We ate family style, which was appropriate since the coach's dad, Doc Mainieri, another coach-lifer, entertained us with stories of coaching Red Sox manager Terry Francona in the Cape League and of taking his family to Italy, where he also coached baseball. Assistant Coach Rooney's parents were also at the table: his dad went to Holy Cross, his mom to Boston College. Mainieri's good friend Jim Hendry, General Manager of the Chicago Cubs, dined with us and talked to the recruits. I reminded Sam that Hendry was the guy who traded for Nomar Garciaparra in Boston's magical summer of 2004. Digger Phelps and Seattle lefty Jamie Moyer stopped by to talk with the boys. Sam later said he wanted to ask Moyer about pitching to Manny Ramirez because Manny had hit nine or ten homers off him. Regrettably, Sam eschewed the opportunity.
After dinner, Sam went to the dorms with the ballplayers, and we retired to the Hampton Inn, guests of Notre Dame baseball. When my head hit the pillow, the Notre Dame fight song (who ever knew it had actual words?) was still pounding between my ears.
This was different. New territory all around for the Shaughnessy family. As a kid, I'd watched Ronald Reagan as the Gipper on black-and-white TV and learned to play the Notre Dame fight song on our upright piano. I'd read old Grantland Rice stories. But nothing like this ever happened to anybody who played high school sports in Groton in the 1960s.
The next morning, we were back on campus, meeting Sam and his host player at 8:15 A.M. Sam's roommate was a junior catcher from Indiana. He'd been drafted by the White Sox out of high school and told Sam he hoped to get drafted again and go to the minors after the upcoming season.
They took us into the bubble, where they practice during the winter, then we saw the weight room that had been dedicated a day earlier and was, according to everyone who spoke, the best college weight room in the country. After listening to the strength coach, we absorbed a one-hour lecture from a campus professor/local judge who had put all six of his children through Notre Dame. This stately man said Notre Dame would make each of them the "best student, best baseball player, and best person they can be." Then the head of alumni clubs told us that there are 216 Notre Dame clubs around the world. With each person, the message was pretty much the same: "If you want to be good, go someplace else. If you want to be great, come to Notre Dame."
Recruiter/coach Rooney especially liked this theme. His other favorites were "The easy decision isn't always the best decision" and "This is what Notre Dame is all about."
Marilou, a native of Michigan and a Michigan State grad, was buying the whole package, talking up "the great Midwest," when a coach said something that stopped her in mid-praise. We were walking around campus, near the golden dome, and we'd just taken a photo of Sam—arms raised—standing in front of Touchdown Jesus on the library building, when she first heard the word parietals. I knew exactly what the coach was talking about, but my wife and some of the other parents didn't recognize the term. It means no overnight visits by members of the opposite sex. Girls would have to be out of the rooms by a specified hour. This rule was taken very seriously at Notre Dame. Ballplayers told Sam that a parietals violation was worse than getting caught drinking. Ouch.
My wife was appalled. "Sleeping over? That's what college is for," she mumbled as we passed Joe Montana strolling through the perfect grounds.
"What are you, some state school slut?" I asked, feigning surprise. "This isn't the northeast. Why do you think the Democrats keep losing elections?"
There were several other indications that we were no longer in John Kerry Country. Graphic anti-abortion displays (a sign featuring several mini-school buses dedicated to all the murdered children) lined the streets en route to the school, and there was an abundance of anti-abortion literature on campus. Sam's mom was amazed. Sam noticed none of it. He couldn't stop thinking about the opportunity to hit at three in the morning.
Next on tap was the Game of the Century. It had to be impressive for Sam and the other recruits to be standing on the field as the Irish, wearing their green jerseys, came out of the tunnel in front of 80,000 fans. A truly spectacular football game unfolded over the next four hours, and for a couple of seconds it appeared Notre Dame had upset the national champs. A few thousand students hurdled the clay-brick walls and stormed the gridiron prematurely, but they were herded back to their seats and USC won on a one-yard keeper by Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart, with three seconds left on the clock.
