He was an athlete himself, my dad. And he was a strapping man with alleged blinding speed in his youth. He was taller than Pete Rose, but similar in stocky frame. One time he picked up the back of a 1949 Hudson. I saw him do it.
My father would have loved Tuesday night at the ballpark. Nice summer evening. Big, noisy crowd. My father always enjoyed singing the national anthem at baseball games.
He had a big voice, a booming voice that could cut you down at one hundred yards when it broke into “He Leadeth Me” or our national anthem, his two favorite songs. He always sang along when they played the national anthem, no matter where or what event. One time I said to him, “I wish you wouldn’t sing so loud. It’s embarrassing.”
He said to me, “Son, it’s embarrassing when you don’t sing along with me.”
Tuesday night, just before Pete Rose stepped up to bat, going for forty-five straight, my father and I would have stood shoulder-to-shoulder and sung the national anthem together.
Pete Rose is my father’s kind of man, I was thinking when Rose approached the plate in the first inning. Just before the game began, he had his picture made with a crippled boy and put his hat on the crippled boy’s head.
“Look at the way that man moves,” my father would have said of Rose. “He doesn’t waste a motion. He has speed. He has strength. He has determination. That’s the kind of man you want in a foxhole with you.”
My father was a soldier. A damn good one.
His only objection to Pete Rose might have been Rose’s hair. I noticed it precariously near his shoulders. His ears disappeared weeks ago. My father wore a crew cut. He thought everybody else should.
“I’ll never get used to long hair on a ballplayer or a soldier,” he might have said as Larry McWilliams of the Braves threw the first pitch of the ball game—a curve—“It’s not what the Lord intended.”
The curve to Rose is low for ball one. And then a foul deep to right that misses being a double by five feet. A fastball outside, a curve catches the inside corner, the count goes full, two more fouls, then ball four. The streak holds at forty-four.
I never saw a major league baseball game with my father. We saw plenty of service ball together. He once coached the Fort Benning team. Coached in a Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat.
Later, we bummed around South Georgia one summer. My father had fallen on hard times, but he kept a ten-year-old fed and cared for during three of the best months of my life.
That summer, we spent night after hot South Georgia night fighting gnats and eating peanuts in broken-down Class D parks in Waycross and Moultrie and Tifton where something called the Georgia-Florida League still had life.
There is something special about a man with his son at a baseball game. A man and his son sat next to me Monday night when Pete Rose extended his batting streak to forty-four. As Pete strode to the plate for the first time, the boy asked his dad if he would take him to the rest room.
“Not now, son,” said the father. “Not now. Pete Rose is batting.”
The boy held on, uncomfortably, but appearing to understand the necessity of the effort.
When a man takes his son to a baseball game, I think, it establishes a link, one that won’t easily be broken even in the face of a subsequent premature parting that might leave other scars.
I know that to be a fact.
Rose came up for a second time. “Let’s go, Pete,” my father would have screamed, loud enough to be heard in LaGrange. What the heck. Let him have his fun.
First pitch, Rose swings. A shot up the middle. Young McWilliams’ gloved hand appears from nowhere and spears the drive. Rose drops his bat and gives the youngster a hand. Mostly, my father would have enjoyed the game Tuesday night because it was a vivid American scene. It was an act of patriotism, somehow, to have been there.
He would have looked at his fellow Americans eating hot dogs and drinking beer, he would have heard their cheers for the home runs by Horner and Murphy, and he would have said something like, “This is why your daddy went to war, son. This is what we fought to keep.”
Rose is up again. The inning is the fifth. The game is tied, 3-3. A fake bunt, ball one. Another ball. Then a ground out to short. The tension builds.
Now, it is the seventh. The brutal Gene Garber is pitching for the Braves. A runner is on. One out. A fastball strike on the outside corner. Two straight balls. A foul tip, the count is even. Then, another shot by Rose, toward left, the opposite field. But Horner is there for the out and a double play.
A final chance, and only that, remains. The ninth. The game has turned to slaughter. The Reds, for once, are the victims, 16-4. Atlanta has twenty-one hits. Even Garber has one. Pete Rose, whose name even sounds like a line drive, has none.
