Calico Joe (2 page)

He was not the first major leaguer to homer on the first pitch he saw. In fact, he was the eleventh. Forty-six homered in their first at bat, eleven on the first pitch. Nonetheless, his name was in the record book. It was now open, and Joe Castle wasn’t finished with it.

In the fifth inning, Humphries started off with a fastball high and tight, a brushback meant as a warning, but Joe didn’t get the message. He worked the count to 3 and 1, then yanked a fastball down the left field line, where it barely scraped the inside of the foul pole. The third base umpire was quick to twirl his right index finger signaling a home run. Joe, who was rounding first and following the ball, kicked into a sprint and slowed slightly as he neared home plate. Now a record belonged only to him and one other. In 1951, Bob Nieman of the St. Louis Browns homered in his first two major-league at bats.

The Mets were playing the Braves in Atlanta that night, and the game was not on television. I was in Tom Sabbatini’s basement listening to Lindsey Nelson, the Mets’ wonderful
play-by-play announcer, who informed us of what had just happened in Philadelphia. It didn’t take much to get Lindsey excited. “He tied a record, folks,” he said. “Think of the thousands of young men who’ve played this game, and only two have homered in their first two at bats.”

“I wonder if he can do it three times,” added Ralph Kiner, the Hall of Fame slugger and Lindsey’s sidekick.

The Cubs chased Humphries in the sixth, and the Phillies brought in a middle reliever, a right-hander named Tip Gallagher. When Joe left the on-deck circle in the top of the seventh, the score was tied 4–4, and the Phillies fans, always vocal, were silent. There was no applause, just curiosity. To their surprise, Joe dug in from the left side. Since there was no scouting report, the Phillies did not know he was a switch-hitter. No one had bothered to notice him during batting practice. He looked at a curveball low, then fouled off the next two fastballs. With two strikes, he shortened his stance and choked up three inches on the bat. The previous season, he led the Texas League with the lowest strike-out percentage of any hitter. Joe Castle was at his most dangerous with two strikes.

A slider missed low, then Gallagher came with a fastball away. Joe went with the pitch and slapped it hard to left center, a line drive that kept rising until it cleared the wall by five feet. As he circled the bases for the third consecutive time, he did
so with a record that seemed untouchable. No rookie had ever homered in his first three at bats.

Joe Castle was from Calico Rock, Arkansas, a tiny, picturesque village on a bluff above the White River, on the eastern edge of the Ozark Mountains. It was Cardinals country, and had been since the days of Dizzy Dean, an Arkansas farm boy and leader of the infamous Gashouse Gang in the 1930s. His brother Paul, nicknamed Daffy, was also a pitcher on the same team. In 1934, at the height of the Gang’s fame, Dizzy predicted in spring training that he and Daffy would combine for fifty wins. They won forty-nine—thirty for Dizzy and nineteen for Daffy. Twenty years later, Stan Musial, the greatest Cardinal of all, was revered to the point of being worshipped. With a radio on every front porch, the town, like countless others in the Midwest and the Deep South, followed the beloved Cardinals with a passion during the long, hot summer nights. KMOX out of St. Louis carried the games, and the familiar voices of Harry Caray and Jack Buck could be heard on every street and in every car.

On July 12, though, the dials in Calico Rock had been switched to WGN out of Chicago, and Joe’s friends and family were hanging on every pitch. The Cardinals–Cubs rivalry was the greatest in the National League, and though many in Calico Rock found it difficult to believe they were rooting for the hated Cubs, they were suddenly doing so, and with a
fervor. In a matter of hours, they had been converted to Cubs fans. After the first home run, a crowd quickly gathered outside Evans Drug Store on Main Street. The second home run sent them into a giddy celebration, and the crowd continued to grow. When Joe’s parents, two brothers, their wives, and their small children showed up to join the party, they were greeted with bear hugs and cheers.

The third home run sent the entire town into orbit. They were also celebrating in the streets and pubs of Chicago.

