Press play to listen to my essay on Mickey Mantle broadcasted on 89.7 WUWM's Lake Effect program on July 16, 2011.
Variations of my essay can also be found at two other sites: BorchertField.com, a website devoted to preserving the history of the old ballpark in Milwaukee, and Seamheads, a haven for all things baseball.
In the July 10 issue of the Chicago Tribune, columnist Fred Mitchell writes about the recent trend of ballplayers spending more time in the locker room texting, checking Facebook, playing video games and watching TV than actually commiserating with their colleagues. He writes:
Times have changed from the days of ballplayers playing cards in the middle of the locker room, leafing through fan mail in front of their lockers, reading the newspaper or playfully teasing each other.
This might be a rather nostalgic view of the past, but it’s one I happen to share.
The potentially negative consequences of recent technological changes came to my attention about three years ago, when I noticed that parents picking up and dropping off their children at my home were no longer poking their heads in for a hello. In fact, some of the kids we’ve hosted through the years have parents I have yet to meet. Don’t know their names. Couldn’t pick them out in a lineup. That’s not only a shame, it’s kind of scary. One of our seemingly endless list of parental responsibilities is knowing the parents of our children’s friends.
In the short six months I’ve owned a cell-phone, I’ve resorted to the anti-social behavior of texting my kids to let them know I’m waiting outside to take them home, but this is a habit I intend to break, extreme weather notwithstanding. Generally, there’s time to say hello to people, and in life, there’s almost always room for a few more acquaintances. Sometimes these acquaintances make my day.
Last week, I spoke to a parent at the pool for a good twenty minutes, and the conversation was so animated, so full of gems I couldn’t make up in a million years, I wrote our dialogue down as soon as I returned home, hopeful that I’ll be able to use it in a piece of fiction. What if, instead of chatting, we’d both opted to check our email? A more efficient use of our time, perhaps, but a real loss in social interaction.
Of course, technology isn’t responsible for all anti-social behavior. This morning, it took one of my daughters ten minutes to acknowledge my existence, but I believe that sort of conduct began long before the cell-phone, the TV or even electricity. And I also believe that time will help buck that trend. If not, perhaps my incessant nagging will.
Milwaukee commuters wrestling their way down highway 43 may not know that the pavement between Locust and Burleigh Streets is hallowed ground, the former site of Borchert Field, home of the minor league Milwaukee Brewers for much of the first half of last century. Borchert Field was an old, rickety ballpark with crazy dimensions: the foul lines were only 267 feet (who knows how many home runs Braun and Fielder would have hit in this ballpark?). And the Brewers, in the early 50s, were a very good minor league team, the triple A affiliate of the Boston Braves and two-time Junior World Series Champions.
Sixty years ago this July 16, on a warm, foggy evening, a small crowd of 3400 came to watch the Brewers host the Kansas City Blues, both teams tied for second place in the American Association league. Fans that night couldn’t have known they were about to witness a glimpse of future hall-of-fame greatness. It happened to be the first minor league appearance that season for a 19 year-old Oklahoman who’d been wearing pinstripes just days before.
Mickey Mantle had struggled for the previous month as a New York Yankee, his average sinking to .260, and it was decided that he should regain his swing in Kansas City. When Yankee manager Casey Stengel told Mantle privately of the decision, Mantle cried.
Days later in Milwaukee, the fog was so thick, Mantle quipped, “I may need a mask out there tonight.”
That evening, the switch-hitter batted left handed and went 1 for 4, his only hit a bunt single to the first-base side. Those in attendance got to witness Mantle at his blazing best: that is, among the fastest to ever play the game (batting left handed, he'd been timed running from home to first in 3.1 seconds).
The following evening, after word had spread that Mantle was in Milwaukee (both the Sentinel and the Journal had articles highlighting his appearance), the crowd swelled to over 10,000, and Mantle went 0-4. In fact, he played so poorly for the next couple of weeks, he considered quitting baseball altogether. Luckily for baseball, he didn’t. And luckily for the Brewers, by the time they faced the Blues again, Mantle was already back up in the majors, having hit .361 with 11 home runs and 50 RBIs during his six week stint in the minors. He was never to return.
And as fate would have it, he was just a month away from an injury that would rob him of his full potential.