We didn't see Sam again until the next morning when we had our exit interview/breakfast with the coaching staff. It lasted one hour. We were assured that Sam would be admitted if he signed a letter of intent in November. Mainieri said he could not promise playing time but told Sam he thought they could use him right away if he played well in the fall and spring scrimmages. He told Sam he knew Coach Hughes at Boston College and that either school was a good choice. They offered Sam a small scholarship, apologized for not having more, but noted that college baseball gets only 11.7 total scholarships, and most of it goes to pitchers and skill position players. Finally, Mainieri gently reminded Sam that if he declined their offer, Notre Dame needed to skip down its list and go after another hitter. They had a boy scheduled to visit in two weeks when the Irish played Tennessee. No pressure, but they needed to know sometime during the upcoming week. Again, Sam was told that if he wanted to be great, he'd go to Notre Dame. If he wanted to settle for good, he'd go someplace else.
We said goodbye to the coaches and went to the bookstore before driving to Chicago. Sam tried on a couple of ND hats but did not buy. Too much commitment.
Back in the car, mercifully back in jeans instead of khakis, Sam said, "Dad, I feel like you're going to be disappointed if I don't go to Notre Dame."
Not what I wanted to hear. This decision couldn't be based on how his parents might react.
"Sam, I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. You've got two great choices here. There is no wrong decision and we are happy no matter what. Your call."
He put the headphones on while we drove to O'Hare. I dropped them off, went back to my Chicago hotel, and later called Marilou to see how they were doing at the airport.
"There was a long line at security," she started. "Sam said, 'I could have walked to BC while I waited to get on the plane.' "
I returned to Boston on Monday, waiting to find out who the White Sox were going to play in the World Series. Sam came home from school and said he'd talked to one teacher and a lot of his friends about the decision. Many of them were telling him he should definitely leave home and go to Notre Dame. He'd also made a call to Coach Hughes at Boston College and came away thinking he might not have to wait a year and a half before getting to bat for the Eagles. Hughes told him they hadn't yet signed any position players. Sam asked about the new facilities. Hughes said they'd eventually have a twenty-four-hour hitting building, just like Notre Dame.
Not much happened for a couple of days. Sam went to hit at the cages every day, but he wasn't saying much about it or asking any more questions. He did not seem burdened.
I was surprised. I'd expected him to come home Sunday night and announce he was going to Boston College. I kept thinking about what a lucky boy he was. He'd worked at this, sure, but baseball was giving him a choice of two great academic institutions.
Michael LaVigne, one of the famed LaVigne boys of Groton and Holy Cross, stopped by the house Tuesday night. The LaVignes' house was in the middle of downtown Groton, and there always seemed to be a football game being played on the enormous front lawn. There were five LaVigne kids, four boys and one girl. They could field an entire infield for a Little League game. Their dad was a radiologist who had gone to Holy Cross, and they went to Mass every Sunday and attended private schools during the week. When Michael was a senior, he broke ranks with family tradition and applied to Harvard, and he remembered hearing his dad on the phone telling a friend, "Michael is applying to Harvard. I don't know how he's planning on paying for it, but he's applying there." Alas, Michael went to Holy Cross with his three brothers a
nd sister.
Michael is an assistant soccer coach at Boston College and a full-time housepainter by trade. He was Sam's boss the summer before senior year, and no high school kid ever had a better deal than Sam Shaughnessy under Mike LaVigne. Mike was okay whenever Sam had to skip work because of a baseball showcase or leave early on a game night. Plus, Mike hired an all-girl crew of soccer players, which certainly made Sam happy. The crew enjoyed Aloha Fridays (off at noon), and everybody got the day off the day after the Rolling Stones played Fenway Park because Michael had partied too hard the night before. October 20 is forever a paid holiday for the LaVigne crew because that's the day the Red Sox beat the Yankees in game seven to close out the greatest comeback in baseball history. Mike had to get permission from BC before hiring Sam because it could have been an NCAA violation. Turned out it was okay—Mike was a family friend who had known the recruit since birth.
Michael stood around our kitchen for a couple of hours on that weeknight after the BC visit. Sam and Marilou made plans to watch Mike at work when the BC women played Virginia on Thursday afternoon.