As stunning as his first three at bats had been, Joe’s fourth would endear him to baseball purists forever. Top of the ninth, score tied 6–6, two outs, Don Kessinger standing on third, a tough right-hander named Ed Ramon on the mound. As Joe stepped to the plate, a few of the eighteen thousand fans clapped politely, then an odd silence settled across Veterans Stadium. Ramon’s first pitch was a fastball on the outside part of the plate. Joe waited, then whipped his bat like a broomstick, crushing the ball and lining it a few inches outside the bag at first base, a foul ball, but an impressive one nonetheless. Ernie Banks, the Cubs first base coach, did not have time to react, and if the ball had hit him, he would have been seriously maimed. Willie Montanez, the Phillies first baseman, moved to his left, but only after the ball had caromed off the stands and was rolling into right field. Instinctively, Montanez took two steps back. Joe noticed this and changed his plans. The
second pitch was a changeup, high. With the count 1 and 1, Ramon tried another fastball. As soon as he released it, Joe hesitated a split second, then broke for first base with his bat trailing. It tapped the ball slightly and sent it dribbling toward the second baseman, Denny Doyle, who was as startled as Ramon, Montanez, and everyone else in the stadium. By the time Doyle got to the ball, or the ball got to Doyle, Joe was ten feet past first base and slowing down along the right field foul line. Kessinger walked home with the eventual winning run. The crowd sat in stunned silence. Players from both teams looked on in disbelief. With a chance to hit four home runs in a game—a feat baseball had seen only nine times in a hundred years—the kid chose instead to lay down a perfect drag bunt to score the go-ahead run.

Most of those listening to the game along Main Street in Calico Rock had seen the identical drag bunt, though Joe Castle had seldom needed it. They had seen far more tape-measure shots and inside-the-park home runs. His oldest brother, Charlie, who was sitting on a bench outside the drugstore, had taught him the drag bunt when he was ten years old. He’d also taught him to switch-hit, steal bases, and foul off pitches that were close but not what he wanted. The middle brother, Red, had hit him a million ground balls and perfected his footwork at first base. Both brothers had taught him how to fight.

“Why’d he bunt?” someone in the crowd asked Charlie.

“To score the run and take the lead,” Charlie replied. Plain and simple.

The Cubs announcers, Vince Lloyd and Lou Boudreau, had been plowing through the record book during the game and were certain that they had their facts straight. Three home runs in the first game of a career was a first. Four consecutive hits in a first game tied a modern-day record, though some rookie had five hits back in 1894.

Chicago won 7–6, and by the time the game ended, virtually every Cubs fan was tuned in. History had been made, and they didn’t want to miss it. Lou Boudreau promised his listeners that he would soon have Joe wired up for a postgame interview.

The crowd in Calico Rock continued to grow, and the mood was rowdy, the pride palpable. A half hour after the game was over, Lou Boudreau’s voice came across the radio with “I’m in the visitors’ locker room with Joe Castle, who, as you might guess, is surrounded by reporters. Here he is.”

Sudden silence on Main Street in Calico Rock; no one moved or spoke.

“Joe, not a bad first game. What are you thinking right now?”

“Well, I would like to say hello to my family and friends back home in Calico Rock. I wish you could be here. I still can’t believe it.”

“Joe, what were you thinking when you stepped to the plate in the second inning?”

“I was thinking fastball and I was swinging at the first pitch. Got lucky, I guess.”

“No player has ever homered in his first three at bats. You’re in the record book.”

“I guess. I’m just happy to be here. This time last night I was playing in Midland, Texas. Still hard to believe.”

“Indeed it is. I gotta ask you—and I know you’ve already been hit with this—but what were you thinking in the ninth inning? You had a chance to hit four home runs in a game, yet you bunted.”

“I was thinking about one thing—getting Don home from third for the go-ahead run. I love playing baseball, but it’s no fun if you’re not winning.”

“Well, you got a nice little streak going here. Think you can keep it up tomorrow night?”

“I haven’t thought about tomorrow night. Don and some of the guys are taking me out for a steak, and I’m sure we’ll discuss it then.”

“Good luck.”

“Yes sir. Thank you.”

Few in Calico Rock went to bed before midnight.