Foul Ball

by Jim Bouton

  Chip began with the financial details. He said we were looking to raise $3 million, primarily from local investors, and that our annual expenses would be about $1 million. He also promised that Pittsfield would be featured in the team name, not Berkshire County. This brought murmurs of approval from the audience. “We think this is a tremendous opportunity for Pittsfield,” Chip said. “We love this old ballpark; we love baseball.”

  My contribution was a flip-chart presentation with sketches of planned improvements, including bleachers, locker rooms, restrooms, new dugouts with our Not-So-Luxury Boxes above, twenty-four concession stands for our Shops and Taste of the Berkshires food court, and a Hall of Fame Walkway. Regarding the ladies restrooms, I quoted Chip’s line about our plan to “quadruple the pottage.”

  We explained that we hoped to begin construction that summer and be ready for Opening Day 2005. To achieve that timetable, we needed to move down four tracks simultaneously: architectural, engineering, permitting, and fund-raising. A delay in any one could set us back. Chip reminded everyone that this was a big project and that we couldn’t do it all by ourselves.

  “Unless we work together it won’t succeed,” he said. “We can’t guarantee success any more than we can guarantee a winning baseball team, but we can promise we’ll do the best we can.”

  After Chip and I sat down, Chairman Mike praised Mayor Ruberto “for showing a lot of courage” by inviting us back. As the commissioners prepared to vote, the room got quiet. People leaned forward in their seats. Paula reached over and held Cindy’s hand.

  Then they voted: 5–0 to endorse the license agreement.

  A cheer went up. And the Wahconah Park faithful, having saved up two and a half years worth of applause, let it all out.

  Then they hung around for a while.

  A long while.

  “No one wants to go home,” someone said.

  After we had signed the agreement, and everyone in the room had hugged each other several times, and we had all said our goodbyes, Paula and I and Cindy and Chip celebrated at Trattoria Rustica in Pittsfield. We ate the food and drank the water. Also the wine.

  It was a very happy birthday.

  We were back in the saddle again.

  The next morning, Chip and I headed for Pittsfield, which now seemed like a different place. People who had seen that morning’s front page story in the Eagle were stopping us on the street to congratulate us and express their affection for Wahconah Park.

  “We just love your plans for the ballpark,” a couple said to us during breakfast at Adrien’s Diner, next to Wahconah Park.

  Strangers shouted “Thank you!” from passing cars and trucks. People flashed thumbs up at us through store windows.

  Chip and I were feeling so welcome we did something we never thought we’d do. We had lunch at DelGallo’s. What would that be like, we wondered? Would Nilan and the boys be there, hunched over their drinks? And what would Remo think? Would he even talk to us?

  The answer came the minute we slipped into a booth. Remo marched right over with a scowl on his face. He pointed at Chip.

  “You!” he said in a loud voice.

  “Don’t look at me,” said Chip, with wide-eyed innocence, pointing at me across the table. “I didn’t write the book.”

  “You’re the one who talked about bringing the hamster,” said Remo, referring to Chip’s idea for testing food at DelGallo’s. The scowl on Remo’s face was showing signs of cracking.

  “Hi Remo, Jim Bouton,” I said, offering my hand.

  “I know who you are,” he said, smiling now. “I seen your picture in the paper. And I know all about your book, too. I got people sending me copies with the parts about me underlined. Another friend from California just sent me one. People all over are telling me about it.”

  “You know I had some nice things to say about you,” I said. “It was only some of your clientele that we had questions about.”

  “I know, I read the book,” he said, sliding into the booth next to Chip. “You think you could autograph one of my copies?”

  Not everyone wanted an autographed copy.

  A few days after lunch at DelGallo’s, Chip had an unpleasant encounter with former City Councilor James Massery, in a gym at a College Fair in the high school attended by Chip’s boys, Sam and Jacob. Chip was manning the Dartmouth booth, answering questions and handing out literature about his alma mater.

  “I really didn’t appreciate the way I was portrayed in that book,” said Massery, confronting Chip in a loud voice. “You said things about me so you could make a profit on his book.”

