New Year’s Baseball Glove

The best Christmas gift I received this year was the reaction on my son Sid's face when he opened the box containing a new baseball glove. It was a look of joy and appreciation. Not at getting a new possession. The glove meant more: it meant hope promise, joy and opportunity.

During Fall baseball this past October, Sid's glove disappeared in a case of mistaken identity. During batting practice, he glove went missing. What was left behind in the batting cage was a glove that looked a lot like his, slightly older and smaller, but at first glance and even at second glance, looked enough like Sid's to mistake the two gloves.

We are guessing that the glove left behind in its place was itself a borrowed or second hand glove because the name on it did not match or resemble the name or family name of anyone signed up for the league or clinics that autumn and the numbers I called from the phone book matching the name were not missing a glove nor had any children that age playing baseball.

Still, we both handled the grief over the loss quite well and Sid finished the season with my glove, a worn, slightly larger, Derek Jeter model, which worked quite well for him, even though he prefers second base to Jeter's short stop.

It was sad to lose the mitt regardless. Sid had taken a couple of summers to completely break it in and, as many of us will remember from our childhood, baseball gloves are the kinds of precious things we sleep with at night and that fuel our fields of dreams.

The lost glove sadness was overtaken as Sid continued on with a conviction like the Whos of Whoville after their Christmas presents had been taken. Each inning, he ran out to his position with dad's beat up but more-than-functional glove and played the game he loves the most. He was not going to let the loss of his possession ruin his chance at celebrating on the green grass and ag-lime base paths.

With the help of his aunt Jennifer and my good fortune at finding the last of last year's models at one of the sporting goods stores, which meant that it was about 40 percent of the price of this year's model, Sid has a new glove to break in. We started the process the day after Christmas, in this rare warm-aired and brown-grassed winter.

On the 26^th, we went over to the park near grandma and grandpa's house with two of Sid's cousins and his uncle Michael and played catch, hot box—and we played long enough to make it official.

We played long enough to stir our hot stove dreams of the coming season, which have been spliced with a smattering of newspaper pieces about players and for whom they will play in the upcoming season. And roused by activities like Sid's school History Day project that is largely about baseball's free agency and the biggest hero of that piece of history, the late St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curt_Flood)

Sid presenting 4th grade biography project to Biography Day guests.

Sid is learning that baseball isn't just about the game, which it is. It's only a game, but it is also about life; it is about the politics that we cannot avoid and it is one of our strongest parallels to American culture and history. It is an ongoing lesson about small-and large-scale justice, on and off the field. It is about how to care who wins and what we win—and what we lose; how to love those things in the right way, appreciating them when we have them and letting go when they are gone.

I think deep down, these must be lessons that we, as kids, yearn for and maybe are as much a reason we play so hard as for the fun of the game. Maybe that is why Sid has done three class projects on Jackie Robinson, one on the 1919 (Chicago White Sox) Black Sox scandal and now Curt Flood.

Not long ago, Sid took his Brooklyn Dodgers replica baseball hat to a chess tournament. We originally got it to go with a costume he had for his Biography Day presentation several years ago, playing Jackie Robinson, of course. During one of the rounds of chess play, it got lost.

He's not a little kid anymore, and it seems that losing the hat did not phase him as he continued to play. At the end of the chess tournament, we looked all over the tournament area for it, finally finding it at the officials' table in the gym. As he and I walked out, I noticed that he was a little weepy. He wasn't going to cry. He does not cry easily these days, but I had to ask him if something was wrong.

He said, “Well, the hat really means a lot to me.” At that moment, my idea of what the hat meant to him turned into a strong mental and emotional knowledge. I knew it was an important hat, even wearing it during Little League when he was younger instead of the team issued hats of the same color. One of his grandmothers remarked that baseball season how proud he was of it.

But what he carried home with him after the tournament, wore on the baseball field and for his history day project was more than just a floppy piece of sewn Dodger Blue cloth with a bill; it is a badge of so many things he and other young people need and want to learn about the joys and sorrows of our stories—of life. It tells us we have something to unwrap every day, things that will elate us and bring us tears.

Maybe that is the lesson for the coming year—a lesson from the last one. I am still learning, and maybe this coming year will be better, smarter and more joyful than the last. I hope it will be for you.

