and it could happen again

There was talk of a house on a bluff overlooking a lake. Not such a big deal. Some said it was the oldest house in the village, built over 100 years ago with such and such material and that wasn’t such a big deal either. People talked as far back as I can remember about a room beneath the basement in that house and most of them swear on their mother’s pumpkin soup that they had been there. What eeried me out was that most of their stories sounded the same.

The room was apparently at the bottom of a well. Most people said they bumped into a slide or some sort of chute and fell there rather than deciding to “do it.“ The house was old, 19^th century old, and originally an Italian food and spice emporium with cannoli, pepperoni and all kinds of herbs stored in the basement. This would explain the chute since most boxes for deliveries were placed on a diagonal ladder or belt from the outside. The boxes would then slide down to a worker who arranged the stockroom.

But there was also a second chute that slid into this other room, beneath the basement. Down there, people swore there was a square wood cube about the size of a prison cell. It had a window too, they said, but it was on the other side and hard to reach because there wasn’t much space to walk around. They had to stiffen their back and straighten up like walking along the ledge of a building, but they did it.

At that point, they would sigh and say something like “good thing too because that was the only way out, up some steps, behind a door that didn’t look like a door from the other side. You had to be plush up against it to see it.“

Some said they peeked through that window before climbing up the steps to freedom. Others didn’t say a thing. But each and every one of them stopped the story right then and there. There were rumors about tombs, caskets, and mummies, but we were never sure and no one dared to find out, not yet anyway.

It was like NASA space exploration in reverse, into the ground, but generating the same kind of excitement and curiosity and wonder. Even the miserable and hateful took notice. It was like they were reborn or something. They typically whined like babies, disguising their whimp with a sophisticated, witty, and often times angry and deconstructing tongue. But with talk of the room reaching a sort of pennant fever, they hopped to the other side or so it sounded.

They were like smokers who no longer smoked, preaching against their yesterday beliefs. “It takes minutes to implode a building,“ they would say. “Anyone can lay down the dynamite and pull the lever, but to build, now that takes……….“

……1981………1981? Why not 1981 or any other jackknife incident in time, the end always right around the corner.

It was awful when the Baseball Strike really happened and on May 29, there were really no games. It was doomsday, a time to cry or criticize and deconstruct; a time to hate and be miserable and people did and were and still are and that`s ok, but something else happened too.

The Valley Times, outside of San Francisco got wind of  four high school students using strat-o-matic baseball to replace the real thing. The newspaper proceeded to devote an entire page, almost every day to the strato-games with writers Ross McKeon and Gary Peterson writing summaries, providing fictional quotes from real players, discussing potential trades, and so on. Darrel Evans even guest managed his San Francisco Giants. There were 571 games played and there would have been more, but the strike ended and that other season continued.

And in the east, Jon Miller and Ken Coleman brought strat-o-matic to life on the air, on WITS Boston, pitch-by-pitch accounts of strat-o simulation with fan cheers and sounds of the game slipped into each broadcast.

The idea spread to Cleveland as well and a strat-o-matic all-star simulation was really played, at that belly of the whale Municipal Stadium. A card table was set up at home plate. The scoreboard was turned on.  The Associated Press counted 58 diehards in attendance. And Sportsphone offered fans the opportunity to call up and hear 30 second updates about the game and many did………swim through the muck with a strat-o smile, that is.

 

the parking lot that changed baseball

Dice, jacks, flipping baseball cards, slinkies, silly putty, smart phones. Evolution? Maybe. Maybe not. Stage coaches bumping dirt roads, trains over tracks, automobiles on interstates. Evolution? Maybe. Maybe not

But parking lots, we love you. Frisbee, pickle, and sip beer. Barbecue brats tailgate, and listen to old 8 tracks, The Scorpions, Frank Sinatra, or Cold Play, whatever you want. The lot is big enough for lizards with wet t-shirts too. The sky is our umbrella and first pitch is soon or when the beer runs out or the 4th inning or whatever comes first. Who’s on second. Pass me another Schlitz.

