Like many kids, I went to my first
baseball game with my father and grandfather. I was young—seven or eight years
old—and most of that day was forgotten. More than a half a century later, some
memories still remain. Connie Mach Stadium still had poles in the stands, much
like Yankee Stadium did before several renovations. Yankee Stadium they
renovate, Connie Mack, with a much more elegant, classic entrance, they tear
down.
Note the poles in both Connie Mack's decks
Pennsylvania was a national league
state, Phillies and Pirates. The Yankees were in the other league, the “Junior
Circuit,” not around as long as the National League. Now not much separates the
leagues except the notion that when your career as a fielder is over you go
to the old age farm of designated hitters in the AL, banished forever from the
league where pitchers know how to bat.
National Leaguers rarely paid close
attention to the other league except when they intersected (the years before
inter-league play started in 1997) at the annual All-Star Game and the World
Series. My family moved from Pennsylvania to a New Jersey battleground fought over by
Mets and Yankees fans. The Mets were the new kids on the block. The Yankees
establishment was pushing back. I was quite happy to be neutral in that war.
The “Big Men on Campus” in my old
neighborhood were a doctor, a dentist and a disabled WWII veteran who had an
injury that required crutches. He sat on his front porch every day and taught neighborhood
kids how to play chess. Doctors and dentists weren’t the most exciting people
and as a kid, people you wanted to avoid—think polio booster shots and tooth
fillings.
Everything in the New York metro
area seemed larger than life and more exciting. My new neighborhood had
scientists, professional musicians, a ski jumper from Norway, entertainers,
international businessmen, and Yankees first baseman Moose Skowron. Our moving vans nearly clipped each other because he was moving out at nearly the same time as we were moving in
and if you had told me we were neighbors of Moose Skowron then, I would
probably have thought you were talking about hunting and fishing. Remember, I was
from the National League.
Moose made a visit to my eight
grade class one day when he was running his morning errands. He spoke about 20
minutes and fielded questions. I remember him as being very gracious and modest,
amazing as one of the gods of baseball. His
son, Greg, was a fifth-grade classmate of my younger brother, Dennis. If I turned around in my seat, I could talk to John Lopat, the son of
Yankee legend, Eddie Lopat, “The Junk Man” (called that because he threw a lot
of off-speed pitches). John introduced himself to me within a few
days of my arrival at the new school. He made no mention to me that his father
was a Yankee pitcher and none of my synapses connected the name “Lopat” to the
Yankees. He eventually invited me to go as his guest to a baseball game with
two other classmates. It was 1964 and his father at that time was a scout for the
White Sox. His 12-year major league career included being part of the "Big Three" Yankee
pitching rotation from 1951-53. When his playing career ended, he managed the Kansas City A’s and later left that organization when the A’s moved to LA
in 1967. How many kids can say they went to their first Yankee game with a guy
who pitched in seven World Series games with the Yankees?
The Yankees just weren’t on my
radar. When we lived in Reading, after a business trip, my well-intentioned uncle
gave my older brother, Phil, a Yankees tee shirt. He stopped wearing it around
classmates under threats of being beat up. The bubble gum we bought in
Pennsylvania had few American League baseball cards, usually duplicates of
bench players for the Minnesota Twins. What do you do with three or four copies
of Zoilo Versalles? The odds of getting Mickey Mantle were astronomical. To trade Zoilo Versalles, who
played for the highly-devalued Twins, for one Mickey Mantle would be like
those photos taken during the Great Depression with Germans toting wheelbarrows
full of German marks.
The Zoilo Versalles for one Mantle deal
When my son, Matt, was still in
high school, I received an invitation for a group outing to Yankee Stadium so we went. My grad school alumni association put together a wonderful event,
especially for a Yankees fan like my son. We drove to Jersey City and parked in
St. Peter’s Alumni House lot just off Kennedy Boulevard. There was a cocktail
party in full swing and we mingled with alumni of all ages. Two hours before
the first pitch, we boarded a luxury bus
with individual video screens playing Field
of Dreams. Lunch was served in the “Legends Club” and Matt was impressed.
White-gloved chefs with tall linen hats used tongs to place huge hamburgers into perfect buns. I had never seen that done to a hamburger—it reminded me of Seinfeld’s
episode eating Snickers bars with a knife and fork. On the walls, the gods of
baseball were captured in massive, life-sized oil paintings. It struck me that
one of these was Eddie Lopat on the mound. I don’t remember much else about the
game that afternoon except seeing that magnificent oil painting of John’s father.
Yankee Legend Eddie Lopat
Baseball is a family tradition, a
generational bonding between father and son. I remember one of my son’s little
league practices and shagging balls in the outfield. The other coach hit a long
fly to left center and somehow with an extended outstretched swat, I caught the
ball on the dead run, not even sure it was in my glove and then wind milled my
arms to keep from falling. I recovered my stride and then threw it in like it
was something I did every day as a matter of routine. I can remember my son’s
excited voice carrying all the way out there, “That was my Dad.” Some things
you file away in your heart’s memory bank.
Going to baseball games is all
about the tradition of father, son, and grandfather attending together, passing
the baseball torch. People who know me chuckle when I mention memories and food
because they know how I enjoy simple fare and lots of it. I don’t remember much
about that day at Connie Mack but I remember stopping at a classic diner on the
way home and sitting on a stool at the counter having a hamburger with my dad and grand-pop. I like to
think it was the 5th Street Diner in Temple or maybe the Queen Diner
on Morgantown Road, two logical places on the route to Philly from Reading, but
it was probably just a quick stop at any one of those millions of shiny
aluminum Pullman car style diners all over America.