Wednesday, Sam came home from hitting and asked if I wanted to go eat at the Golden Star. I took this as a sign he was ready to tell us which school he wanted. The Star is a dark, cheap, quiet Chinese restaurant about two miles from our house. I've been going there for thirty years, and Marilou remembers drinking cheap wine there the night we bought our first house. It's been the site of many family discussions—the staff at the Star always gave us the round table in a corner by the door. Dozens of times we've eaten there while one or more of the kids was still dirty and sweating, wearing the uniform from a game just played. The Star is run by a group of Chinese men with American names: Vinny, Chuck, Jack, Billy, Paul, George, and Huey. Huey worked behind bar for several decades and I loved to stop by for a Mai Tai and some General Gau's chicken on the way to Sam's summer night games (I once asked one of the waiters for some history on General Gau and was told, "He was one of our generals"). A Cliff-and-Norm-esque gang of regular patrons sits at the bar nightly, watching Jeopardy, then switching to whatever game is on the TV. There's a rickety phone booth under the television and whenever it rings at night, one of the regulars will hop off his stool, turn, and shout, "Is everybody here?" The owners at the Star prefer cash over credit cards and have been known to ring up $0.00 when taking cash for a dinner tab. Sam thinks they're running a cockfight operation downstairs.
As Sam and I were heading out the door for the Star, the phone rang. It was Coach Rooney, calling from Notre Dame. When I gave the phone to Sam, I scribbled a message on a kitchen pad—"Don't commit." After they spoke, Sam and I were off to the Star and Marilou met us ...
Nothing.
"I haven't really thought much about it today," said Sam.
That night, Marilou and I both scratched our heads. We were feeling a little edgy. We had both wanted him to see Notre Dame, and there were moments when it seemed like the best idea, but the longer this went on the more it seemed he might actually go there and we were the ones getting homesick. I'd wanted Sam to see everything there was to offer and I'd wanted him to think long and hard about it. He was doing that, and now I was getting selfish. If he went to Notre Dame, I'd hardly ever get to see him play. Gulp.
It was the same obtuse routine when he came home from school on Thursday.
"What's up," I asked, fetching.
"Not much," he said, sitting down at the computer in the hallway. "We still going to watch Mike's game?"
"I guess."
The three of us got in the car and made the short drive to the Boston College campus. I drove. Sam rode shotgun with Mar-ilou in the back. We were heading up Beacon Street bound for Centre Street, which would take us to the field, when Sam made a small motion with his hand, softly urging me to turn right into the Conte Forum sports complex.
Infinitely understated.
Typical Sam. He's never been one for loud noise or theatrics.
But this was it. I knew. The small wave of his hand was the signal that he had made his decision. He wanted to go see Coach Hughes in the BC offices.
I drove to the front of Conte Forum, beached the car in a fifteen-minute parking spot, turned to Sam, and said, "You want to go up?"
He nodded.
The three of us went into the building, rode the elevator to the fourth floor, and made the long walk to the baseball offices. Without speaking.
When we got to Hughes's office, I could see the coach behind the glass, typing at his computer. Sam went in alone while we stayed by the reception desk. I could see them smiling and shaking hands. Hughes put his arm on Sam's shoulder and called us into the office. When we walked in, Hughes told us Sam made a good decision.
"What is it?" we asked.
Hughes laughed at us.
"Boston College."
We sat down and I asked Sam to tell Coach what made him decide. What was the deal breaker?
"Two signs," he told Hughes. "I noticed you switched to DeMarini bats, which I love. I could be a spokesman for DeMarini bats. And the second sign was your car. When I was on my visit to BC, my host player pointed out your car. Cadillac DeVille. I love the Cadillac DeVille."
Coach walked us to our car. He said they'd be FedExing the letter of intent on November 9. Sam was an Eagle.
We went to the BC women's soccer game, where Sam's sister Kate joined us ("Way to go, Big Cat," she told him). She took him to the Boston College bookstore. A ceremonial pilgrimage. They got the BC hat, the BC sweatshirt, and the BC keychain/ bottle opener. They even picked up the cornball "Boston College Mom" coffee mug.