You gotta have a parking lot. Street cars are too old and trains? Forget about em! Too early for spaceships and no one walks anymore unless it’s inside and at a mall and Walter O’Malley knew this way before anyone else or he watched Lou Perini exercise some good old-fashioned guts and Go west and warm the blood of baseball and become the first team to relocate and change baseball forever?

retrocom.com

Bushville Milwaukee changed baseball forever? Dear Casey Stengel! Ok, maybe it was more Perini than Milwaukee, but it takes two to tango and what great dance partners they turned out to be. And when Milwaukee with its new County Stadium and massive parking lot got those turnstiles spinning and runners scoring on the diamond and Spahn and Sain and pray for rain, well, you bet your Howling Hilda Chester that Mr Walter O’Malley took notice.

But I don’t have the impression that he really wanted to leave Brooklyn. O’Malley really tried to stay and according to a little snippet in the book Lords of the Realm, he even considered a dome long before anyone else even knew what the hell a dome was.

And even the vilified master builder Robert Moses proposed a stadium in Brooklyn, but in the end, it was the Braves in Milwaukee and Calvin Griffith of the Twinkies visiting Los Angeles and apparently discussing his team’s potential move from Minnesota to L.A. Gave O’Malley itchy feet I guess. He wanted in on LA and not no second fiddle so  so he packed up some Perini guts and road his coattails out west, way out west to Beverleeee and Stoneham followed with his  Giants and another Iron curtain bites the dust as snow melts and water races for a homeland; out to sea or something like that.

…..and the Athletics move to KC and then to Oakland and KC is awarded the Royals. The Braves flee to Atlanta and Milwaukee steals the Pilots from Seattle and Mariners are born 7 years later and am I repeating myself? and interstate commerce and speed up the reels and it’s all a blur and and and

now it’s 2014 and the Giants and Royals are in the World Series together for the first time and the series is tied 1-1 and they’re going back to San Francisco but without flowers in their hair thanks to Giant’s big hunk rookie right hander Hunter Strickland…..Hunter Strick Land. What a freaking name! and what a freaking temper and rightfully so.

He served up his 5th post season home run last night; five in 5.1 innings and according to everyone’s favorite, Joe Buck, that’s the most home runs allowed in a single post season since gulp…the Brewers’ Chris Narveson back in 2011. He performed his stunt by allowing 2 to the D-backs in the NLDS and 3 to those lovely Cardinals in the NLCS.

the giants are here

Maybe it started with a cemetery; a fascination with progress in the opposite direction. The cemetery was beside a shopping mall which was beside interstate 43; Chicago to Milwaukee. Our strato-matic baseball master lived in a little red brick house across the street.

Dad worked third shift at a plastics factory; woke up when we arrived from school; to roll strato-matic dice. Dad was a San Francisco Giant’s fan and that was strange and exotic. No one in Milwaukee was a Giant’s fan. He wasn’t from California or New York. He just happened to be a Giant’s fan.

There were names like Ed Halicki and Johnny Lemaster dropped, but that was about it. We talked more about Gorman Thomas. I didn’t really think about the Giants until I took a greyhound west many years later. Greyhound stations felt like home; all the comings and goings, hellos and goodbyes; a beautiful mess to me; much more attractive than manicured lawns and efficiency. Nothing’s really changed.

The critics said Candlestick Park was in Hunter’s Point neighborhood; a seedy and bad neighborhood; way out of the way; a monstrosity; a stupid place for baseball; windy, cold, and ugly. I felt the same attraction for Candlestick as I had for donut shops in the middle of nowhere at 3 am.

The muni bus ride began somewhere in downtown San Francisco. The ride had everything Milwaukee didn’t; rolling hills, a mountain called something, the pacific ocean, shipping cranes along the shore (s).

And then Candlestick came into view. A space ship on water and up close, just a spaceship, but a red granite or orange spaceship; sort of a cookie cutter acropolis with prison bars look, but inside that mountain called something could be seen from the third base side. It peered into the stadium; onto the diamond where players played and fans did nothing. I wonder if a puma or pit bull perched upon a peak ever looked down at a game?

It was all true. Hot dog wrappers did roam across the field like tumble weed; pinned against the outfield fence; a beautiful dead end. And the players did wear long sleeves under uniforms and there weren’t many fans and the Giants did suck. The air was crisp.

The no mans land between the left field home run fence and bleachers was gone; filled in with more seats I guess, but it was easy to imagine fans scurrying for souvenirs. 