I remember going to Reading Indians
games with my father and one game in particular when a foul ball came straight
back and cleared the backstop. We all stood up and my father, who was quite tall,
reached up and the ball missed his hand by a few inches, pretty much a metaphor
for the type of luck my family usually had.
Pop-pop umpiring a softball game in "the Grove."
My maternal grandfather, Clarence
P. Bowers, was a lot of things—an industrialist, an innovator, a politician, a
racing horse owner, an aviator, a neighbor of Al Capone in Fort Lauderdale, and
a catalyst in Reading for the grand things that needed doing. He sponsored
industrial league baseball teams. He was a pioneer in the manufacture of car
batteries, known worldwide for his innovations. He chaired the board that
developed the municipal airport—he had a company pilot on call for his
twin-engine corporate plane. He was instrumental in bringing professional
baseball to Reading, a city of about 110,000 people at the time.
Heavy cotton jersey from one of Pop-pop's Industrial teams.
Snazzy air holes for ventilation.
Pop-pop, as we called him,
was way out ahead of Kevin Costner. Professional baseball was gone from Reading
for several years and the outlook of getting a team back was bleak. He felt
that if Reading built a major league caliber ballpark, some franchise could be
enticed to make Reading a member of their farm system. On spec, he and others
on a board (called “The Old Timers”) started a movement to build Reading’s
stadium. It worked. The Cleveland Indians took the bait deciding to take a ride
on the Reading. That enabled the planets to align creating another one of my
encounters with the gods of baseball. Reading became Cleveland’s Single-A team
halfway through the 1952 season.
My grandfather's name is fourth from the top.
The plaque is on the wall just left of the ticket window
In 1954, the Indians were in the
World Series and there were local, Reading stars, in the series. One, Vic Wertz,
never played for Reading. He graduated from Reading High, but his path to the
Cleveland Indians took another path because the Reading Indians didn’t exist at
the time he came out of the minor leagues. Vic Wertz will always be paired with
the catch Willie Mays made in Game 1 which might have decided that World Series.
The bigger local hero* at that time was Carl Furillo, the "Reading Rifle," known
for his laser throws from right field. One season he threw out seven runners who
rounded first too wide. The Dodgers, channeling an inner Yankees’ greed, bought
the entire Reading franchise so they could acquire his rights in 1940. Baseball
disappeared from Reading for a few years after that until my grandfather helped bring it
back.
Rocky Colavito did play for one
season for Reading, on his way to stardom in the major leagues. During that
season he met a local girl, Carmen Perroti, from Temple (about 4 miles from the
center of Reading) They met in 1953 and were married in 54 and the couple makes
their home in the Reading area today. When I lived in Laureldale, my parish was
Holy Guardian Angels. Laureldale was a suburb was about 3 miles from Reading
and Temple was the next town north. After that, there were cornfields until you
reached Kutztown. Philly was 58 miles to the south.
Rocky with his wife, Carmen
My parish was predominantly Irish
and Italians. The Germans in the area were generally Lutheran, so being a
Pennsylvania German, I was in a minority
at my Catholic grade school. During the off season, Rocky sometimes attended my
church. He was the original Italian
Stallion—tall, dark, handsome, muscular and a famous baseball player. In
the late 50’s, during my baseball formative years, he was a god of baseball—for
me—the original. Just watching him out of uniform, I felt that he stood out
among the lesser mortals. Actually he did—so tall, so young and handsome. He
could have been an iceman like his father and he still would have stood out.
But to a little boy, a baseball player… was a god.
I wonder what the going price was for Rocky's card?
I had other close encounters with
the gods of baseball in New Jersey. One night during the summer before my
senior year in college, my parents were hosting a couple in their church bridge
group. They belonged to a small group that circulated at a different home each
month. That night they were hosting the Kucks. My bedroom was downstairs. I was
going out for the night but before leaving I did the polite thing and came up
and introduced myself and exchanged small talk before heading out. The
next day, my dad remarked that I seemed almost nonchalant when we had a former
star pitcher for the Yankees in our living room. The American League was the
other league so I had no idea that Johnny Kucks had played seven seasons for the
Yankees and was the winning pitcher of Game 7 in the 1955 World Series. In my
living room, he didn’t look like one of the gods of baseball. Years later, in
1980 when I was covering the New Jersey State high school basketball finals, I
watched his daughter, Rebecca, win that championship. Small world.
Johnny Kucks with Yogi Berra
As an adult I’d like to think that
my next encounter with one of these gods, would not turn me into a nervous,
stuttering worshiper. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t. The years reporting for the
newspaper might have taken an edge off that but I do remember getting anxious
when I interviewed people like Bill Bradley (as a US Senator, not as a New York Knick) Mario Andretti, Virginia Wade, and
movie director Jon Landis (Animal House, The Blues Brothers). And I do remember
being fascinated by getting up close with stars like Nancy Lopez, Peggy Flemming and Dorothy Hamill but
I was in my late 20’s and they were still gods to me. Now I recognize that we idolize
these people for their exceptional physical skills when they are just like you
and me except exceptionally good at what they do. What matters in one realm is
inconsequential in another and when you are young, they are gods, like Rocky
Colavito.
________________________________________
NOTE: Scores of major leaguers played for
Reading over the years, too many to treat fairly in this space. Among them:
Whitey Kurowski, Roger Maris, Pat Burrell, Brett Myers, Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski, Larry Bowa, Bob
Boone, John Kruk and Robin Roberts. Also Note that the American League's Philadelphia A's shared the same park up until 1954 when they moved to Kansas City, so Philly was essentially a National League and American League City. By the time I reached the age of reason, Philly was solely a National League city.
