UNCLE MERL'S BAR & GRILL
GAME SIX:
A Good Call
By
Peter "Lou" D'Alessio
Copyright 2010
One way or another, this would be the last time human eyes would be set upon the great field in Brooklyn. Never again would the faithful meet to pray over beer, dogs and caught foul balls. Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Trolley-Dodgers, was state-of-the-arts in its day, but now was small, dilapidated, and in a rapidly growing ‘bad’ neighborhood. The Dodgers would move to LA, and yes, they would have some astounding teams and players, but they were Dodgers in name only. Any Brooklynite would tell you it was a name stolen. It was a poor way for baseball to repay Brooklyn for seven decades or so of bad, bad ball playing. Like an ugly old dog, the family of Brooklyn loved it. They could call them “bums”, but not you! “Wait till next year!” became the mantra of the long-suffering Brooklynite. Then one day, the hand of God reached out and handed Jackie Robinson to Branch Rickey, and the Dodgers served notice to the baseball world that things were about to change, like it or not, for everybody. With players like Peewee Reese, Roy Campanella, and Gil Hodges, ‘next year’ finally arrived in Brooklyn. And then, like a bullet to the head, it was over. Of all the cruel things the universe can do to a city, this was the worst. “Next year” went away forever.
It did not surprise me when Campy and I turned out of the bar and found ourselves rumbling along in a train car headed for Ebbets. We sat quietly chatting, Campy citing Dodger history. A thought rose in my mind that needed clarification.
“Hey, Campy, remember when you were telling me about breathing fire? You said you were upset by the call going against Yogi and for Jackie in that World Series game and almost starting spitting fire at the Umpire! I thought you were the ultimate Dodger fan.”
The dragon kept looking out the window, but I could see his reflection in the glass looking back at me. “Well, it’s like dis,” he slowly began, “from where I was sittin’, Yogi had ’im! But if ya look at da photo, shot from the opposite direction, it backs up da Ump’s call. Later on, da Ump said Yogi didn’ have his mitt down! Didn’ have the mitt down? Gees, Yogi was an All-Star catcher, what, how many times? Dat’s a rookie mistake, an’ Berra wasn’t prone to dos kind a’ mistakes. From where I was sittin’, d’ump missed the friggin’ call by two feet! What good is winnin’ if you’re gonna win on a bad call? Believe me, neither Jackie nor Yogi needed help to win!” He turned his head at me, and with a silly grin said, “wada ya want, I’m a purist!” We rode another stop or two and Campy added a footnote. “Kid, folk’ll argue that call for a hun’red years. He was safe! He was out! WHO CARES! Da uni’voice can mutate, GOD… can change her mind, but when the Umpire sez ‘yer out!’ it’s a done deal! Argue till yer nuts fall off, you ain’t gonna change a ding!”
The autos I could see took me back to my early childhood. Time wise it seemed to be the early ‘50s. The car was abuzz with people bound for Ebbets Field and there was a din rising with talk of baseball. I wondered if there was anyone else on this train besides me that knew the truth; this game was going to be an equalizer, a balance of a teeter-totter. It was a good thing, too. The roster was getting hard to fill—we were running out of players who were both great and dead! There had been some debate, but a push came to select Gil Hodges as Manager. There was a question as to whether the Brooklyn Dodger players would have a problem talking orders from a teammate in a uniform they’d never seen, but Campy pointed out Gil had been a great player, a great manager, and more importantly, a great man, and we unanimously picked him.
The closer we got to Ebbets, a strange sadness began invade my reptilian chum, and its name was Roy. Campanella had been Campy’s man, as all fans have their all time favorite players, and the great Dodger catcher was slated to start today. Both he and I knew Campanella would not catch more than two or three innings. He would watch the last six or seven innings from the confines of a wheel chair, disabled in his prime by a car accident. That image in my mind lent greatly to a determination that life indeed was not fair. Campy wasn’t the only soul on the train to have lost a favorite catcher.
As we rolled closer to Ebbets, I began thinking of all the revered players of my own childhood, some I’d see today, some not for a while. My first remembrance of baseball was the ’55 or ’56 World Series between the Yanks and the Dodgers. It polarized the whole neighborhood, most of which watched it on the twelve inch, black and white TV screen in my grandmother’s living room. It split the family for years after, in fact—grandma didn’t give my Uncle Bruno a single meatball with his pasta until the following season—and that was only because he was her son. The Yanks, she never forgave! At six years of age and for no other reason than I could Identify with a player named Peewee, I leaned towards the Dodgers. Later, when the Dodgers betrayed me for Los Angeles, I quickly shifted to the Yankees, which was a good thing. I would have hated to have missed Roger and Mickey playing ‘Home Run Derby’ with the Babe’s record. Mickey had stepped into Jiltin’ Joe’s shoes and was slated to be the new ‘King Yankee’, and in many ways he was. It was almost painful to a lot of fans when Maris broke the Sultan of Swat’s single season home run record. It was very unfair to Roger that he got more harassment than credit for that super effort. I couldn’t see what the problem was. Maris was a Yankee; the record would stay in Yankee Stadium—until the advent of Steroids.
I would see Maris today, and Jiltin’ Joe DiMaggio in the outfield, and it was actually exciting me. It felt like Christmas morning! To ice the cake, Allie Reynolds, the Super Chief, was on the mound. For one more shinning moment in time, the spirits of the Warriors of my youth would be again of flesh and bone and they’d square off against the Devil… God help the Devil!
When we reached our destination and the train car doors slammed open, I was caught in swirl of people bouncing and shoving for the exit. I was becoming unbearably lonely. It is a curse to know the future. I knew we would win. All I could do for nine innings was watch the heroes of my youth reach for greatness one more time, and then watch them fade back into oblivion.
We entered through the gates of the concrete horseshoe that was to Brooklyn the portals to heaven for so many years. The crowd seemed to roar at the players, egged on by the Dodgers “Sym-phony” band. In the earlier games, I had never really experienced Ebbets Field, not having sat in the bleachers. The crowds in the Bronx cheering on the Bombers were loud and proud, but not like this. It was unified neighborhood insanity; their Dodgers were a celebration of life, win or loose! It was a place in the universe set apart strictly for Brooklyn Dodger fans. Yeah, Ebbets Field was a good call. The dragons had been on to something. In the space of a few chronological hours, I had lived through two World Wars and a major conflict with another one on the horizon. Here, thousands had come to pray at a great universal church and practice an absurd religion. And no matter how insane the world got, here was something good forever.
Campy and I slid into the old wooden seats of the soon-to-be doomed stadium and we bought our first bag of peanuts and our first beers. As the lead off batter stepped to the plate, my American Dragon friend advised me to enjoy the game; neither one of us would ever see another like it.
I had to agree.
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