  People nearby stopped talking and turned to look.

  “You lied,” said Massery, in the same tone of voice. By now a small crowd had gathered. The crowd included teachers, classmates, and friends of Sam and Jacob.

  “I should tell Dartmouth you’re a liar,” said Massery, seemingly oblivious of the attention he was attracting. “They shouldn’t have a liar representing them.”

  Chip, the gentleman, said nothing.

  “I’m willing to let it go,” said Massery, gearing down to a hostile smile. “But maybe I won’t let it go.”

  And that was it, except for the letter Chip sent to Massery the next day. Chip denied he had misquoted Massery in the book, and pointed out that Massery’s line in the book about “scores to settle” was reinforced by his words at the College Fair. Then Chip complimented Massery on his candor and his refusal to waffle or pander like so many politicians.

  “We now have a chance to do something good for Pittsfield,” Chip ended his letter. “I’m willing to leave the past in the past, and I’m sure Jim is, too. Will you join us?”

  Massery never responded.

  Other book critics included Gerry Doyle, Gary Grunin, Matt Kerwood, and Jonathan Fleisig. They said they hadn’t read the book, but that friends had read passages to them. I enjoyed their comments, especially Fleisig’s.

  Doyle: I wouldn’t waste my money buying it.

  Grunin: It sounds like a pretty good work of fiction.

  Kerwood: Well, I don’t like him.

  Fleisig: He’s a bitter old man who lost, OK?

  By the way, Doyle did not deny that he told A-Mart owner Ray Parrott, back in 2001, that “They’re not going to get it” because “the fix is in.”

  Maybe nobody read him that part.

  After the book was released Ever-Scrib weighed in with a long editorial, challenging my version of events and countering with his own so-called “truth telling.”

  As for truth, I offer the unsolicited remarks of Phil Scalise, the guy that Berkshire Sports & Events had said could tell us what was wrong with Wahconah Park. Instead, he told us what was wrong with BS&E.

  “Those guys fed the public a whole line of bullshit,” said Scalise. “I told them they had problems with [the new stadium site]! Wahconah Park is a good park. It can be made to work. It won’t take much.”

  Then there were the comments of City Councilor Dan Bianchi.

  “The most uncomfortable book I’ve ever read,” he said. “I believe it will be the tough-to-take medicine we need in Pittsfield. It shows all of our flaws and gives us an opportunity to address the way we approach things.”

  That last part might not be so easy.

  Apparently, shortly after the license was signed, Tom Murphy—Gerry Doyle’s director of community development—marched into Mayor Ruberto’s office and heatedly tried to persuade him to change his mind. In a two-pronged attack Michelle Rivers, Murphy’s wife, marched into the city solicitor’s office and gave him what for. Meanwhile, Cliff “Everybody’s just going to have to live with it” Nilan was banned from even calling the mayor’s office following a very unpleasant conversation with one of the mayor’s secretaries.

  But the vast majority of citizens were still on our side, rooting for us harder than ever—although Paula had her own idea why that might be.

  “I think they were surprised that someone could write a book like that
and still be alive,” she said.

  CHAPTER 19

  “Baseball’s Garden of Eden”

  SUMMER 2004

  When I wasn’t in Pittsfield with Chip, I was hunched over my light table at home, positioning my latest sketches over Clark & Green’s most recent architectural drawings.

  “Are you having fun?” asked Paula.

  “Yes, I am,” I said. “I was born to do this.”

  When I was a kid I had three main hobbies: playing baseball, drawing pictures, and building forts.

  “Now you have all three,” said Paula, smiling. “I’m so glad.”

  A few weeks after our license with the city had been signed, Mayor Ruberto was casting about for someone to play a baseball game at Wahconah Park on the Fourth of July. This was traditionally a big weekend in Pittsfield, with its famous parade of marching bands from around the country, followed by a ballgame and fireworks.

  Since Chip and I wouldn’t have a team until 2005, the mayor asked us how we’d feel about the Dukes—a New England Collegiate League team based in nearby Hinsdale, and named for its owner, former Boston Red Sox General Manager Dan Duquette—playing a game there that day.

