Still Pitching

by Michael Steinberg

  But even before that collapse, the Dodger legacy featured antiheroes like Mickey Owen, whose ninth inning, two-out passed ball against the Yankees was the turning point in the team’s loss of the 1941 World Series. Then there was George “Babe” Herman, who had the ignominious distinction of winding up on third base with two other teammates. The same Babe Herman got hit in the head trying to catch a routine fly ball. These were guys I could identify with.

  The team’s fortunes changed drastically in the late 1940s, when they signed Jackie Robinson, the first Negro to break the major league’s color barrier. Had it not been for the great Yankee teams of the ‘50s, the Dodgers would have been the best team in baseball. The truth is that the Dodgers were a team of highly skilled players that happened to flourish at the same time as the great Yankee teams and fine Giant teams of that era. They were so resilient. No matter how many times they lost the pennant or World Series, they’d be right back in the race the next season.

  The Dodgers’ luckless history and its star player Jackie Robinson’s determination and tenacity were irresistible attractions for a kid who already saw himself as a congenital underdog and outsider—always persevering, always having to prove himself to others.

  It wasn’t long before I became an aficionado. By mid July, I was reading the sports pages religiously each day—a first for me. And for the entire 1950 season, I followed Robinson’s and the Dodgers’ exploits via radio broadcasts of their games.

  Part of the mystery and allure of baseball was learning the language of the game. Understanding the lingo—that hip vernacular—made me feel like I was an insider. At night, I’d listen late through the red plastic Philco’s crackling static to Red Barber and Connie Desmond broadcasting Dodger road games from Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis—the exotic western cities that lie beyond the Hudson. From “the catbird seat” high above the diamond, the Alabama redhead would sigh “ohhh doctor” and inform us in his smooth drawl that when Duke Snider camps under a lazy fly ball “it’s an easy can of corn.” When we were beating Cincinnati by five runs in the ninth, Red would say that we’ve got the Redlegs “sewed up in a crocus sack.” After the eighth place Cubbies beat us, Red’s recap informed us that we lost it in a “squeaker.” And when Cardinal lefty Howie Pollett threw a bean ball at Jackie Robinson’s head, Red described the bench clearing brawl as “an old-fashioned rhubarb.” My favorite Barbarism was his description of those games when the Dodgers were beating up on their opponents. That’s when he’d announce that “the Brooklyns are tearin’ up the old pea patch.”

  That same summer, I invented board and street games that revolved around the Dodgers. I also began to learn more about the other major league teams. I read the sports pages in the New York papers as well as old yearbooks and programs. I collected Topps and Bowman bubble gum cards and stashed them in cigar boxes under my bed. I subscribed to The Sporting News, the Bible of the sports world. By mid season, I knew the uniform numbers, bios, and batting averages of everyone on all three New York teams. And, of course, I’d memorized every piece of trivia I could uncover about the Dodgers.

  By the end of the summer, I’d become an expert, a walking encyclopedia of information about the Dodgers and their legacy, and about baseball lore in general. A whole new world, it seemed, was beginning to open up. In less than two months, I’d gone from being a curious observer to a baseball fanatic.

  As soon as fifth grade was out, I begged my father to take me to Ebbets Field. But he was already scheduled to be on the road for the entire month of June. So in early July, just after I turned ten, he gave me permission to accompany Heshy, Kenny, Billy, and Ira—neighborhood boys, all of whom were a year older than I was.

  The two brothers, Kenny and Heshy, wore yarmulkes (scull caps) and went to shul regularly. Ira was a science nerd with acne and a bad haircut. Billy was skinny and gawky looking. He had a drooping jaw and his shirts always looked too baggy. Some of the kids on the block referred to him as “slow.”

  This group of outcasts was even lower on the neighborhood food chain than I was. I felt superior to all of them. Even at my age I was so much more informed about baseball than they were.

  It is a crisp, unclouded mid July Saturday morning, and the Dodgers have just returned from a nine game Western swing. After a sleepless night, I spring out of bed at eight o’clock, my stomach churning so hard that I cannot eat breakfast. I’m headed for Ebbets Field to watch my first unchaperoned Dodger game.