Kate and Sarah had plans to meet that night to drive to Worcester to see Bruce Springsteen. Marilou picked Sarah up at school and would not tell her what Sam had decided. When they pulled up out front, Sarah ran into the house, saw Sam in his BC garb, and jumped into his arms. He caught the catcher.
There it was. On the first anniversary of the Red Sox win over the Yankees—an official holiday for the LaVigne painting crew and for much of New England—Sam made the biggest decision of his first eighteen years. And all because of DeMarini bats and a Cadillac DeVille.
November
Mailings from the high school arrived with some regularity. For the past eight years, we've had dozens of missives addressed "To the parents of Sam [or Sarah or Kate] Shaughnessy." The benign ones promote upcoming events and dates to remember. Ever vigilant and sensitive to the student body's needs, sometimes the memos addressed a recent local or national tragedy. We got a note after 9/11, and there's always a mailing if there's been any kind of hate graffiti scrawled on campus. Parking regulations have required a torrent of mailings.
And then there are the academic warnings ...
Sam does not have a C on his transcript, but he's yet to get through a semester without at least one warning. The usual problems cited: "fails to participate in class," "needs to improve on quizzes," and the ever appropriate "can do better." Marilou thought about offering Sam a hundred bucks if he could somehow go just one term without a warning, but we agreed that would be a tad indulgent.
In the autumn of '05, Sam got his warning in English.
"That's just the way Sam has to do it," said his mom. "Just like when he's hitting. He's a 3-2 kid. He's always 3-2."
From trash to trigonometry, the truth of the remark was undeniable, but what was most stunning was Marilou's sudden ability to use baseball language to explain a fundamental aspect of our son's personality. This is the woman who knows almost nothing about sports. This is the woman who attended Michigan State when Magic Johnson was there and never saw him play a minute of college basketball (my colleague Bob Ryan has never gotten over that one). When I got her a coveted ticket to watch the Lakers at the old Forum in Inglewood, California, she brought The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich to her front row seat—a little light reading in between skyhooks by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. She usually brings knitting to Sam's games. A couple of summers ago, after Sam won a Legion game w
ith a walkoff homer, she called me and said, "Sam hit a home run and everybody said it was a 'walker' or something like that." That was a year before she accompanied me to a party at the Kenmore Square Commonwealth Hotel, hosted by new Dodger owner Frank McCourt, a native of South Boston, when the Dodgers played their first series at Fenway Park in the summer of 2004. McCourt brought Vin Scully, Tom Lasorda, and all the Dodger tradition with him. In this context, it was slightly unsettling to look across the gathering and see my wife talking to Sandy Koufax. What a waste. Hundreds of partygoers would have traded their firstborns for a chance to speak with mound royalty, and there was Marilou chatting up Koufax, oblivious to the fact that she was speaking with a legitimate baseball god.
"What a handsome older man," she noted.
Sigh.
Sam is always 3-2 in life. His teachers, coaches, friends, and parents are all used to it by now.
In the middle of football season, I was disappointed to open a mailing from the high school principal that indicated that the annual "Powder Puff" football game was being canceled.
Rats. I love the Powder Puff football game. It was part of Shaughnessy family folklore. We first became aware of the ritual when Sarah was a junior at North. Through the years, the Powder Puff game featured junior class girls versus senior class girls in a not-so-friendly game of touch football. Class pride was at stake—bragging rights that carried through graduation and beyond. The girls held informal practices and varsity football boys served as coaches. Fueled by alcohol, the games started to grow out of control after the turn of the century, which is when school authorities first hired professional referees to keep the games under control.
In 2001, when Sarah was a senior and Kate a junior, the competition peaked. On the morning of the game, the well-trained football girls convened at a practice site, decorated their cars with boasts of class supremacy, smeared war paint on their faces, cranked car stereos to 11, and drove to the field in a proud procession. The seniors played "Eye of the Tiger" when they poured out of their cars and marched toward the sideline.
Senior Year Page 8