Candlestick is long gone.I liked that place.

The Brewers started a series against the Giants Tuesday night at Miller Park in Milwaukee. Tim Lincecum on the mound, still touching the ground on his follow through or almost. His father placed dollar bills on the mound to bribe his son to follow through and so he did.

Lincecum threw a slider in the third inning, but it was more of a cement mixer; a blob that did nothing and Carlos Gomez hit a two run homer and who was on base? Pitcher Jimmy Nelson. He had just extended the inning with a two out base hit. Gomez drove in another run a few innings later; dropped a bunt down with Rickie Weeks on third.

Pablo Sandoval tied the game in the 6th inning with a three run homer, but in the seventh, newbee Gerardo Parra pulled a ball into the night; a go ahead blast down the right field line.

But there was still the 8th inning and that frame has been a busted clatter bridge lately; a real obstacle to reach K-Rod and close games. Will Smith walked a batter and was yanked for Jeremy Jeffress who also walked a batter, but then Gerardo Parra stretched out in foul territory to make an amazing catch. Jeffress then struck out Buster Posey on a curve ball. Made the Giant poster boy look silly, end of the inning.

Jeffress kicked the chalk line to celebrate. He is apparently the Brewer’s new set up man; from nowhere to somewhere just like that and so it goes.

The Brewers are 62-51.

 

spirits at the rail, on the mound, the computer screen, everywhere

I didn’t brush my teeth for days at a time. Musta been an Ernie phase. And other years, I brushed two times a day with a well researched travel apparatus; a Bert phase I guess. Every trip I took to San Francisco included bumping into Franklin Beauterre.

Three times parking my toothbrush in a sink holster was a pattern symbolizing “oh, i feel comfortable” so bumping into Beauterre a fifth time was off the charts testimony and proof of what? I never knew for sure.

We went to high school together. He was a year older and like his last name-Beau Terre, he was a beautiful land; auburn red hair-color of mahogany and perfect in the wind; down a motorcycle mountain perfect. He had a musical and theatrical way about him. He once created a t-shirt saying “I wanna have sex with Denise Goodsell.”  Beauterre was suspended.

Haight Ashbury was my first destination and it lasted close to two years. Beauterre was there as I walked under the 7th street overpass and the line ups of vagabonds selling simple worldly items; combs, extension cords, postcards; things they had found, but still rolled out carefully onto colorful carpets.

The memories come in snippets; from knowing what a San Francisco cold night-time wind can be; living on the dole and dancing sincerely for the sun to human ripples and kindness and  sort of suddenly being on a small boat in south San Francisco; a shelter.

There was no second thought about it. Beauterre came with me. A gold rush had hit me or more like aluminum, but it was something; a change and proof of this mythology; this Haight Ashbury and San Francisco spirit gold rush mythology we were living.

There was a bar about two blocks from where the boat was docked. There were no big money displays in there; no conversations about Nietzsche, no deconstructions and revolution. It was utilitarian; a hard day’s work and wind down with booze and let madness rule the night.

Beauterre had a way of disrupting a scene without doing a damn thing. It was his animal looks; the deep penetrating blue eyes and willingness to be free in his body; like a puma.

It didn’t take long for a man to become agitated by the swiveled neck reactions of ladies at the rail. They made no secret about sex; about wanting it. There was no courting needed. This was a jungle shoe box size bar. The collision of humanimals was always a realistic possibility and that always scared me into my mind and notebook when no one was looking, but I always returned.

Beauterre felt the chemicals and danced even more. He knew his impact and so up went that man’s arms and up went that bar stool with a woman and cat calls; up higher to  the x-shaped ceiling fan spinning and that man exhaling a weight lifter’s grunt. It was a territorial and testosterone matter. It never stopped Beauterre.

I never intended to play diplomacy, but the energy was in my mind and not my body. I asked the man at the rail about fishing bate…where we could buy some. It wasn’t a ruse. Beauterre and I had talked about fishing and something far less bloody than fishing may have been avoided.

One ace had walked through the flapping saloon doors and another ace had risen up to the occasion. I met many aces through the years and only now do they come to life; in memory when I can see them in the context of that time. Beauterre was like Jeff Locke.  I witnessed the Pittsburgh Pirate southpaw years later and he altered my view with his pitches bending like the sound of a google stick.

