Chapter Eight: Opening Day
March 20, 2010 by Editor
Filed under Dress Blues and Tennis Shoes
April 10
Potter County Memorial Stadium, home of the Amarillo Gold Sox, is a huge iron-beamed dinosaur of a park. Set in an industrial neighborhood of factories and vacant lots, this relic can hold 6,500 fans, but never does.
Lugging equipment bags and hangered uniforms, Charlie and I trudge through the turnstile and into the bowels of [...]
Chapter Six: The Pursuit of Excellence
February 15, 2010 by Editor
Filed under Dress Blues and Tennis Shoes
March 24
This week’s piece of work, Fred Frazier. The second baseman for the AAA Salt Lake team is of the Billy Martin mold. Small in stature, volcanic in temperament, he exacts the utmost in patience from an umpire.
Today I am on the bases, and rookie Chuck Neisler is calling his first triple-A game behind the [...]
Chapter Four: Fraternizing
January 2, 2010 by Editor
Filed under Dress Blues and Tennis Shoes
March 17
Charlie has a facility for banter with black ballplayers that I lack with most white players. It’s as though they’re members of a secret club, with a secret language. Actually, Charlie speaks two languages. When he meets my white, middle-class parents, he sounds like Eddie Haskell greeting Beaver’s parents. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Boga. [...]
Chapter Three: Rosie
January 1, 2010 by Editor
Filed under Dress Blues and Tennis Shoes
March 14
Lounging around the motel pool this evening, I thought of spring training two years earlier, this very motel. Charlie and I were rookies, Bill Rosenberry the crew chief. “Rosie” was one of the many unforgettable personalities that litter the baseball scene—in his favorite expression, “a piece of work.”
I see him sitting outside room 13, [...]
Chapter One: Two for Texas
December 28, 2009 by Editor
Filed under Dress Blues and Tennis Shoes
El Centro, California, March 1977
Spring is a dicey season in the Imperial Valley. As I drive south toward the Mexican border, desert winds torture the powdery landscape. A fast-flowing river of sand obscures the highway; a gritty gray haze hangs in the air, and I periodically dab my nose with a wet handkerchief. My VW [...]