Still Pitching (33 page)

I don't recall how I got to the dais, but I remember standing next to Mr. K, my thoughts scrambled, throat so dry I couldn't swallow. Kerchman had his arm draped around my shoulder, flashbulbs were popping all around me, and everyone was standing and applauding. I squinted through my tears, frantically searching the blurred room for a glimpse of the expressions on the faces of my father and brother.

The shock of winning
the Kelly kept me high for several days. But there was a lot more to come. That weekend, I found out I was chosen third team all-city by the
Long Island Daily Press
. The next week I received an honorable mention from the
Journal American
. The biggest surprise of all was when a scout from the Phillies, and another one from the White Sox, offered me a minor league tryout.

It was all so flattering and tempting. But I knew I wouldn't accept. The chances of my playing professional ball—even at the lowest level—were just too remote. Even Zeidner, who was far more talented than I was, had lasted less than two days at a Yankee tryout camp.

To cap it off, on the last day Jagust invited the editorial staff to read his Journalism class's grades aloud; that weekend, I had a bit part in the senior play that got me a lot of applause and some laughs; and, as the Kelly award winner, I carried the flag at graduation. Except for the dreaded cross-country move, I couldn't have scripted a more fitting ending. For years I'd tried and failed, worked my ass off, and suffered so much humiliation in the service of my dreams. And now, I'd gotten everything I'd longed for.

For the moment, it felt like a just vindication. I forgot about the effort and the waiting, the disappointment and pain—even the bitterness and resentment I'd carried. Even if I didn't fully believe it, I told myself that it was all worth it. That I'd earned it. And that I could not have done it any other way.

A curious thing about
the move west was that all my friends and teammates envied me. Some would be going to schools that were close to home. Some would commute. Some wouldn't even be attending college. To them, the idea of attending college in L.A.
seemed like a big, glamorous adventure
.

I wish I'd had the perspective to see it that way. To me, leaving New York meant that that I'd be starting all over again. I'd be giving up everything I worked so hard to get. Going to Syracuse or Boston U would have been a hard enough adjustment for me, but at least my friends and girlfriend would still be here. And I'd have a roster of accomplishments to build on. It terrified me to think about moving three thousand miles away, especially to a nutty place like L.A., where I knew no one. I'd recently read
Day of the Locust
and
The Last Tycoon
—both of which made L.A. seem even more off-putting.

For the past two months, I'd been trying to think of some kind of scheme that would at least keep me in the east. The partial scholarships at Syracuse and Boston University weren't nearly enough to cover my tuition and room and board. The only way I'd have even the slightest a chance to influence my father was to come up with more money. My first move was to ask Kerchman to write a letter to the Syracuse athletic department, recommending me for a baseball scholarship. It left me with only one more card to play.

It was clear that my mother was still bitter over the move. Lately, whenever I argued with my father about it, she took my side. I knew he'd be leaving for L.A. ten days ahead of the rest of the family, so as soon as he left, I told her my plan.

About a month ago, I'd approached my widowed cousin, Sarah Neiman, with a proposition. Sarah's husband Abe was one of the coowners of Hymie's old pharmacy. When he died ten years ago, his share of the pharmacy went to her. Sarah agreed to let me stay in her attic apartment if I worked at the pharmacy and contributed a small sum of rent money. But to do this, I needed my mother's approval.

For three weeks she and my father had been turning all my requests down. But now she had to deal with me on her own. I tried to make it seem as if I'd be her proxy here. It was a pretty transparent ploy, but after a week of listening to me whine, beg, and plead, I finally wore her down. It was, at best, a Phyrric victory.

There were moments
that summer when I felt like I was living an independent existence. I slept in Sarah's attic, I saw Julie at night, and I played for a traveling semi-pro team on weekends. Other times, I felt like I was thirteen again. While most my friends were driving their own cars, I'd was delivering prescriptions on a borrowed old Schwin three-speed—something I vowed I'd never do again.

I tried to make my father feel guilty for letting me down. I complained and protested long distance. I even asked Julie to intervene. In the back of my mind, though, I knew I was only postponing the inevitable.