I faced one pitcher like Locke. It was Mike Visocky of West Allis Central. He wore a beard and it was no secret he had flunked a few grades. He pitched against my older brothers with much fewer facial hairs. I stood there from the left side and let a few pitches go by; frozen by the oncoming headlights.

I managed to hit a ground ball in the hole between third and short for an infield single, but I knew baseball was more than pitch-back and batting practice. It was real and the pitcher and I were bullfighter and bull.

We walked Sunday towards the Cathedral on Notre Dame. I like taking in the mass, the big ceilings, frankincense, funky dressed priest and the organ player up above. It’s 1970’s prog rock to me. The mass was finished when we arrived so I grabbed a compass and suggested the old port.

The trumpet player in the plaza outlasted the somber cathedral bells. It was a durable and determined sound that brass, but as we rounded a corner; it faded like anything else; replaced by an instrument I had never seen; a wind up violin that looked like an accordion but sounded like bag pipes. And around the next corner fountains and mini waterfalls and  splashing took over with horse hoofs from chariots in the distance.

Jeff Locke was set to face Yovani Gallardo in Pittsburgh.  They both wear number 49. I was with my friend and her mom and we were walking slow; too slow. Grandma is 80 years old. She uses a walking stick I gave her from a batch of bamboo I scored from Craigslist free ads; sanded and varnished them a few years ago and made me a Brewers shrine; having no idea one would be the guide stick for my friend’s mother.

I missed Locke and Gallardo. We arrived home in the ninth inning; the game already three layers of relievers deep. The Brewers were leading 1-0. K-Rod trying to close the Pirate,s door. I think this is when the memories of Beauterre flashed followed by Teddy Higuera, Ben Sheets, and Gallardo and the trail of drafted and developed Brewer aces and however many Pirate equivalents through the years.

It got sticky for K-Rod. Runners on  first and second and one out. I didn’t bother logging into mlb.tv. I watched the game day abacus and enjoyed the suspense of numbers flashing ball and strike counts and results from pitcher batter confrontation; no images, no sounds…just beads and my imagination.

Travis Snider hit into a fielders choice and Josh Harrison lined out to Gomez. Final score; Brewers 1, Pirates 0. Jonathan Lucroy had three more hits to spike his average up to .335. Final score; Brewers 1, Pirates 0.

I had some reading to do; to see if Gallardo got lucky; escaped jams to preserve his 6 shutout innings. I like Gallardo. He’s messy.

The Brewers are 38-26.

a bullpen, dugout or tv sofa nest to me

broken bats

There’s a  weed outside my bathroom window and it looks like a plant. My neighbor says it’s poisonous. I don’t know about that, but I’m not about to grab a leaf and chew to find out.There’s nothing there all winter and then in late April, it starts happening again and now I see the weed every time I take a shower.

By August the stem is more like a mini trunk and wild green fills the space.The same cycle has been happening since I moved here 5 years ago. That’s a big enough sample size proof to draw some conclusions.

I don’t have any yet, but it’s there again growing this year just like it did last year and the year before and before and before and maybe that’s the proof. It looks different every year.

I watched the documentary “Gimme Shelter “again yesterday. It’s been a while and I wanted to see Jerry Garcia’s face after hearing of the horror going on at the Altamont Speedway and deciding in the simplest, softest way that it’s not cool and turning around and heading back to San Francisco.

But it was Keith Richards who I noticed; kicking back in the studio with Rolling Stone’s band members that caught my attention; his eyes closed, snake skin boots tapping to Wild Horses. It was written by Jagger and Richards and drummer Charlie Watts with his straight cynical looking jaw seemed pleased as well.

And it was Jagger who I noticed this time and the way the video seems to subtly pin him as the MC of the Hell’s Angels teeing off on people’s heads. I forgot about the green suit worn by Meredith Hunter and the long-barreled black revolver he supposedly waved in the air getting him stabbed and trampled to death by Hell’s Angels.

Meredith Hunter, wikipedia

People were wasted in a way I had never seen before. The LSD must have been tainted or too powerful. The Hell’s Angels were hired to sit on the edge of the stage and keep people off. They were paid in beer. It was a recipe for disaster.