Two outs. Rose at the bat. “Pete! Pete! Pete!” the stadium is begging.
The first pitch from Garber. An attempted drag bunt to third goes foul. Two straight balls. A foul tip.
The ball leaves Garber’s hand. A split second later, we will know.
Strike three. Swinging. It is over.
What Pete Rose did—hit safely in forty-four straight games— wasn’t a man on the moon, I reminded myself as the stadium lights dimmed. It wasn’t a lonely flight across the Atlantic or the first heart transplant.
But it was a good and honorable thing, a fierce man with a bat in his hand, playing a boy’s game as it was meant to be played.
And I am thankful I had the chance to witness part of it, even the bitter end.
Tuesday night at the ball game, me and my dad had a helluva good time.
A CASE OF THE BLEEPS
I MISSED PETE ROSE’S post-game television interview Tuesday night after he had failed to extend his batting streak.
I was busy typing in the press box. I never promised the news editor a Rose column, but it seemed the thing to do what with the excitement the hitting streak had generated.
I understand it was an interesting interview. Ted Turner’s nationwide network carried it, and little old ladies coast-to-coast were swallowing their snuff.
Pete Rose, American Hero, said some dirty words. There were cameras all around him. He didn’t know one was live. Ah, the magic of television.
I know some of the words Pete Rose said. Randy Donaldson of the Braves staff told me. Obviously, I can’t print any of them here, but one has four letters and the other two have seven.
One of the other two may be hyphenated, come to think of it. Spelling dirty words can be a tricky business, because most of them aren’t in the dictionary. It’s anybody’s guess.
What we use in the newspaper for dirty words people say is “bleep.” Using “bleep” shows how the influence of the electronic media is even slipping into real journalism.
When Johnny Carson says a dirty word on television, you don’t hear the dirty word, you hear an electronic sound that goes “Bleep.” Ah, the magic of television.
Wednesday, I was reading one of the local sportswriters’ stories from the Rose interview. He quoted Pete as saying to Atlanta pitcher, Larry McWilliams, who robbed him of a base hit with a grand catch. “Why the hell did you catch that bleep-bleep ball?”
“Hell” is now OK in the newspaper. It is finally off the bleep list, in other words. Calling it a “bleep-bleep” ball also seems to indicate my earlier suspicions were correct. “Bleep-bleep” must be a hyphenated dirty word.
The sportswriter also quoted Rose as saying to all the sportswriters Tuesday night, “I’m going to miss you bleeps.”
That bleep is no mystery to me at all. I know what ballplayers call sportswriters. Once, a ballplayer said to me, “You bleeping bleep, get your bleeping bleep away from my locker, or I’m going to knock the bleep out of you, and you can print that in your bleeping newspaper, and I don’t give a bleep if you bleeping do.”
I ran for the door. To save my bleep.
I am sure there were viewers Tuesday night offended by Rose’s language. I just hope nobody was surprised that a big league basebal
l player curses. Cursing is a part of the game. Like spitting tobacco juice, scratching and adjusting, and becoming a free agent.
The first curse word I ever heard was at a baseball game. We chose up sides in the second grade and my team’s first baseman, a fat boy named Roy who should have been in the fifth-grade game, chased a foul ball. He stumbled into a gully where there were many briars.
“Bleep!” he said as he picked the briars from his bleep, which was sore for a week.
The only thing Pete Rose said Tuesday night that surprised me was his expression of displeasure that the Braves’ Gene Garber would pitch to him in the ninth inning “like it was the seventh game of the World Series.”
What did Rose expect from a professional like Garber? Gene Garber pitches like Pete Rose bats. With the intensity of a runaway locomotive. Would Rose have eased up had it been Garber going for some sort of pitching record?
I know a word worse than any Pete Rose used on television Tuesday night. As much as I admire the man, I insist it must be applied to his remarks concerning Garber.
I has four letters, too.
B-U-S-H.
SCOOTER T. WASHINGTON: BLUE CHIPPER
IT WAS ALL OVER the Sunday paper about the recruiting of young athletes to play football at large universities in the region. It’s that season. Children are snatched away from their mothers’ arms back home in Twobit County and the next thing you know, the Head Coach is saying, ”Ol’ Dram Bowie from down in Twobit County is the finest prospect since Jiggy Smaha.” Which brings up that musical question, has anybody seen Jiggy Smaha lately?
