahd me lean up against a wall with both of my hands and arms stretched out. Then he told me to look down at my feet and to force them to turn inward when I ran. I was to do this so that I could visualize myself keeping my feet turned inward and straight when I ran. When I go on walks with my dog on a daily basis and catch myself waddling (which I still do way too much), I will think of Bill Bowerman and those lessons he was trying to teach me and attempt to walk the correct way again.
I never saw Coach Straub again. Even after I moved back up here in 1978, I never saw him again. It is one of my great regrets. I loved this man very much. I was told by Charlie N. at one of our reunions for Marist that he lived to be a very old man even though he didn't know if he had passed on yet. I'm sure he's gone now. I miss him so much. He was my coach and he was a friend as well. I wish I could tell him how much he meant to me. I will have to wait until my time comes and I pass over to the other side.
My last year in baseball would occur back in Santa Clara in the Summer of 1973. I want to give it a separate entry as it falls in what I consider to be my favorite time period in my life. It would be a very special season during a very special time.