Obviously football is my favorite sport. Somehow, though, football doesn't lend itself to writing and stories. Today is baseball's Opening Day across America. These two books are two of my absolute favorite books. They are about baseball but it's not why I love them. I love them because they are good stories.
Here are a few stories that I've written over the years about my dad and baseball. Each individual story isn't that long but there are several of them. You should read them. If you're lucky as I was, these baseball stories will remind you of your childhood and maybe your own dad.
(Photos are from the Royals World Series Parade which was one of the best days.)
My dad’s father died from cancer one month before I was born and this is all my dad has told me about my grandfather: He had really good penmanship.
Once, he did mention that his dad had named him after Lloyd “Little Poison” Waner who was a so-so outfielder. He added that he and his dad listened to the St. Louis Browns on the radio in their front room.
So, that’s what I know about my grandfather. He wrote with a nice hand. And he apparently liked baseball.
During the Korean War, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was Dad’s home port and he used every shore leave for bars and baseball. During those years, he watched the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Giants, and the New York Yankees. He says that it was almost worth being in the Navy since it meant that he got to see Jackie Robinson, Mickie Mantle, and Willie Mays play.
After the Navy, Dad followed two teams. The Kansas City A’s and what I thought he called the Baltimore Oreos. (What can I say---I liked cookies.) I could never understand why he followed a team as far away as the Oreos until I realized that the Oreos had previously been the St. Louis Browns, the team that he and his dad had listened to on the radio when he was a kid.
During the Ruskin Heights tornado, Dad and Mom were driving in an open area with no shelter. When my mom saw the tornado, she, being smart, got out of the car and ran for the ditch. My dad, being a baseball fan, stayed in the car because it was the Baltimore Orioles and it was the 9th inning and that was important. He made it to the ditch before the tornado passed directly over them. It touched down just after that and leveled the city.
I would bet Dad could tell me the score of the game because, God knows, it was baseball.
My dad would have been exactly the same age as Don Draper during the time of Mad Men and here’s the thing:
At 4:55 we’d be playing in the street with eight or ten kids. At 5:15 Mark and I would be alone because the other kids had been called inside. Fathers with their felted hats and faux leather briefcases were pulling into driveways. Tables were set with dishes bought one piece at a time from Safeway. Mothers were pulling pot roasts and meatloaves out of the oven. Kids were washing their hands and combing their hair. Dinner was served. Meals were being eaten at all the homes except for mine because my mother worked and wasn’t yet home. Dinner wasn’t served until much later at my house and it was a much simpler affair since my mom hadn’t been home to cook.
Because we ate at the unheard-of-hour of 6 or even 6:15, our meals were always interrupted by kids who had already eaten ringing our doorbell to ask, not if my brother and I could come out and play, but if my dad, Mr. Moore, could come out and play. Hardly a night went by that, tired as he might have been, Mr. Moore didn’t go out and pitch to all the kids whose dads should have been out there but weren’t.
In the beginning, it was just my brother, all the neighbor boys, and me. The other girls would sit quietly making daisy chains or dressing their Barbies in cheerleader outfits. Over time, the girls would ask if maybe they could try to swing the bat or catch a ball. My dad would say sure you can play just run home and get your glove. The girls would look at him like he’d said just run home and get your elephant. He’d tell the girls and boys to get gloves and, within a day or two, the kids would gather with never-used gloves in our backyard waiting for Mr. Moore to finish dinner.
Dad taught us all how to field and choke up on the bat and steal home. He insisted that my brother and I be able to bat right and left-handed because being able to bat right and left-handed made us more well-rounded ball players. Everyone knew that. He made sure I had a real glove and not a pink princess glove with rhinestones or sparkles.
He showed all of us how to oil our gloves and put a baseball in the middle and tie it with twine to form a good pocket. He told us to hit the glove with our fists so that the leather made that cool popping sound as we waited at-the-ready in the outfield.
Sometimes other dads came over to play---either because they wanted to play or, more likely, had been sent by their wives. They’d come over in their dress slacks and black wingtips. They’d tell their daughters that maybe they should go sit by the fence because they were going to get hurt or, sometimes, because they threw like a girl.