Recruiting is important. “You gotta have the horses,” a coach once told me, “before you can pull the wagon.” Coaches talk like that. Translated, it means if he doesn’t get off his tail and sign some talent, he’ll be selling tires at K-Mart the next time toe meets leather.
What I hear is that Tennessee is making a big move into Georgia this year in search of recruits to rebuild the once-mighty Volunteer program. You don’t sign to go to Knoxville. You are sentenced there. Clemson is also usually heavy into seeking Georgia material. A Clemson raid especially makes Georgia Tech people mad.
“You know that tractorcade this weekend?” one asked me.
“They weren’t farmers,” he said. “They were Clemson fans on their way to Sears to buy clothes for the Gator Bowl.”
From the various sources around the Southeast, I have come into possession of the list of the most-wanted high school athletes in the state. None have been signed yet. They are known as “bluechippers” to the alumni. Coaches call them “job-savers.” Here’s the list.
ARDELL GROVER—Linebacker from Atlanta. Missed half his senior season with terminal acne. “He’ll hit you,” say the recruiters. Especially if you call him “Zit head,” which a tenth-grader did shortly before Ardell rendered him unconscious during fifth-period study hall.
MARVIN PALAFOX—Marvin is a tight end. He’s from Macon. Wears No. 82. Scored same number on his college boards. “Great hands,” say the coaches. So do the cheerleaders.
SCOOTER T. WASHINGTON—Half-back from Savannah. Olympic speed. Expensive tastes. Wants two Cadillacs and a mink coat like Reggie Jackson’s to sign. Answers the telephone, “You need the loot to get the Scoot.” Contact through his agent Sam the Fly at the Wise Owl Pool and Recreation Hall, Savannah.
BILLY BOB WALTON—Offensive tackle from Moultrie. Extremely offensive. Friends call him “Dump Truck” because that’s how big he is and he could eat all the pork chops and mashed potatoes out of the back of one. Made Tifton Gazette All-Area team. Makes Junior Samples look like David Niven. Loves buttermilk, but can’t spell it.
LAVONNE (The Rolling Stone) LARUE—Led Columbus schools in interceptions. Also led burglary ring to back entrance of Harry’s One-Stop Stereo Shop. Got one-to-five, but sentence suspended when entire student body turned out as character witnesses after suggestion they do so by several of The Stone’s “acquaintances.” “Can start for any college team in the country,” says his coach, who didn’t start him once and still carries the scars.
IRVING BOATRIGHT III—Quarterback for a fashionable north-side Atlanta private school. Father prominent Atlanta attorney with homes on Hilton Head and Sea Island. Can’t play a lick, but the head coach gets free legal advice and either house three weeks each summer. Started every game during high school career. Bed-wetter.
BARTHANATOMAY RIMJOB—Place-kicker. Son of Pakistani professor of Eastern philosophy at Clayton Junior College. Kicks soccer style. Made 110 straight extra points during prep career. Does not speak English and goes through fifteen-minute ancient ritual
before every kick. Weighs ninety pounds soaking wet. Once scored winning touchdown on fake field goal by hiding ball in his turban.
ALBERT WARTZ JR.—From South Georgia. 6-4, 250. Plays quarterback. Questionable student. Thinks Henry Cabot Lodge is a motel in Bainbridge. Filled out recruiting questionnaire. By “sex,” wrote: “Not since Mavis Wilson moved out of Hahira.”
“This kid,” says his high school coach, “doesn’t know the meaning of ‘quit.’” Doesn’t know the meaning of third-grade arithmetic either. Leaning toward Alabama.
SUPER GIRLS
NEW ORLEANS—ACTUALLY, THE Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders wear a lot of clothes, comparatively speaking. Seen Sports Illustrated’s annual porno issue this week? The cover is a lovely Brazilian child named Maria Joao, who is on the beach in Bahia. She is not naked, but you have to look closely to see that she isn’t.