  After I grab my blue Dodger cap and baseball mitt from the hook on the cellar stairs, grandma Tessie hands me an oil-stained brown paper bag, the mayonnaise from the tuna salad already leaking through the wax paper. I then sprint up the block to pick up Heshy, Kenny, and Billy, and we trek through the dew-stained vacant lots and past the shuttered houses until we get to Beach 138th Street. When we get there, Ira is still asleep. Mildly irritated, I wake him up. Then we have to watch him eat his soggy Kix and Cheerios.

  I strum my fingers on the kitchen table wondering how in the hell he can be so damn blasé about something so sacred as an excursion to Ebbets Field. A half hour later, we finally head for the bus stop at Newport Avenue and 142nd Street.

  This would be the beginning of a series of summer pilgrimages that would soon become a ritual, one that I’d perpetuate until the Dodgers moved west seven years later. Every Saturday home game until late September we’ll ride the Green Bus Line to Flatbush Avenue, then transfer to the IRT where we’ll stand perspiring in the stifling heat and humidity of a packed subway car, just so we can buy seats in the third base upper grandstand at Ebbets Field and watch the Dodgers play.

  Each of the New York ballparks, Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds, and Ebbets Field were shoehorned into their surrounding Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn neighborhoods. But each had its own unique character. The left and right field foul lines at Yankee Stadium were less than 300 feet from home plate, while the left and right center power alleys were over 400 feet away. The Polo Grounds was shaped like a horseshoe with even shorter foul lines—279 down the left field line, and 257 in right field. The clubhouse in dead center field was almost 500 feet from the plate. Both parks had seating capacities of over 50,000.

  Of the three though, Ebbets was the quirkiest one. I took special pride in knowing its history and its idiosyncrasies. A 32,000-seat bandbox of a park set in the heart of Flatbush, it radiated a cozy intimacy and an inviting familiarity that the others lacked. From the center field bleachers you could hear left fielder “Shotgun” Shuba yell “I got it, Duke.” And from the upper deck behind first, you could see the grimace on Jackie Robinson’s face as he went head-to-head with umpire Jocko Conlin.

  At Ebbets the double-decker grandstand in center field jutted away to a forty-foot-high black concrete scoreboard, crowned by a ten-foot screen. Our right fielder, Carl Furillo, “the Reading Rifle,” knew how to play every carom off that wall. Another thing I’d brag about was Duke Snider’s uncanny ability to crank “Bedford Avenue rain makers” over the huge scoreboard.

  From the minute we reach the bus stop until an hour later when we get off the subway at Eastern Parkway, we chatter nonstop about the upcoming game. As we’re walking up the subway station stairs, Ira asks, “Who do you think’ll pitch for the Brooks? The Preach, Ersk, or Newk?”

  Jesus, I can’t believe he doesn’t know this, but I am smart enough to keep my mouth shut. They’d already begun to berate me for being a smart-ass know-it-all.

  “Dunno, but for sure it’ll be Sal the Barber for the Giants,” says Heshy. “He murders us.” I think it odd that Heshy can know who is pitching for the Giants but, like Ira, he doesn’t know who’s pitching for us.

  I want to blurt out “It’s Newcombe, you knucklehead.”

  But I decided to bank this information and wait my turn.

  “He’s a slow starter,” Kenny counters. “We can beat him if we get on him early. Pee Wee and Jackie have to get on base in the first inning, so Duke, Campy, and Gil can bring ‘em around.�
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  Kenny’s right about that much. At least someone in this crowd is paying attention.

  We walk down Franklin Avenue and pass right by Lou Eisenstein’s sporting goods store, where we gaze in the window and gawk at the expensive, genuine cowhide Rawlings and Wilson baseball mitts—the top-of-the-line merchandise that we all covet but no one can afford.

  I wait for an opening and casually mention that during basketball season Lou Eisenstein, the store’s owner, referees the New York Knick games at Madison Square Garden.

  Ira takes the bait. “How’d you know that?” he asks.

  “My dad and I go to the Garden every winter,” I counter—hoping to make them jealous.

  My heart’s pounding with anticipation when we approach the rotunda entrance to the old grey concrete and steel ballpark on the corner of Empire Boulevard and Bedford Avenue. I feel a catch-in-the-throat sensation—a sense of wonder and awe that still overwhelms me every time I visit a baseball stadium. It’s a signal that I’m about to cross a sanctified threshold and enter a world of gods and heroes, a universe where ordinary life falls away, where the stakes are high and the outcome is always in doubt.

