The Spahn Ball

Born thirty miles due east of Syracuse, pronounced SARR-AH-QUUSE, in what is now pretty much a shithole that is Oneida, NY, I grew up as most of us did - as enthusiastic sports fans – Yankees, Syracuse, Notre Dame, and the Dallas Cowboys. I was equally satisfied watching an entire Yankee game with my grandma as I was watching Dan Devine’s Irish take on the Trojans of USC. I never missed a Syracuse basketball game on the television and was able to see many in person, both in the final days of Manley Field House and in the inaugural season of the Carrier Dome. As an aside, did you know there is no air conditioning in the Carrier Dome?  

Outside of the Syracuse jaunts to see the Orange(men) play football or hoops, the first epic trip was to Boston with my dad, my uncle Bob, my cousin Jean, my sister Kris, and my best pal Pat Flanagan – we were heading there for a 2-game series between the Sox and the Yankees. Damn skippy! Pat was actually a Boston fan. My dad and sister didn’t give a shit. Jean, Uncle Bob and I were ha-yuge Yankee fans. The year – 1978, summer of course. Highlights included being in the vicinity of a Reggie Jackson home run ball and sitting next to the Yankee bullpen where we sat watching the likes of Goose Gossage and Catfish Hunter. THE highlight though, took place in the lobby of the hotel where the New York squad was staying. Heading over to the place my dad and Bob felt certain the Yankees would be staying, I recall feeling a little less than optimistic that we'd see much less meet any of my heroes.  

We walk in. It’s the nicest hotel I had been in to date. Howard Johnson’s may have been the front runner leading into this moment. The lobby was cavernous and with no shortage of glass and escalators. We go up one. And approaching us and going down, per my dad, is Bucky Dent. Dad: “Danny…here comes Bucky Dent.” No way! Bucky looks cool as shit. Certainly on his way to go chase some skirt. Blue jeans, cowboy boots, dress shirt, cowboy hat. 

We get to the top, swing around, and reverse direction keeping an eye on him all the way. Fortunately for us, he made it easy. He was heading to the front desk, probably to leave a key for his Boston hook-up. He finishes his interaction and turns around toward us. There we stood, looking at him like a thirsty dog would his owner. He practically has to get through us to get by. As he approached, I think it was my Uncle Bob who asked on our behalf for an autograph. He somewhat pleasantly obliged. He certainly was not eager to stand by and shoot the shit though. He had fish to troll. And that was it…my first brush with fame, and Yankee fame to boot from number 20 himself, the Dentster. I was hooked. Get me some more of that action please! We continue to meander around the hotel. Up where we had originally stepped off the escalator before turning around to pursue Bucky, a nice hotel restaurant sat. It was quiet, not a lot of action, as in none. As we approach, an older man donning a suit stood guard at the entrance. As we get closer to him, we see sitting at a table through the glass wall, all by himself eating fried eggs and toast, is #44 himself. HOLY SHIT!!!! The man in the suit was the gatekeeper and he shut us down quickly. "Mr. Jackson does not want to be disturbed while he's eating." We gazed for a few more seconds at the man and went on our way. The weekend was just incredible, top few of my adolescence. I honestly don’t remember much outside of the baseball games themselves other than these two brushes with fame, but that’s all ya need. It was this particular weekend when I became a tad more entrenched in my deep like for the game.

#20 - Bucky Dent

The house I grew up in – you’ve heard about it. I’ve waxed poetic on the social hub that was our house, both for my parents and older sisters. It was an old house but it had key ingredients conducive for get-togethers, both in and out: a good sized yard, and a bar. Here’s the roof of the house (top left of image) See the yard. Lots of activity in this here yard – name the sport, but also add in igloo making and ice skating. That’s right…more than one ice storm afforded us the ability to walk outside and skate in our back yard. I don’t miss that. 

Summer, 1979. Another of my grand memories from childhood. Cooperstown was an hour and fifteen minutes from where I grew up. We get up early. Well, I get up early. My dad was always up at crack of dawn, showered and shaved. I can tell you that unless I crossed paths with my dad while on his way to his morning shower, I never, ever, saw him un-showered and un-shaved. And we would cross paths occasionally because they did not have their own bathroom in that house, and this just dawned on me. One full bathroom. Can you imagine having a wife, 5 kids, 3 of whom are teenage daughters, and sharing a bathroom with them? 