A wonderful obsession of conspiracy swirls from the events at Altamont. It was a free concert. That makes it all even stranger. Rock promoters had no incentive to overlook security concerns. It’s all very disturbing; no scene not tainted with light and dark. Jagger poked his head out of the trailer before the show…

“The concert’s an excuse I think for everyone to have a good time; the proscenium of a theater to get together, talk to each other, sleep with each other, hold each other, get really stoned and have a  nice night out and a good day. It’s not just seeing the grateful airplane and rolling dead.” 

The media laughed.

Jagger slips into raptures during the concert; does some wacky strut and contortions of his body. A Jaggerian seizure. He was somewhere else during “sympathy for the devil.”

I thought about Meredith Hunter’s high and losing control at Altamont and getting stabbed and killed, about his previous run ins with Hell’s Angles and people swearing he had murder in his amphetamine eyes. Allan Passaro-The Angel’s member charged with killing Merdeith out of apparent “self defense” drowned in 1985 under “mysterious circumstances.”

But there were four babies born at the concert.The video ends at the beginning. Fans hoofing up and over hills; picnic basket, blankets and smiles in pursuit of the concert and a home. Gimme Shelter plays as the credits roll.

Meanwhile back in today, the pollen was raining from bushes and covering the earth and smelling good. I stopped on the sidewalk as Orthodox Jewish families passed me with children in tow. I forgot it was Yizkor-day of remembering departed loved ones. Remembering Meredith Hunter and Allan Passaro and Grace Slick saying to the Altamont crowd;”both sides are fucking up. Let’s stop fucking up!”

I looked up at the wall of an apartment complex. Two circular cables swirling around like lasso eyes with cords stretching in both directions; one towards the trees and across the street and the one buzz world and the other swallowed by a silver box mother board.

broken bats

There was no baseball game December 6, 1969-Altamont day. It was winter, but there was a trade the following day. The Milwaukee Brewers sent Ray Oyler and Diego Segui to Oakland for Ted Kubiak and George Lauzerique. The trade is listed as the Milwaukee Brewers, but they were still the Seattle Pilots at the time.

Altamont was disturbing. I can only ride this ship so long. The life of a rock and roll tour is beyond belief. Gimme baseball shelter.I crawled back into my mlb.tv cubbyhole.

The Brewers in Minnesota at Target Field for game 4 of a home and away series with the Twins. My new hero Oswaldo Arcia launched a grand slam- his second homer in as many days and the Twins celebrated like it was game 7 of the world series, but it was only the third inning.

Carlos Gomez launched a 3-run blast to dead center a half inning later. Khris Davis added a 2-run opposite field home run in the 6th. Lucroy launched another 2 run big fly in the ninth. Final score, Brewers 8, Twins 5.

The Brewers are 36-25.

 

 

“hard travelin”

golden gate park; sfgate.com

People walk barefoot hundreds of miles to Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain. I think that qualifies as a pilgrimage.  The closest equivalent in my own life is riding a greyhound bus 36 hours to reach Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. I wanted to visit the informal grave of the hippy culture in Golden Gate Park.

I wasn’t disappointed  I met a Vietnam vet at the McDonalds across the street from the park’s entrance and he took me there, showed me the spot. We hung out a long while. I listened, but never felt connected in some visceral way to the area’s history. It was the same for me at Fenway park in Boston, Wrigley Field Chicago and dozens of other places with a reputation for having “tradition.” I’m either too lost in my own thoughts or the whole notion of feeling the history of a place is just some marketing thing people say.

Chicago recently celebrated 100 years of Wrigley Field. WGN TV aired a documentary Saturday afternoon that included audio clips of players I had never heard of from before TV. One name-Paul Waner I recognized. He wasn’t even on the Cubs. He was a Pirate and I don’t remember why he was mentioned, but it doesn’t matter; only his voice does.

I recognized it immediately as sounding like Woody Guthrie’s voice. I waited till now-Tuesday night to check if Paul Waner and Woody Guthrie were born close to each other and sure enough, both were from Oklahoma.

I have two cassettes of Guthrie; yeh cassettes.  One is a mix from a friend and the other a live interview with Guthrie strumming songs and telling stories. I’ve only listened to it a few dozen times and the last time was more than 5 years ago, but the sound and accent of Guthrie spinning yarns about dust bowls stays in my head. Goes something like Well, ya know a lot of them folk in that room were apocalypse people, so when that dust came a rolling in, they was certain their time had come.