(Please leave comments at http://theclarencewhiteblog.wordpress.com)

“The Giants won the Pennant! The Giants won the Pennant!"

On an early October afternoon in 1951, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ great Jackie Robinson stood alone in the infield, hands on hips as New York Giants slugger Bobby Thompson circled the bases. Most interpreted this as dejection, maybe a sign of his competitive nature, unsettled with the idea of loss. Dejected, maybe. Competitive, yes. Competing to win, and competing for one of many spots in sports and American history.

That year, the New York Giants (yes, the same Giants who are now in San Francisco—or really the same business entity) won the National League Pennant. This may mean little to many of the readers who are not connoisseurs of baseball history. Apart from the drama of the season being decided on its last pitch with a home run and that it was the first baseball moment to be dubbed “The Shot Heard 'Round the World,” there is enough American history buried in that moment to describe more about us as Americans than the celebration of a home run.

If you know baseball history—or are even a 1950s nostalgia buff, you may be familiar with sports broadcaster Russ Hodges' famous call, “The Giants won the pennant! The Giants won the pennant! The Giants won the pennant!” heralding baseball's first “shot” the call that told baseball fan's around the globe of Bobby Thompson's home run that won the game and the National League pennant for the Giants.

What Thompson did is the ultimate in game-ending drama. This event particularly marks baseball history because that season, the Giants trailed the Brooklyn Dodgers (yes, the same Dodgers who would sneak out of town to Los Angeles) by 13½ games going into the last month of the season. They tied the Dodgers in the standings on the last day of the season, winning their last 16 games. But this is little more than a prologue for the story.

A field day could be had by anyone student of statistics and probability. Unfortunately, attention to statistics was not particularly de rigueur in sports at that time, and came a little late for the Dodgers.

The Dodger's Charlie Dressen managed by the seat of his pants, more so than most in this era without number crunching. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Dressen brought in Ralph Branca to pitch to Bobby Thompson with two runners on base and the Dodgers leading by two runs.

If Dressen had paid attention to statistics, he would have known this; Branca had given up few home runs that season, a plus.  He also would have known that even though he had given up few home runs, most of the home runs he gave up were to the Giants, and none more than to Bobby Thompson.

But Bobby hit a looping fly that, in any other stadium than the Polo Grounds of New York City, would have fallen harmlessly into the left fielder's glove for an out, or would have curved into the seats as a foul, leaving another chance for either a hit or an out. Instead, it was history and the crowd went wild.

I said, though, that this was an event of SOCIAL significance, that brought a single joy to some New Yorkers and a hefty playoff bonus to the guys in black and orange instead of instead of the Dodger Blue.

Jackie Robinson, who a few years before, broke the color line in modern baseball was just one of a host of baseball greats on each team.

The Giant's team included great players like Monte Irvin, among the first of the African American players in the major leagues. Ray Dandridge was not playing for the Giants. He was playing for the Minneapolis Millers, a Giants farm club at the time. He was playing in the minor leagues even though he was widley recognized as the best third baseman in the Giants organization, and maybe in all of North American baseball.
Why did the Giants not have Ray Dandridge with them with the big club?

The Giants ownership said that they never gave Dandridge a shot at the big leagues because they did not want to deprive the good fans of Minneapolis of such a great talent. Was it better to deprive the world? Was it better to deprive the greatest compilation of baseball players in the world of one of its finest talents? Was it better to deprive a great player of the ultimate dream of playing in the Major Leagues?

Dandridge was a star of not only the American Association, with which the Minneapolis Millers were associated. He was also a star in the Negro Leagues and the Mexican League. While the color barrier was broken years earlier by Jackie Robinson, the wall was not totally broken. The National League of Major League baseball was more aggressive than the American League in enlisting the talents of Black players. This included the Giants and, of course, the trend-setting Dodgers. What tends not to be spoken of is the reason Dandridge was not with the Giants in New York; at the time, the Giants had five Black players with the Major League club, an unspoke "gentlemen's agreement betwen owners and executivesof the quota allowed, and five was all they would have.

Dandridge would not be called up.

What if...

What would the season look like if the Giants had the best third baseman with the squad for the entire season? It likely would have saved the baseball world from the last-pitch-of-the-season dramatics. Maybe. A different relief pitcher. A “normally” configured ball park. Maybe.