We head out. I in the customary back right position in the standard very large cruising vessel that was probably a Crown Victoria. My dad tells me he we are going to meet a guy for breakfast on the way. Okay. We stop at a diner. I think we sit at the diner bar. His guy comes in and sits next to us. The relationship is a working one…either my dad is a client of his or vice versa. I had never met him. My dad wasn’t in the habit of taking me to work-related breakfasts with his associates quite yet. That came at eleven. The man hands me a square white cardboard box, smallish, about the size that could hold a baseball. I open it. It’s a baseball. It has a light-blue Chevy logo on it. I guess this guy had some sort of Chevrolet connection? I didn’t care. It was a brand new baseball! Boy am in the midst of a swell day! We eat, finish, shake hands, and head out. To Cooperstown!

the standard car of my early days

It’s a day. A beautiful one. Warm for sure, sunny. We do the Hall. Plaques, busts, trophies, balls, bats, gloves, photos, videos, all sorts of people. My dad liked baseball but in retrospect, this was all about me. He was not the type to meander through such a place with intent and focus. With little patience and a disdain for crowds, he must have wanted to speed this along.

This was forty years ago. Many of my recollections don’t come with absolute clarity. That said, I can’t remember when it was shared with me that we’d be attending a baseball game while in Cooperstown. It could have been in the days before the trip. It could have been in the car while in route. But a real life, professional baseball game was going to be played and patronized by me and big daddy.

The Hall of Fame Game in 1980 was played between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago White Sox. We all know who won the 1979 World Series don’t we? Willie Stargell. Dave Parker. The ugly hats that all of us probably owned. I did. Our seats were in left field…it may have been general admission. Either way, we were front row, right behind the fence. Within minutes a ball is hit right toward us. Oh shit…I’m going to get another ball today. Sailing Sailing Sailing. Chet Lemon running running running. Right toward us. Outreached arm. Full speed. Ball comin in hot. Going to be close. May be a dinger. May not be. Lemon fast! Chet is running RIGHT AT US, ball too. Arm outstretched. Ball grazes glove. Chet meets wall. Wall meets Chet. Ball hits wall and bounces back toward infield. Chet is DOWN. Chet is bleeding. Chet is attended by trainers with white towels. Towels become red, and quickly. Chet gets carted off with more red towels and the need for lots of stitches and probably some plastic surgery. Had I witnessed that a few years later, “Gnarly” would have been appropriate. But that word didn’t exist at that point, in my vocab anyway. I probably just said, “Wicked”. A recap of the game that summer day. No mention of the sliced Lemon though. 

During the game, they honor Warren Spahn. My dad tells me who he is, and the announcer backs it up with a purging of stats and honors accumulated by the man. Most victories by a left-hander (still holds up) with 363 wins. Thirteen 20-win seasons. He had a 23-win season at the age of 42. Today, the Warren Spahn award goes to the league's best southpaw each year. (Wiki can't hit me for plagiarism can it?) From left field he looks to be a mile away on the pitcher’s mound. He looks old though, that I know. Old and never having heard of him, I’m not moved. Can we get back to the game please?

Game ends. We head over to the hotel where, you guessed it, the players stay. Much easier to figure in Cooperstown than in Beantown. We sit in the lobby bar and my dad has another guy he’s meeting, but this one I know from back home. He too was at the game. They order a couple of beers, PBR’s I’m guessing. The area is busy with the game having been let out an hour or so ago, but somehow we get a table. My dad didn’t wait around for stuff like tables. Before the first half beer was downed, my dad’s pal whispers, “Danny, that’s Warren Spahn that just sat down.”  I look over and can only assume what he’s telling me is true. He does look like the guy that stood on the pitcher’s mound a couple of hours ago. He looks old too. He’s sitting with who must be his wife and some other gent. She too looks aged. This guy is no Bucky Dent.