  It’s only ten o’clock, and we have three more hours until the game starts.

  “I’ll get the tickets,” I say to my pals.

  This assertiveness is part of my plan. Because, when I step up to the general admission window, I feel grown-up and important—so different from the self-conscious, insecure kid I am in school and at parties.

  Squinting through the narrow opening in the wire mesh screen, I’m face-to-face with the chubby, bald-headed ticket seller. He’s wearing a green see-through visor and puffing on a soggy cigar. Knowing that the guys are watching, I bark out, “Gimme your four best general admissions, upper deck between third and home. And not behind a post, ok?”

  The ticket guy blows stinky smoke in my face. Without looking up, he fans the vertical orange tickets like a deck of cards, before pulling four from the middle.

  “That’ll be five bucks, Jack,” he barks. I casually toss a five spot under the wire mesh window.

  “Step up, pal. Who’s next?” he says, as he slaps a small white envelope on the counter, the tickets spilling out of the flap. For a buck and a quarter apiece, we get our chosen seats—upper deck, right between third and home, just like the ones my dad would always get us when he took us up to the Polo Grounds.

  Now I’ve got the guys just where I want them.

  “These are fantastic. How’d you get ‘em?” Billy asks. As usual, he’s right on cue.

  “Man, I told you, I know how to talk to these ticket guys,” I say.

  My cool pose dissolves when we sprint up the third base ramp. As soon as we pass through the open portal, I stand frozen, rapt, while the other four heathens keep right on going. For a long moment I survey the field: the black scoreboard in right field; the emerald green, manicured grass that surrounds the smooth, tannishbrown infield; the powdered sugar foul lines and the chalky, whitewashed bases; the multicolored outfield billboards that advertise “Abe Stark: Hit This Sign and Win a Suit,” and “Fill ‘er up with Tidol, ‘Flying A.’”

  The organ strains emanating from beneath the press box interrupt my reverie. For a moment I’ve forgotten where I am. The scene reminds me of the feeling that overcomes me when my parents take me to St. Patrick’s Cathedral for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

  As Ebbets fills up, we hear the lazy hum and buzz of the pregame crowd, smell the pungent odor of stale Schaeffer’s beer, munch on a brown bag of Planter’s salted peanuts, and gape at the guys in white aprons and chef hats as they pluck Harry M. Stevens’ hot dogs from the huge bubbling vat.

  At eleven o’clock we scramble down to the first base field boxes to watch the Dodgers play “pepper” and prepare for pregame batting and infield practice. From any section of the stands you can hear that solid, reverberating “thwack” as wood connects with horsehide. The echo resounds throughout the caverns of the slowly filling ballpark, while outside on Bedford Avenue neighborhood kids with old leather mitts camp under the scoreboard, waiting to pounce on the batting practice “dingers” that will clear the wall.

  For the entire three hours, Billy, Heshy, Kenny, Ira and I keep up a steady stream of chatter: quoting stats, playing baseball initials, kibitzing with neighboring fans about the new pennant race, and reliving “classic” Dodger home games from the past. Heshy tells us about the time Jackie Robinson stole home in the ninth inning to beat the St. Louis Cards. Kenny and Ira brag about the Duke hitting three homers onto Bedford Avenue against the Boston Braves. Billy replays the moment when Furillo threw the Pirates’ Mel Queen out at first base on a line drive to right field. Most of those stories are apocryphal. I know that none of them have actually attended any of those games. Yet, they’re replaying these moments as if they are their own memories.

  A part of me feels it is a sacrilege for them to pretend they’ve witnessed those events. To make my point, I’ve deliberately saved my story for last. Once I have their attention, I draw out all the details, embellishing them wherever I can.

  On an early June afternoon, I tell them, my father took my brother Alan and me to a day game against the Cubs. This was Alan’s first time at Ebbets, and for the first few innings he was flushed with the kind of euphoria that comes from watching your first big league game. But by the fifth inning, he was bored. While my kid brother nodded off, Carl Erskine retired the last twelve Cubbies to complete the first live no-hitter I ever saw.

  I pause here to let everyone take in the importance of this event. Then I punched up the climax.