I pulled out the Guthrie tape yesterday and yep, that sound and voice connected me to history. Got me dreaming up things Paul Waner mighta said. Goes something like, well, ya know,that wind whipped up something mighty and that ball I hit musta got tangled up in her.

Guthrie Oki house; wikipedia

It’s probably the colorful expressions Guthrie uses and the accent I’m not too familiar with and the way he pauses in mid sentence and then lifts his voice in some merry crescendo. The strangeness or simplicity or beauty of it all takes me back to dust bowls and living day to day, riding the rails and what not.

There was no Paul Waner or Woody Guthrie and no dust bowls in St. Louis Tuesday night; just game 2 of the Brewers Cardinals series. And there was no Braun, no Segura, no Ramiriez, and no Lucroy in the Brewer’s lineup. The season is long and injuries happen. Players need to rest. It’s a “tough road to hoe” over the 162 game grind.

I played Guthrie in the background as I watched the game. My audio talisman had a two-fold design; soothe me and symbolically connect hard traveling hobos to the banged up Brewers; with no running water producers and next to no electricity in the lineup, but carrying on just the same. No time for cute names like the “dust bowl blues.” There was a game to be played.

Kyle Lohse was facing his old battery mate Yadier Molina in the first inning when boom, Molina hit a three run home run. Cardinals lead 3-0. The Brewers tied the game in the fourth inning when Lohse drove in two runs with two strikes on him. He punched a single over the shortstops’s head and helped his own cause.

The Brewers eventually won the game 5-4 in 11 innings. For the second consecutive night, the game was decided in extra innings and for the second consecutive night, Khris Davis got the key hit. And for the second consecutive night K-Rod recorded the save. And for the second consecutive night, the Brewers beat the Cardinals. And for the second consecutive night, I go to bed after midnight.

The Brewers are 20-7 and 11-1 on the hard traveling road. And I’m not sure what day it is.

 

a bat, a ball and San Quentin

If Alcatraz was the Bermuda Triangle of prisons, with its fab five “missing” or “presumed drowned” escapees, than San Quentin is a Red Light District with entertainment venues that include Johnny Cash, B.B. King, Metallica, and baseball, baseball, and more baseball for 90 years.

San Quentin is California’s oldest prison and the only one with a death row; first by gas chamber and then beginning in 1996; lethal injection. It’s like any other prison with long echoing hallways, a yard to strut one’s stuff, prison guards, a watch tower, warden, barbed wire fence,and a feeling of no way out. But there’s one big difference. There’s baseball.

1-1

Games have been played there since the 1920’s and it’s currently America’s only prison offering the organized ritual to free one’s mind. There’s uniforms, statistics, and won loss records.

In the 1950’s pro scouts brought prospects into the prison to take some swings against former major league pitcher Blackie Schwamb; incarcerated for killing a doctor in 1948. I don’t know why since the San Francisco Seals of the PCL League played their home games a few nautical miles south in San Francisco’s Mission district. But all for the better because the baseball  jubilee at San Quentin continued.

In the 1990’s, the prison started hosting men’s-league teams from the Bay Area. At first the home team prisoners were called the Pirates with a skull and crossbones flag flying in the yard. In 2000, the team changed its name to the Giants when the San Francisco Giants donated game jerseys and grass for a new field.

San Quentin’s right and center field is surrounded by a high concrete wall with razor wire and a tower housing guards. The infield has no grass. You can see a palm tree from home plate. It’s off in the distance to the left of Marin County’s Mount Tamal Pais

I recently stumbled on a baseball documentary about San Quentin-“Bad Boys of Summer” and started wondering about Franklin Page again. It always seemed more than a coincidence that Frank committed his big crime in September of 1994; the same year major league baseball cancelled its season and the World Series. That was the same year San Quentin opened its doors to outside competitors who came to be known as “The Willing.”

Frank and I worked together at Fox Point Landscaping in Milwaukee; cutting lawns for two summers. On Saturdays, we finished early and played baseball at Henry Aaron Field in Lincoln Park. There were 7 of us and no one figured out Frank at the plate. He hit the ball harder than anyone I’ve ever seen.