My dad’s bud Frank says, “take that baseball over to him and ask him to sign it”. I was pretty damned shy and very reticent with this seemingly easy task. Bucky was different. He was walking towards us and another adult did the work for us. This was all on me. I hesitated, probably even shook my head no. Frank goaded me though. I get up and tepidly make my way. Spahn's back is facing me with his body open to the right, facing his wife who is looking straight at me as I approach. What the fuck is her problem? Why is she looking at me like this? She looks like one of my nuns at school. Does she know me? I block it out and make it to Spahn’s periphery. He opens up more and sees that I have a baseball in my hand. In the meekest of fashion, I say, “Mr. Spahn, could you sign my baseball?” It came out barely a whisper. What a pussy I am. It didn’t matter. He had done this before. Before getting through the request, he took the ball out of my hand, grabbed a pen from his suit coat pocket and did the deed. Mr. Warren asked if I made it to the game that day, and if I had fun. Yes sir I did! Did you see Chet bust his head open?! Wow, that was too easy. This autograph thing is wicked awesome. Who else is in this joint?

And so here we are…the denouement. Fast forward a year or more. Fall has approached. A weekday in the backyard with a few other young lads. The game of the day is baseball which is DUMB. Wiffle or stick ball w/a wiffle or tennis ball…sure. Frisbee…yeah why not. Kickball…absolutely. Pickle or “Hot Box” as we sometimes called it – no downside. But baseball, statistically, was going to end badly.

Click HERE. Wait for it. My apologies – I know there was an easier way to do this, but our interns were out this week.

In the top left of the image, the home with the nice sized yard and the two white cars in front of – that is where I spent the first twelve years of my life. And roughly 20 for my oldest sisters and parents. Now, look at the bottom left hand corner where you get a glimpse of a road, and to the right of the road, there is a small opening in the trees where you see a patch of darkness. That darkness is a creek.

A view from the front….the house on the left is my house. The garage you see behind it was roughly half the size of the one that sits there in this image. The creek is behind and well below house level, a thirty foot descent down a pretty steep, but navigable slope. If anything round rolls over the edge…

The pitches would come from right to left, and balls hit from left to right. The batter stood just on the road side of the garage but even with the garage wall. You following? A ball pulled hard left isn’t good. And considering everyone was right handed, what were the chances?

Must I continue?

We rarely played actual baseball in this yard. I don’t need to explain why. We must have had an itch on this downtrodden day. And it was. Heavy cloud cover, very cool, depressing really. Winter is coming. Mid-October had to be. We were probably knee deep in a World Series which is the only reason I can think of that had us playing baseball. It’s almost dinner time and we are two balls down. We have no balls left. The supply is tapped. Gonzo. Fuck, man.

“Don’t you have a ball in your room Dan?” asks someone.

“Oh yeah! I do…good thinkin!” says I.

I jet inside the backdoor and make my way to the stairs, up two at a clip and into the room where I grab the ball that sits atop my dresser and without motion to spare zip back down and I do this in roughly fifteen seconds.

“Do NOT hit this in the creek! This is the Warren Spahn ball.”

Yours truly was on the dirt that day. That and third base – my domains. Craig Nettles. My guy. At the plate – had to be Dave Hawthorne or Billy Shoeneck (sheh-nick). I guess it could have been Mark Edick though too. Yes, real name.

Ball. Ball. Swing and miss. Foul tip. Foul ball pulled left not terribly hard rolling rolling ball being run down by shitbird at third ball approaches edge ball now over edge ball could possibly get caught up on something on the way down since it’s not hit too terribly hard but who the hell am I kidding that ball is creek-bound we all make it to the edge and catch the ball descending and bouncing picking up speed bounce bounce closer and closer and closer and faster and faster and splash and current is real strong today and ball is out of sight in 5 seconds. This would would be the view from where the ball would be coming from, just a hundred or so yards from behind our house. 

Game Over. Well, that stinks! At first I wondered what Dad will do if he finds out. Will he be pissed? Do I tell him or just leave it be? I left it be, for years...the story would be told and re-told, usually among my crew and dad over beers, or in strange blogs. Turns out it would not have phased him. It was my ball. My stupidity.

Enter 40 years later. A friend asks for your address. A few days later.....the story gets a new, and better ending. I like it so much I replaced my head with it. 

Thanks again Whit. A Hall-of-Fame worthy random act of kindness. 

The End.