  The mayor didn’t want the game to interfere with our construction plans. Forget construction, we didn’t want it interfering with our marketing plans. If we were going to invest money in Wahconah Park, we preferred that the city not showcase a future competitor.

  So we gave the mayor a better idea: How about a vintage baseball game that would pit a yet-to-be-assembled team of Pittsfield players against the Hartford Senators, an existing vintage team from Connecticut? Vintage baseball is a growing sport that features amateur teams conforming to the rules, uniform styles, and equipment of the 19th century.

  Several months prior to our having been invited back to Pittsfield, I’d received an email from Greg Martin, founder of the Senators and owner of a company called the Vintage Base Ball Factory (base ball was two words in the 1800s). Martin had inquired about my possible interest in vintage baseball and, having had no interest at the time, I filed it away.

  Now, suddenly, I had interest.

  We could resurrect the Hillies, a professional team that represented Pittsfield in the Eastern League from 1919 to 1930. Their arch rivals back then, the Hartford Senators, had that first baseman named Lou Gehrig, who hit a home run at Wahconah Park that landed in the Housatonic River. We could promote the game as the teams’ first meeting in seventy-four years.

  I envisioned a sepia-toned event—a step back in time—that would begin weeks in advance with the printing of old-fashioned tickets and posters. At the game itself, I imagined kids in newsboy caps hollering “Extra! Extra!” and handing out scorecards, while costumed actors strolled about to the sounds of ragtime playing over the speakers.

  The day would combine baseball, history, and theater, which fit nicely with our plans to market the “experience” at Wahconah Park rather than the game. It also would be good for Pittsfield and give us a chance to show what we could do.

  But Chip and I had no experience promoting events: We had no staff, we were trying to raise money, we were up to our ears in meetings with architects and engineers, and Paula and Cindy were already into the early stages of eye rolling.

  Naturally, we decided to do it.

  Mayor Ruberto was skeptical but Potsy thought it might work. Potsy, who had become the mayor’s assistant on Wahconah Park, was now showing up at all our meetings. It was Potsy who suggested we start by contacting Chuck Garivaltis, a local baseball legend, who might make a good manager for the Hillies.

  Garivaltis is craggy handsome, with a prominent nose and a furrowed brow that cause him to resemble a worried bird. Tall and slim at sixty-nine, he looks like the former star first baseman that he once was at Colgate—where he roomed with high school teammate Larry Bossidy. Garivaltis liked the vintage idea so much that within a few weeks he had assembled a staff of coaches—all old-time Pittsfield sports heroes—and scheduled the first tryout.

  Then, as if guided by vintage ghosts, a baseball legend walked out of a cornfield and spoke to me. Well, not exactly, but close.

  The legend was noted baseball historian John Thorn, and the cornfield was a makeshift green room at the courthouse in Hackensack, New Jersey. ESPN was taping a show there called Yankees on Trial, and Thorn and I had been asked to appear as witnesses.

  Thorn, who knew I was involved with Wahconah Park, walked over to me and said, “I have something that might be of interest to you.”

  “And what might that be?” I asked.

  “The earliest known reference to baseball in North America,” he said, “could be sitting in the basement of City Hall in Pittsfield.”

  Thorn described a 1793 bylaw banning the playing of baseball within eighty yards of a new town hall to protect against the breaking of windows. He said he’d been doing research on the Internet and read about the bylaw in a book called The History of Pittsfield, (Berkshire County) Massachusetts, from the year 1734 to the year 1800.

  “The original bylaw may still exist,” said Thorn.

  As soon as the mock trial was over, I drove home and called Potsy to get him started looking for the bylaw. Then I called the mayor to enlist his help. Ruberto, who had done his college thesis on baseball marketing and knew Thorn by reputation, understood immediately what this could mean for Pittsfield. Cooperstown, a sleepy village in upstate New York, had turned itself into a major industry on the now-debunked claim that baseball had been invented there in 1839. The 1793 bylaw, if it could be found, would beat Cooperstown by nearly half a century!