On the evenings when I didn't see Julie I was stuck in Sarah's hot, stuffy attic room with nothing to do but listen to rock and roll on the radio. It was like I'd regressed back to junior high. One night, almost by instinct, I turned the dial to WOR, where I used to hear Red Barber's voice broadcasting the Dodger games. I got some DJ instead. That's when it began to register—no more ball games to listen to late at night; no more Saturday pilgrimages to Ebbets Field; no more bickering at dinner or in the school yards about who's the best team in New York. The Yankees were the only team left, and I simply couldn't bring myself to listen to their games. I was getting so wistful that I was even starting to miss Kerchman and all the tsuris he'd caused me.

Separating from Julie
was the scene I'd dreaded most. All summer, our relationship had become more intense and desperate. We talked about how much we'd miss each other, and how we'd look forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. We even discussed the possibility of her coming to visit me in California.

In the last two months, her parents were much more cordial to me. It was spooky. They'd invite me for dinner and put me up in the guest room on nights that I couldn't get a ride home. It would have been nice to think that they were beginning to warm up to me. But the truth of course is that it was only a matter of time before they'd be rid of me. Why not take the high ground?

About a week before I was scheduled to leave, Steve informed me that Julie had a crush on one of the older counselors at camp. He'd heard it of course from Annie. Steve had warned me before that Julie was fickle, that she'd had a different boyfriend for the past three summers. I think he was trying to prepare me for the inevitable break.

As forlorn as I felt, I couldn't really blame her. I was the one, after all, who was leaving. For the final few weeks of the summer, I didn't let on that I knew, and Julie didn't say anything that would make me suspect her. Whatever might happen when I was gone, she was determined that we'd enjoy the time we had left together.

On the day she drove me to La Guardia, Julie orchestrated a dramatic and touching farewell scene. She wore all black—black raincoat, tight black Bermuda shorts, and a black form-fitting sweater. And her bobbing ponytail was tied in a bow with a black ribbon. It's an image that would linger in my imagination for a long time afterward.

On the long plane ride
to L.A., I had a lot of time to think. A whole phase of my life was over, and a new one was about to begin. The reality of it had begun to sink in when I was packing to leave. I was rummaging through my stash, looking for my old baseball memorabilia—the Topps and Bowman baseball cards, the Dodger yearbooks and Ebbets Field programs, my collection of
Sports Illustrated
magazines. I couldn't find any of it. When I called my mother to ask where it was, she confessed that she'd thrown everything out before the move.

I felt bereaved, of course, and for a while, inconsolable. During the entire plane ride, I brooded about my losses. Yet just as we were descending, my stomach hollow with fear, I felt a tiny flicker of hope.

It hit me for the first time that I was following the Dodgers again. In the past, their ability to come back from failure and loss had helped me to persevere. I knew, of course, that the Dodgers were only a baseball team. But as the plane touched down, it was momentarily reassuring to think that perhaps I wouldn't be the only New Yorker out here who was starting over again.

In April of 1959
, Mike Mandell, a UCLA fraternity brother, invited me to the Dodgers' opening-day game. Mike's father, Harry, a minor studio exec, had managed to score three field boxes behind the Dodger dugout. Initially, I'd turned the offer down. That piece of my life was over, I told myself. But three days later, my curiosity got the best of me
.

The Coliseum is a one-hundred-thousand seat football palace that in the ‘50s and ‘60s housed three teams; UCLA, USC, and the LA Rams. The Dodgers had temporarily moved there because their new park at Chavez Ravine was still under construction. At the local taxpayers' expense
.

As a baseball stadium, the place is a spectator's nightmare. The inner structure is a round, dirty white concrete slab with no tiers, no upper deck, and no backs on the bleacher style seats. Like most football stadiums, the interior is a widening band of concentric circles. The higher you sit on the circle, the farther away you are from the game
.

And what about these oddities?: there's more room in foul territory behind the plate than on the entire left side of the field; and the left field wall is only two hundred and fifty feet away from home plate. A windblown fly ball to left stood a chance of drifting over the outfield screen. And because the right side of the field angles out away from the plate, a four-hundred-foot fly ball to left or right center is a routine out
.

