I was born in 1950. I came of age baseballically in 1959, musically in 1963 and got girl crazy in 1966. The music and girl coming of age were well timed. Baseball, not so much.
My father's generation grew up with a Cleveland Indians franchise that was always competitive. From post-WWII through 1959, they got to follow one of the best sets of teams ever assembled outside of New York City. They celebrated two AL pennants and one World Series win in the time period, with plenty of tight races in between. Stars like Bob Fellar, Lou Boudreau, Bob Lemon, Dale Mitchell, jim Hegan, Larry Doby and Minnie Minoso kept them in every game. They had a great G.M. in Bill Veeck to keep them amused when they weren't winning. My parents still talk about going down to League Park (predecessor to Municipal Stadium) just to sit behind Ted Williams in right field so they could taunt him. Those were great days to be a Tribe fan.
Naturally, our parents transmitted this excitement to us. And with the thrilling 1959 race sucking us into big league ball, we gladly joined the ranks of Tribe fans throughout the city. That '59 team was a sweet one, too: a superb pitching staff featuring young studs Mudcat Grant, Gary Bell, Jim Perry and Herb Score (who suspected he would never make a comeback?). Anchoring the youth were vets like Cal McLish and Jack Harshman. The position player lineup was weak at only two positions: third (an aging George Strickland) and second, where Billy Martin was being consumed by his demons. Catching was super solid with Russ Nixon and Dick Brown doing the lefty-righty platoon. Colavito, Minoso and Piersall formed a truly complementary outfield. Vic Power was probably the best first baseman of his era, while SS Woodie Held made up for lack of range in the field with pop in his bat. Tito Francona, a true natural hitter, led a solid bench. He hit .363 and slugged .566, and Jim Baxes slugged .466 in his only true Major League test.
After battling the Chisox furiously in August, the Tribe finally lost the struggle in September and finished five games back. But I was galvanized by the pennant race. There are some games that still play through my head from that season. That was the year we all began to collect Topps Baseball Cards in earnest. I was only allowed to buy one pack per week with my nickel allowance. It was tough to watch Terry Hartman buy four or five packs at a time. He got a quarter a week. On the other hand, my grandmother quickly caught on to my lust for cards. She would look for any occasion to drop 10 packs in my lap, thus purchasing my love for all of eternity.
Our main source of cards was Piersdorff's Drug Store. The wiley proprietor understood that, if we came in with our mothers, we would wheedle and beg until they gave in and bought a pack. And that might lead to some candy being purchased--all feathering the Piersdorff nest. If for some reason Piersdorff was out of cards or we couldn't spare the time to walk the mile or so to get there, we could try Sav-On, the neighborhood grocer. They sometimes carried cards and were at least worth badgering our mothers to just pleeeee-se buy me one pack!
As the season progressed, the urgency to get Score and Colavito and Grant and Bell and Perry and Minnie and Jimmy increased. (I never did get a Woodie Held that year, which really bugged me.) We would try anything, including trying to trick some of the younger kids in the neighborhood to trade us their indians for crap like Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider. I recall one shameful theft attempt of Jamie Roller's cards; I later relented and took them back. Oh, what evil lurks in the hearts of Indians' fans!
In those days, we rarely traded cards in the way some kids did. While some would flip cards to see who got to keep the pair, we traded much more like G.M.s of big league clubs. Even doubles weren't given away; you had to get something in return. I recall Hartman as being an especially shrewd trader, Gary Chilcher as being overly cautious, Dale Crockett an easy mark and my brother--the poor kid was two years younger and just basically clueless.
We didn't stick cards in the spokes of our bike wheels the way a lot of kids did. I always thought those kids were idiots.What, did baseball cards grow on trees, that you could put them in your bike spokes just to make some stupid sputtering noise? Some people just do not understand the value of money.
Although the Tribe would bitterly disappoint my friends and me over the next three decades, their performance didn't dampen our enthusiasm for card collecting. When I went back some years ago and put my collection in order, I found that I had a large number of 1963 Topps cards. So at age 13 i was still an avid collector. But that was it. My collection included almost no 1964 Topps cards. The Beatles not only started a music revolution in 1963, but they also turned our attention from baseball cards to 45 RPM records. My large collection of 45s from that era demonstrates beyond a doubt where my meager funds had been redirected. I still loved the game and lived and (mostly) died by the Tribe's box score. But a new obsession was pushing baseball aside, or at least forcing it to move over. Before long, my life's obsessions would be set: baseball, rock n roll and girls, girls, girls.
Not a bad life, after all is said and done. And now the Tribe is winning again.
No comments:
Post a Comment