  “Pittsfield can call itself ‘Baseball’s Garden of Eden,’” said Chip. “We can put that on the ‘Welcome to Pittsfield’ signs.”

  Two weeks passed and nothing was found. Meanwhile, Chip and I were moving ahead with our vintage baseball game. On Friday, April 23, we met in the mayor’s office to discuss the game and how best to use the 1793 document in case it was found. Seated around a coffee table across from the mayor’s desk were the mayor, Potsy, Bill Wilson of the Berkshire Visitors Bureau, President of the Chamber of Commerce David Bassillion, Lisa Wiehl, one of the mayor’s secretaries, and me. Chip was on a family vacation in Israel.

  In the middle of a discussion about how and whether to connect the vintage baseball game to the 1793 document, the phone rang. It was Ann Marie Miles from the Athenaeum, Pittsfield’s library. Potsy got up and took the call at the mayor’s desk.

  “This could be it,” I said.

  All eyes were on Potsy. Time stopped. Potsy listened. He smiled. A big smile. He paused, just to drive us nuts.

  “So, they found it,” Potsy said into the phone, for our benefit.

  A shout went up from the group as we jumped to our feet and high-fived each other across the table.

  “The reason it took so long to find it,” said Potsy, “is because it’s dated 1791, not 1793.”

  “Even better,” we shouted. There was a lot of laughing and hollering and slapping of knees. Potsy and I grabbed our coats and headed for the Athenaeum to see the document in person.

  At the library a folder was carefully opened on a table and Potsy and I gazed at what looked to us like the Magna Carta. A single sheet of obviously hand cut paper had yellowed with age, and the ink of the flowing script had turned brown. I liked the fact that the 1791 date was right on the document itself and that the “s” in baseball was written like an “f”—bafeball—just as it was when George Washington was our Prefident.

  Back in the mayor’s office, Potsy handed out color copies of what the group was now calling “The Broken Window Bylaw.” We agreed that it should be delivered to the Williamstown Art Conservation Center for authentication, and that no one should say a word until we figured out how to make best use of this amazing gift.

  “Baseball’s Garden of Eden,” said Mayor Ruberto, “I like that.” Then, with a big smile on his face and an imaginary drink in his hand, he said, “You know, this job is a lot more
fun than I thought it would be.”

  Of course, everyone laughed.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Paula—and email Chip.

  The baseball gods were smiling upon us.

  But not everyone was smiling.

  After Chip got back from Israel, he spoke with Kevin Kinne, a fellow board member at the local community center, who’s also a partner at Cain Hibbard Myers & Cook. Chip gave Kinne the background on our story and said it would be nice if we could mend fences with his law firm.

  “We should all want to be on the same side,” said Chip, “and work together for the good of Pittsfield.”

  “That sounds like a great idea,” said Kinne. “I’ll set up a meeting with the partners. What days are good for you?”

  Chip and I came up with three or four dates and waited for Kinne’s call. It came right away.

  “I had no idea there was so much hostility,” said Kinne, with genuine surprise. “Some of them hope you fail. And I don’t know if they’re going to oppose you passively or actively.”

  Whatever that meant.

  The next day, Chip and I met with our friend Steve Picheny at his office in Great Barrington. We wanted to get his thoughts on Chip’s prospectus. Picheny wanted to talk about Foul Ball.

  “I’ve had a lot of arguments with those guys up there,” said Picheny, referring to his lawyer friends at Cain Hibbard Myers & Cook. “They’re saying that the book is wrong and that you made unfounded accusations.”

  “I just described what people said and did,” I said.

  “That’s right,” said Picheny, “but according to them, you drew the wrong conclusions. I told them that given the same set of facts, it’s just as reasonable to see it your way as it is theirs.”

  Picheny said his friends at Cain Hibbard weren’t too happy with him for defending us. Then we moved on to our prospectus. Where Picheny wasn’t too happy with us.

  “You guys don’t have any money in the game,” he said. Picheny was referring to the paragraph which said that whatever cash Chip and I had to lay out to get the company started would be reimbursed by the investors.