The ceremonial speeches by city officials, turncoat Dodger brass, and a few Hollywood celebs were pompous and self-serving. Except for Duke Snider, Johnny Padres, and Gil Hodges, whose best years were behind them, most of the players I remember either had been traded or had retired
.

None of this seemed to bother the fans, though. Once the game began, they acted as if they were mildly charmed by what was happening on the field. Every time a player hit a high pop fly, they cheered like it was a home run. But by the third inning, most of the conversation I overheard was about movie agents, lunch meetings, and script deals. Nobody spoke the old Ebbets Field lingo. Only a handful of people even took the trouble to score the game. Some of the Hollywood types, in fact, couldn't seem to figure out what the numbers in the scorebook mean
.

“How come the first baseman is wearing number 14, and the program says he's number 3?” asked a peroxide blonde in pedal pushers and spike heels
.

I wasn't even tempted to explain it to her
.

I also noticed that there were only a handful of fathers and sons in the stadium. At eighteen, I was one of the youngest males in attendance
.

Most of the crowd looked like they'd been shipped over from Central Casting. Many of the older men wore garish, flowered shirts and monogrammed sun visors. Some of the younger ones even brought their surfboards. Several women dressed in gauzy see-through blouses, form-fitting short shorts, and flip flops. And I saw a few in halter tops and bikinis as well. Every two innings, the celebrity wanna-bes would preen for the TV cameras; and all throughout the game there was an unbroken flow of traffic to and from the concession stands. By the seventh inning of a one-run game, the Coliseum was less than half full. When I left that afternoon, I knew I would not return
.

In the fall of ‘59
I went back to New York and enrolled at Hofstra College. At nineteen, I was a typical college kid; I went to fraternity parties, slept in, and chased girls. I pitched middleinning relief on the baseball team, majored in English and wrote sports for
The Chronicle,
the school weekly. My vague hope was to someday become a writer and teacher
.

That year I didn't pay a lot of attention to Major League baseball. When I went to Yankee Stadium, I joked to friends that I was only there as a tourist. But in the winter of 1960 I stumbled across a
Newsday
article announcing the upcoming demolition of Ebbets Field
.

How could I not attend? Perhaps, I'd find some closure here
.

A bone-chilling
, late February morning. For the first time in years, I took the Green Bus Line and Flatbush Avenue IRT to the Eastern Parkway stop. Alone. I walked down Franklin Avenue and saw the light towers of Ebbets in the grey distance. When I reached Empire Boulevard, I instinctively turned left and walked through the marble rotunda, past the boarded up ticket windows, before heading up the third base grandstand ramp
.

The first thing I saw when I reached the portal was the huge, black scoreboard in right field. I gazed around the outfield for a last look at the old Abe Stark, “Hit This Sign and Win a Suit” billboard, and the fire engine red Tydol Flying A sign
.

I closed my eyes, and for a moment I was twelve years old again. But the reverie faded when I looked out at the brown outfield grass and saw jagged ruts and bare patches, the residue from two years of stock car races and neglect. Then, below me, I noticed the shabby looking blue box seats, surrounded by faded, chipped red railings
.

A sparse crowd, maybe a few hundred men and three or four women, huddled behind the third base dugout. But they weren't waiting for autographs. We'd all gathered here to witness the demolition of Ebbets Field. In the crowd, I recognized two of the old players; Carl Erskine, always a winner, always a classy guy. Standing next to him was the unfortunate Ralph Branca. Who'd have expected that kind of loyalty from Branca, a man who was so unfairly maligned by the fans and press? Was it penance he was seeking here?

Lucy Monroe sang the National Anthem just as she'd done at countless Dodger games. But the speeches were canned eulogies. Some phony Brooklyn politico with bad teeth droned on, informing us—without any sense of irony—that Ebbets Field was now forty-six years old. But I was thinking about Walter O'Malley, the owner who sold out millions of naive, loyal, baseball fans like me. I recalled the scene in
The Great Gatsby
where Jay Gatsby introduces Nick Carraway to Meyer Wolfsheim, the character who was based on Arnold Rothstein, the gambler who allegedly conspired to fix the 1919 World Series. As Nick shakes Wolfsheim's hand he thinks: “It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people—with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.”