And he knew exactly what crime to commit and when to do it; unarmed robbery in mid September. It guaranteed him winter in the clink with a sentence not written until after the last out of the World Series. He knew what he was getting; three meals a day, a roof over his head and 7 months to sleep away the baseball strike.

Frank saved a little money from those summer landscaping gigs and unemployment checks collected while in prison. He took off for California in the spring of 1995. Last we heard he was picking garlic in Gilroy. Probably has no need for prison anymore with California being warm year round. Probably sleeps outside, but then again, San Quentin plays baseball and Franks probably knows this.

I wish Negro League Legend Buck O’Neil were still alive to hear Frank make that unmistakable sound when his bat hit ball.

doing The Stick

Babies are so cute and brand new, and life is great, but when a baby screams, it sounds like an intuitive forecast of arteries, kidneys, and what not succumbing to mother nature’s tragic course; from the crib to the casket we all must go. Grinch aside, we do have our moments.

A new baseball stadium endures a similar spark and fizzle. Senior citizens revive. Children have new heroes. Young adults enjoy a potent distraction. And everyone ignores death or in stadium speak; implosion. But after the ribbon cutting ceremony or circumcision splice, the death ticker drops one sand grain after another. There’s no stopping the pendulum.

And so now it’s Candlestick Park’s turn. Home to the San Francisco baseball Giants since April 12, 1960 and football 49ers since the 1971 season, it will soon suffer a violent death. I enjoy the raw power of dynamite buckling a stadium under its own weight, vanishing into nuclear bomb cumulumba whatever clouds. It’s perverse and gets my fists clenching. I scream oh yeh, but when the rush fades, there’s a loud and painful silence.

Candlestick is a strange bird because most fans are thinking “good riddance” right about now. The Stick was cold, windy, and completely out of the way. Did I mention foggy? The complaints are all legit, but not everyone likes air tight, streamlined, symmetrical stadiums with perfectly manicured grass seldom exposing any weaknesses. Yuk.

Candlestick Park was situated in Hunter’s Point, South San Francisco-a not so great neighborhood to take a Sunday stroll. I remember wandering the upper and lower levels to make sure its seats were really that orange. The Giants played their last game there in 1999 and yeh the new AT &T Park had to be built and yeh it’s perfectly situated south of Market Street-downtown and yeh right field empties into the Bay, and yeh and yeh, but Candlestick Park was some kind of something.

I liked sitting on the first base side. You could see Bay View Hill jetting above the stadium’s rim. The Stick was the first stadium to use re-enforced concrete and yeh, Richie Hebner said he never knew where he was playing in the 1970’s because Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis all looked the same.

Those concrete monsters were often called concrete donuts or cookie cutters for the same reason America’s suburbia was designed from a Sear’s Roebucks’ catalog; swift mass production. But those stadiums also looked like spaceships and Candlestick  lived up to its exotic outward appearance.

You knew exactly where you were when inside. You were outside, in the elements. There was no air conditioning/heat. The wind swirled in wicked San Francisco gusts. A few nights under that city’s great sky and you felt very sincere performing a sun dance way before dawn.

Hot dog wrappers tumble weeded across the infield and kept tumbling all the way to the outfield wall where they sat in clusters like a pile of dead leaves. It was glorious.

There was no BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) stop for Candlestick. You had to take a bus through those Bayview Hills and ask how blue is the San Francisco Bay? That water stretching to the cranes lining the Oakland shore and then south to who knows where? I could never say it felt like Greece. I’ve never been there, but poets said it anyway. I didn’t doubt them.

My friend and I used to make our own tailgate parties in the parking lot sipping screwy delights (Smirnoff plus sunny delight ). We braved a few closed doors around the stadium’s exterior. They were always locked, except that one memorable day.

There we were inside the concession zone. Peanuts and popcorn, beer and hot dogs. The vendors loading up their wares. We could not be like Romans in Rome. We lacked a food service hat and uniform., yet no one said a damn thing, so we followed a vendor through a different door and there we were inside the stadium.

The Giants game was about to begin and we had just moseyed into The Stick. I never felt more like James Brown’s in all my life or maybe it was the Mamas and Papas.