As Russ Hodges called out "The Giants won the pennant! The Giants won the pennant! The Giants won the pennant! The Giants won the pennant!" as the crowd went crazy, as hundreds of thousands erupted in pandemonium in the streets, homes, schools and bars of New York City—everywhere except Brooklyn and the pockets of fans devoted to the Blue (like little Doris Kearns [Goodwin] and her dear father), Jackie Robinson stood as an island of quiet and composure.

The photos are famous. Jackie Robinson, standing in the infield, hands on hips, somehow sensing that in the middle of the pandemonium, the story was not over.

Some fans jumped out of the stands and onto the field in celebration. Most of the Dodgers ran off of the field to avoid the assault of celebration. Ralph Branca walked slowly, trying not to get run over by the gleeful Giant traffic. In the tornadic frenzy, Robinson stood at his post, watching to be sure Thompson touched each base.

Inside baseball fans and players know the drill.  If Thompson misses a base, the home run is nullified. If he touches all the bases, the game is over and the Giants win. What Robinson realizes is that even if he does not touch all the bases, and if all the Dodgers leave the field, effectively conceding the game, it is also over and the Giants win.

Thompson is mobbed as he touches home plate. Russ Hodges' voice rings out from the broadcast booth and over the airwaves.  Robinson waits, watches, attends to the last hope for the Dodgers and leaves the field only after the last punctuation at home plate.

Moments of quiet dignity: something required of most Black players of the era. It is why Henry Aaron will always command a kind of respect that Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds will never achieve. It should remind us that Babe Ruth , (Pittsburgh Steelers' quarterback) Ben Rothlesberger, and Ty Cobb continue to receive relatively big passes for their behavior and Barry Bonds, (NFL quarterback) Michael Vick and Manny Ramirez will not.

But no one was thinking of the social significance, the fate against probabilities or the disappointment of little Doris Kearns and her father in the Brooklyn borough as Bobby Thompson rounded the bases to beat the Dodgers, 5-4, and ignited Russ Hodges' famous call. The Yankees would go on to win the World Series in six games, the other of the three New York teams, to much less fanfare and hoopla. It would be their third in a row, another notch in their entitlement of purchased sense of superiority.

Today, we do not talk about the 1951 World Champion Yankees. We talk about that October day in 1951 and Bobby Thompson and “The Shot.” And we should. We should also remember all the heroes of that day and those who toiled conspicuously and in obscurity and dignity—and who made history as surely as the stars of the show.



*For more historically and socially significant information about this event, see Past Time: Baseball As History, “The Shot Heard 'Round the World,” by Jules Tygiel, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Special thanks to David Unowsky and Mel Duncan for helping me (and countless others) form the thoughts around this event.

Celebrity Crush

Bookseller conventions have their perks.  Near the end of my career as a bookseller, I had the grand opportunity to sit next to historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin, most famous for her biographies of Lyndon Johnson, the Kennedys and the Roosevelts, at the convention dinner where she was a keynote speaker.  This is especially significant—at least to me, because Doris Kearns Goodwin was once the object of the closest thing I ever had as an adult to a celebrity crush. 

The crush was a secret that I appropriately kept from her for the couple of hours we shared in the dinner hall.  I forewent much of the school boy gush: Traded such statements about loving her work and asking her about the challenges of working with her subjects—being polite (or timid) around the issue of Lyndon Johnson and his reputation for hands that roamed as much as most men’s fantasies.  Better that banter than exposing my fantasy that ignores the reality of Mr. Goodwin.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is smart. She is cute.  She knows how to turn our allure to  history's charismatic characters and to salt their personae so that we don’t recognize them as history, but, rather a compelling and even slightly sexy story.  She also loves baseball and knows the importance of the institution to American culture and the importance of baseball’s stories (history) to the American story. 

I saw her as the lone woman commentator for Ken Burns’ baseball documentary aired on PBS back in the mid 1990s.  Except for the fact that I was currently in love at the time, I would have fallen head over heals right then.
When she got up to give her talk, her small frame struck an imposing figure, in spite of her slight and petite size.  Her words were large as she read off her page, like the smart kid in class, grown-up school girl who was making good, once again, on her promise to go far.  She stood at the podium with her smart suit, smart ideas and a smart gaze at her notes, the ones that held her assignment for the night. 