One dad told my father that maybe I shouldn’t be encouraged to play with a hardball. That maybe a softball was more my speed. (We had a softball. One. We called it Mom’s Softball and I have no idea why. It’s not like Mom played softball. It’s not like she had ever played softball. That’s just what it was. Mom’s Softball. I hated softballs. They were too big. Too slow. Too lumbering.)
I could tell Dad thought perhaps the other dad should go back home and read his paper. “Russ Ann,” he said. “Do you want to bat right or left-handed?” I said I thought left would be good and Dad agreed. He said, “Grab a bat and choke up.” I spit on my hands, rubbed them in the grass, choked up on the bat, and I smashed that ball. Hit it over the fence two backyards away. I stomped on home plate. The crowd went wild.
This was in the days before high fives and fist bumps. We didn’t yet know how to really celebrate so my dad just rumpled my hair and winked at me. Didn’t smile. Walked back to the pitcher’s mound. Asked who was up next. The guy never mentioned girls and baseball, hardball baseball, again. That was a good thing but here’s the real thing:
My dad, in the early 1960s, was forced to take a job that involved traveling and a hat. He loathed wearing the hat almost as much as he hated being gone.
We picked my dad up at the airport late on a Friday night and my very young brother put his arms around my dad’s neck and said, “Hey, Dad, I almost forgot about you.”
My dad found a new job that didn’t involve traveling.
Don Draper and my dad. Really no comparison.
Dad didn’t get real involved in our discipline but he did ground me one time. He claimed that I left my baseball glove outside overnight and a dog or a person stole it. The glove was perfect. Had a good pocket that he’d helped me oil. I’m still angry about his grounding because I’m pretty damn sure that it was my dad who left that glove out there overnight for some person or dog to steal.
Dad coached Mark’s teams from the time Mark was tiny until he played on school-coached teams. Their first team was a pitiful collection of six and seven year olds who showed up giddy with excitement and no discernible skills. My dad had just two rules for the kids and the parents.
Rule One: Parents were to keep their mouths shut. No yelling at the kids, the umps, or the coaches.
Rule Two: Always throw the ball home. Tired of watching a ball go from third base to an overthrown first base to an overshot second base, his strategy was simple. Let them think they hit a home run. We’ll get them out at the plate.
Twin boys played for my dad. They were named M--- and P---. They had a great deal of enthusiasm. My dad would say, “P---, you take left field. M---, you take right field.” The boys would say, “Yes, Mr. Moore” and turn for the outfield. They would make it as far as the pitcher’s mound, trip, fall, sometimes cry, and head back to my dad.
“Mr. Moore. Where’s left and right field?” they’d ask. My dad would squat down, put his arms around each boy’s shoulders, take their hands, and say Left. Right. Left. Right. The next game, Dad would send them to left and right field. They’d trip, run back and ask, “Mr. Moore. Where’s left and right field?”
Once, my dad told a boy that he was going to be catcher. The kid couldn’t have been more excited because he’d always wanted to wear an athletic cup. “Do you know how to put it on?” my dad asked him. “Oh sure,” the boy said. “I’ll be right back.” He came out of the dugout with the cup on the outside of his uniform. My dad ran over, scooped him up and held him to his chest before any of us could see him, took him into the tiny plywood hut of a bathroom, and got him squared away. He never broke into a smile but, on the way home, he really could not stop laughing.
That first team my dad coached was named The Robins. All the teams were named after birds and my dad couldn’t believe his rotten luck. The Robins? He told the boys they were the Fightin’ Robins in order to, you know, toughen up their image.
The highlight of any game actually occurred after the game. The boys never really had a clue or a care about whether they’d won or lost. They just wanted to go to Clark’s A&W after the game for drinks. They’d jump up and down at home plate and say, “Mr. Moore, are we going for drinks?” Dad would look at the ground and say, “Well, I’m not sure I have any money tonight” and he’d pull out his pockets to show that he was all tapped out. The boys would be devastated and then Dad would pull a few bills out of his socks. Mr. Moore had saved the day.