  “I still remember the last play of the game,” I say. It was when Eddie Miksis hit an easy ground ball to Pee Wee Reese. I neatly penciled 6-3 in my scorecard and jumped to my feet to watch as players and fans headed for the mound to celebrate.

  Later on, whenever I told that story, I made sure to emphasize the fact that I attended the game—that I didn’t watch it on TV or read about it in a book or in The Sporting News. Part of it of course was to show off. But I also wanted my cronies to be more respectful of the game.

  After we finish reminiscing, we watch batting practice. Baseball gloves in hand, the five of us stand behind the box seats between third and home. When a foul fly twists toward us, bouncing crazily off the concrete promenade, we wrestle with two Flatbush Avenue hoods—kids our own age who sport greasy DA haircuts and wear pegged pants, motorcycle jackets, and black shit kickers.

  If I saw them in the street or on the subway, I’d cut out as quickly as possible. But here on my turf, I wasn’t afraid to tangle with them. It’s an Ebbets Field baseball at stake here—one of the most coveted souvenirs you can bring home. Worth at least a day or two’s bragging rights in the schoolyard.

  An hour before game time, we drift over to the right field bullpen to watch “The Knothole Gang,” WOR-TV’s pregame show. Wearing a blue Dodger warm-up jacket and cap, today the rotund host, Happy Felton, introduces Gil Hodges, our team’s first baseman, to the TV audience. Gil grabs a bat and hits a bunch of easy grounders and pop flies to three kids. They are all twelve or thirteen years old, and each is wearing his Little League baseball uniform. One of them in a baggy, “Brooklyn Kiwanis Club” shirt wins an autographed baseball. He also gets to go to the dugout with Hodges. We walk away grousing about this injustice.

  “How come those kids got picked?” Billy asks.

  Heshy yells “Hey, Happy Man, how do we get on the show?”

  “Yeah, how come we don’t get picked,” I mumble to myself under my breath.

  Old Hap looks up and smiles at us. Then he turns away, unclasps his microphone and shuffles his cue cards.

  Just before game time, Dodger players perch on the top step of the dugout. A wave of cheers cascades up from the lower stands. This lets us know that up in the “old catbird seat” behind home plate, Red Barber has just announced, “And the Dodgers take the field” to everyone listening in on the radio and watching on
TV. Gladys Gooding plays the National Anthem on her Hammond organ, Lucy Monroe sings “Oh say can you see . .” in her high-pitched soprano, and I watch as fathers in shirt sleeves and fedoras and young boys with Dodger caps and two-toned reversible jackets tied around their waists place their hats in front of their hearts and sing along.

  No matter how corny this ritual is, for those few moments, I feel as if I belong to a coterie of kindred spirits.

  Out on the field, the players in their starched white uniforms stand silent and still. When they place their hats over their hearts I notice that Pee Wee’s sandy blond hair is thinning on top, and that the Duke is prematurely graying. For a brief moment, the spell is broken; they look almost like the guys my dad plays ball with on Sundays.

  Then Tex Richart’s voice reverberates over the P.A., “Ladies-dees and-nd Gentlemen-gentlemen. Batting first-first, for the Giants-Giants, number nineteen-teen, Alvin-Alvin, Dark-Dark, shortstop-stop.” The home crowd boos loudly. But everyone quickly settles in, and the game is underway. I sit quietly, scorecard resting in my lap, recording each put-out neatly in pencil.

  It’s as if I’ve crossed over into another firmament. The game is a closed universe where I exist from putout, to strikeout, to base hit—where innings seamlessly slip by without any sense of time passing.

  There are moments when I am so deep in concentration that I don’t even hear the crowd cheering. The only other times I’d experienced this sensation were when I was writing or engrossed in a book.

  When the reverie breaks, I start looking around, picking out the oddballs in the stands. In the fifth inning of this scoreless tie, old Hilda Chester, a stout, white-haired woman dressed like a rag picker, runs through the stands, her hands waving wildly. She’s clanging a set of metal cowbells and leading cheers. We stand up and yell with everyone else. She’s accompanied by the Dodger “Sym-Phony,” a group of rag-tag local musicians decked out in tattered tuxedos and stovepipe hats. I instinctively start tapping my toes as they play tinny, off-key Dixieland jazz. During the seventh inning stretch, Gladys Gooding urges the fans to sing along as she plays the “Follow the Dodgers” theme song. Like a church choir, we all join in.