But before her talk, we had the chance to share a mediocre meal, great conversation and, one or two great ideas.

This was big.  I had the best seat in the house, which is saying a lot given that the other keynote speaker was Suds Trukel.  I don’t remember much of the conversation.  I am sure any facility in conversing was compromised by my not wanting to appear too fawning or by the fear that I could not possibly hold my end of a conversation with her about any Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Lyndon Johnson.
But, of course, the conversation turned to politics. And even my reticent self knew that this was one subject on which I knew a little more than my opinions.
The next year would be a Presidential election year and somehow the conversation turned to who we wanted to see as the next President of the United States.  She said something that shocked me.  She said, You know who I think should be the next President of the United States?  Paul Wellstone.

I smiled to myself.  Two thoughts crossed my mind.  The first was that she was just saying this because she was in Minnesota amongst a crowd that almost certainly loved Paul—unconditionally.  This may have been true, but I did not quiz her on this. 

‑­The second thought was, Oh, here we go again.  A well-off, out-of-touch elite who is going to go on about how wonderful and liberal Paul is and “don’t you just love him?”  But what she said surprised me.  It was smarter than a knee jerk and was what I now see as a distinction that, today, is fading: that distinction between liberal and progressive.

She said something like this:  You know, Paul and Sheila (Wellstone) are just about the only people on Capitol Hill and maybe the only ones in the Senate, who, when they go out, have to pay attention to how much they spend.  She reminded/pointed out that the Senate was a club of the very wealthy.  As such, most of them had little perspective on what it meant for most Americans to live day to day, make their way through the mine field of common economic and social realities. 

It was an important articulation of the difference between liberal and progressive.  Today, the two seem to be used interchangeably, since so many people have become shy to use the world liberal and find “progressive” more trendy.  It seems the term liberal has gone out of favor, for some good reasons and some not so good ones, but seems to have as much to do with the waning of liberal glory that reached its apex with the charisma of Camelot and found its nadir in the series of political defeats, culminating in the disaster of Michael Dukakis’ campaign that will ever be marked by the press opportunity image of his egg-head bobbing out of the hatch of that blasted tank.  (I think it is more than an urban legend that said that the guy who had the idea for this photo-op was looking for work before the next news cycle.)

Paul was a progressive.  A profound and fundamental antidote to the criticism that says all non-right wing politics is about the elites.  He was also the response to a subculture that looks to segments of society with mock pity and finds itself sufficiently superior to the masses upon whom their empire was built. The class that hands out bread crumbs of mock generosity left from their lavish feast.  And Paul still stood in profound opposition to the supremacist cultures that chose to pick on an underclass that includes more of us than we care to admit.   We would still rather do for ourselves than have the crumbs handed to us.

And at the same time, looking closely to the public that surrounded Paul made us look at the liberal, conservative, progressive, tentative moderate, and supremacist in ourselves.  It is a place where we met the enemy if we looked in the mirror—if we looked.

But I didn't need to think about any such complex social diagrams.  I didn't need to remember Stud's stories.  I didn't need to think much about the dinner which was most likely chicken and something.  I didn't need to sound smarter than the school boy I never was in front of the smartest girl in the class.  No matter, because I got to sit with her, talk with her and at least seem smart in front of her.  (Or she made me feel smart.)

Could Dr. Doris Kearns Goodwin forgive the fact that I did not totally fall in love with her at the sight of her on the Burns baseball special (cute, smart and loves baseball for what it is: who could possibly resist?) given that, at the time the show aired, I was in love with  a woman who was dearly loved by Paul and Sheila? She would have at least been impressed.  I was and continue to be impressed—by all those people. 

So, I am humble enough to admit that I am not above succumbing to a celebrity crush.  It is a lesson that helps me (us) be humble enough to accept the reality when real-life crushes are not returned.  Maybe it is a lesson that prepares me (us) for the true humility that comes when a crush IS actually returned.

To end the drama, as you might have guessed, I did not succeed in wooing her away from her husband.  (Gosh, one would think, after sharing the “rubber chicken,” we would have been ready to elope.)  I did get to sit next to Doris Kearns Goodwin, hear a story about one of my heroes, and learn that some days, I am just smart enough to appreciate and participate in those glories. 

And if you run into her, please don't tell her my secret.  I'll be like SO embarrassed.