As the boys got older, Dad’s teams always had those two or three boys who showed up alone. Their moms dropped them off and left. There were no dads in the picture. Dad was hard on those boys. He knew they were in for a long haul.
Those boys, starved for attention, liked my dad. They’d trail along behind him picking up loose balls. They’d grab the heavy duffel bag full of bats and balls and gloves and half-carry half-drag it to our car. They’d ask if Mr. Moore might want to shag a few. Mr. Moore, tired as he was, would go back out and work with those fatherless boys.
They always needed rides home. We’d pull into their driveways and see a darkened house. Dad would ask if anyone were home. The boys would say, “It’s OK. Someone will be home soon.” Dad would say, “You know, I’m really hungry for a burger. I don’t suppose you would want one?” and he’d turn around and drive to Custer’s Last Stand, the only hamburger place in town, because he didn’t want to watch those boys walk into a darkened home. He’d tell the moms that they needed to pick their sons up after games and practices; they never did.
One of those boys was named S----. He was a beautiful boy. Muscular. Blue-eyed. Golden hair. A funny kid with a good attitude. A good ball player. He never really had a chance and he, not unexpectedly, became an alcoholic. Years and years later, I ran into him. He said, “I know you. You’re Something Something Moore.” “Russ Ann Moore,” I said. “How’s Mr. Moore?” he asked. “If you could, would you tell him how much he meant to me?”
S---- died soon after that. He was just 27.
Municipal Stadium in Kansas City was a bit of a pit. By today’s standards, it wasn’t even as nice as a decent high school stadium, but it was Kansas City’s and we loved it. The Kansas City Athletics, who would later become the Oakland A’s, played there. My mom, who hated baseball with a passion, would take a book to the game and read and smoke while those around her were yelling or cheering.
There was a mule. He was named Charlie O after the A’s owner. He wore silks just like a race horse in colors of green and gold. He was just there. On the concourse where you walked to get drinks and hot dogs and popcorn. My brother and I would stop and pet him. Charlie O didn’t care to acknowledge us. He just kept eating.
There were goats. Rather than mow or, you know, maintain the grounds above the outfield, the A’s just put goats out there. Sometimes a home run would be hit into their area and you’d see these goats glance at the ball and go back to eating grass.
There was a rabbit. He was mechanical. He was hidden underground in a space right near home plate. When a home run was hit, the rabbit would pop up to deliver a new ball to the umpire. Reggie Jackson, Mr. October himself, said that one of his fondest memories of playing in KC was that silly rabbit.
There was a catfish. Or at least a Catfish Hunter. He was our pitcher. I thought he had maybe the coolest name ever. It was a huge letdown to find out his actual name was Jim. Jim Hunter. What a disappointment.
The stadium was torn down. I think there might be a community garden there now. Maybe a commemorative sign.
In the late evenings, just at twilight, my dad would take the sports page and his hardly-portable transistor radio out to the backyard where he’d stretch out in one of those plastic webbed lounging lawn chairs, prop the radio between his ear and shoulder, and listen to the ball game. I’d be inside and could hear the faint sounds of the announcer’s voice and the crack of the bat. I’d feel safe because my dad was close. Baseball and my dad gave me the sense that all was right with the world.
George Brett was Kansas City. In the late summer of 1980, I was privileged to be at the game when he went over .400 and I’ll never forget him standing on second base tipping his hat to the crowd. It was a crazy summer when everyone in the sports world and beyond was following George in his magical quest. That he didn’t quite make it didn’t diminish the magic in any way for those of us in KC who were lucky enough to be along for the ride.
George had the most famous hemorrhoids in history as he publicly suffered with them through the World Series; he killed the ball in Yankee Stadium; he was the target (twice) of Morganna The Kissing Bandit; he was the player in the "pine tar incident" when he charged the umpire. Bumper stickers saying “George Brett for President” were printed in (Royal) blue and white. One of them was attached to the bumper of my ’69 Camaro.
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