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 [...]
Chapter Seven: Separation
March 18, 2010 by Editor
Filed under Dress Blues and Tennis Shoes
Donna and I stare into each other’s eyes, then hug, a lingering embrace with more than a touch of urgency. We have spent an intense two days together, camping out on sun-drenched southern California beaches, making love each time as though it were the last time. Now, at the Los Angeles Airport, we are saying [...]
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. [...]
Chapter Two: Gene Autry’s Corral
December 30, 2009 by Editor
Filed under Dress Blues and Tennis Shoes
March 11 The minor-league Angels training camp in Holtville is an arrow-straight ten-mile drive under a huge sky, past serried lettuce rows and concrete irrigation ditches. At the Holtville complex, four baseball diamonds splay out like blades of a giant fan. The hub is a thirty-foot-high rotunda upon which farm directors control workouts and make [...]
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 [...]