Inside the magazine, which is usually reserved for pictures of huge men perspiring in the name of sport, are more pictures of Maria and other Brazilian girls, all of whom would make a good man leave home for south of the border. I was especially impressed by a photograph of the same Maria Joao posing in much less than what underpants used to be in a fruit stand in Itapoa. Yes, she has some bananas.
Sports gets sexy occasionally. High Society, which makes Larry Flynt’s Hustler look like National Geographic, is out with a picture spread (a bad choice of words) of girls cavorting in hockey uniforms. We recently went through the annual girl-in-the-dorm story with Arkansas. Jim Bouton’s Ball Four was a study in major league voyeurism and the latest rumor is San Francisco leads all leagues in homosexual athletes. What more do you expect from the gay bay?
It is the Cowboys cheerleaders in their white hot pants and short halters, however, who currently rank first in sporting sensuality. Who cares if Roger Staubach will occasionally run out of the pocket? He doesn’t even shave his legs. If he played in San Francisco he might, but that is beside the point.
There are thirty-two of them. The Dallas Cowboys Weekly, a publication sponsored by the team that will play the Denver Broncos here Sunday in Super Bowl XII, calls them “luscious lovelies.” I’ll hit some highlights:
There is Cheri Jo Adams. Have mercy. There is Monica Muehlhause. There ought to be a law. There is Debbie and Charyl and Connie and Lisa and Janice Garner, I think I love you.
Some of the other National Football League teams have tried to start their own cheerleading corps. Chicago has the Honey Bears. It’s too cold in Chicago to show your navel after Labor Day. Curt Mosher, who was instrumental in founding the Cowboy cheerers, started the Atlanta Falconettes this past season. Get the hook. Denver has the Bronco Belles. They will compete sideline-to-sideline with the Cowboy cheerleaders here Sunday. I’m giving the Cowboy cheerleaders and three wiggles.
Steve Perkins is editor of Dallas Cowboys Weekly which has over 40,000 circulation. Each week of the season, the paper features a centerfold of one of the Cowboy cheerleaders. That is the main reason circulation is over 40,000.
“There were times,” a Dallas man was saying, “when the pictures really got risqué. Perkins didn’t want to run them, but Tex Schramm (Cowboys president) said go ahead.”
Perkins is here for the Super Bowl. The cheerleaders will be in Sunday. Perkins gives Schramm the credit for the cheerleaders’ success and popularity. Watch a Dallas
game and see the cheerleaders in action between almost every play. Television cameramen are no dummies.
“What Tex wants,” says Perkins, “Tex gets. He demands the best in everything. He gets the right girls. He doesn’t take any chances on them if he thinks they might cause a scandal.”
So far, so good. Many of the cheerleaders are students. There are also legal secretaries, even a check-out girl at a supermarket. Some are married. There has been only one near-miss in the problem department.
A well-endowed young lady walked into a Corpus Christi topless bar recently and told the owner she was a Cowboy cheerleader and she was available for duty. The owner broke his neck getting an advertisement into the local newspaper. Schramm got wind of the hoax and informed the owner his new talent was no cheerleader. The show was cancelled.
Nearly 700 girls showed up for tryouts in Dallas last year. Those chosen are paid $15 per game. They are choreographed by a lady named, appropriately enough, Texi Waterman. The big bucks come later for personal appearances.
“It’s a very lucrative situation for them,” Perkins explained. “They might get $200 to go to San Antonio for the opening of an auto dealership. Five went to Little Rock the other day to open a store. They come from all over to try out. If a girl from Houston, say, makes the squad, she’ll just move to Dallas.
The hottest-selling poster in the country pictures the Cowboy girls. The same photograph adorns T-shirts. They are on sale throughout the New Orleans French Quarter. Farrah in her wet suit is now a distant second. The first twenty days the posters were on the market, sales reached 20,000.
A number of questions remain concerning the Dallas darlings:
Do any of the players date cheerleaders?
Randy White rolled out of bounds late in a Dallas rout and asked one of the girls to dinner. She accepted.
Do any of the cheerleaders also have brains?
Vanessa Baker, a six-year veteran, was recently awarded her master’s degree in education from Texas Woman’s University. She made all A’s.
Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You: A good beer joint is hard to find and other facts of life Page 7