That October, during game 2 of the ‘51 World Series against the Giants (who’d made it there after Bobby Thompson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World”) Mantle caught his spikes in a drain in right field while trying to avoid a collision with Joe DiMaggio, on a ball hit by another celebrated rookie, Willie Mays. It was the convergence of three of the game's best, linking the past with the future, including Mantle's. He blew his knew out on the play, and would never run the base paths again without pain.
Although his injury may have kept him from realizing his full potential with regard to speed, it certainly didn't keep him from achieving greatness: he would go on to win three MVP awards and seven World Series titles.
As for Milwaukee, the Brewers and Borchert field gave way to the Braves and County Stadium in 1953, beginning a thirteen year stint. Mantle would return to Milwaukee again in 1955 as a Yankee All-Star, almost four years to the day of his appearance at Borchert Field. He wasted no time getting the American League on the board, hitting a three run home run in the first inning. And in his next game in Milwaukee, he hit yet another home run, this time in game 3 of the ‘57 World Series, a 12-3 whooping for the Yankees over the Braves.
For those in attendance that fall day at County Stadium, perhaps a handful could remember seeing Mantle six years earlier, when he was a struggling ballplayer with lightning speed and limitless potential. A potential, it would appear, that was now - even if slightly hampered - fully realized.
I’ve been listening to Born to Run in the car for the past couple of days as a sort of tribute to Clarence Clemons who passed away last week. I played the album for my daughters who are sadly never going to get to see the E Street Band in all its glory, but last night one of them stayed in the car with me even after we arrived home so that she could finish listening to the album’s title track. I consider this a mild victory as a parent, and one The Big Man would no doubt be proud of.
The album’s opening song, “Thunder Road,” arguably one of the greatest songs to open an album, reminds me of a Rock ‘n’ Roll History Class I attended at the Berklee College of Music back the fall of ’87. One morning we watched a film that included a live version of “Thunder Road,” and when Bruce sung the words, “Well I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk,” about half of the large class – many of them guitarists who spent hours playing harmonic minor scales at 180 beats per minute – broke out into laughter. Such was the snobbery that underlay the school in the 80s. Jazzheads mocked rockheads, and rockheads mocked rock ‘n’ rollers who didn’t play like Steve Vai.
Since those days, I’ve heard many horn players scoff at Clarence Clemons’s chops in the same way, as if they can’t believe that such a hack managed to make the big time.
But I would argue that Clarence made his mark in ways other saxophonists could only dream of. Clemons had a signature sound, filled with all the force and majesty required for a band that explored the themes of restlessness, disillusionment and redemption. The E Street Band didn’t need virtuosos. It needed members with power, presence and – perhaps most importantly – personality. Clarence provided all three. It was a match made in heaven, and there’s something to be said for playing distinctively, if not masterfully. Clarence’s sound was indisputable.
Even Bruce, despite the young guitarists’ mockery of his skills so many years ago, played ably enough to do exactly what the song required. His solo during Jungle Land is just melodic enough to build the instrumental section into the bridge. Nothing more, and nothing less. A crazy finger-tapping solo would have sounded absurd.
Whatever Bruce Springsteen does in the future, I doubt he’ll ever tour with a band that calls itself The E Street Band again. Sadly, that chapter’s over now. I got to see them in ’84 at the height of their popularity, during the first (and preferred) leg of the “Born in the USA” tour, and again in ’99 during the E Street Band’s reunion. Both concerts rank right up there with the best I’ve ever seen.
Even after hundreds of listens, there’s a verse from “Thunder Road” that never fails to give me chills:
There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets
They scream your name at night in the street
Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet
Name a popular artist today who can get away with lyrics like that. And then when The Big Man takes over a few lines later, it’s pure pop magic. Rock ‘n’ roll bliss.
Wherever you are, Clarence, keeping blowing away. You will be missed.
Technology has a way of making itself indispensable. Perceived conveniences are quickly converted into perceived necessities (recently highlighted by the power outages we experienced this week: “You mean we can’t watch the baseball game tonight?!).
Six years ago I still had dial-up Internet access and checked my e-mail maybe twice daily. Now I sometimes check twice within the same minute.
In 2006, a friend of mine introduced me to a website called YouTube to show me a slide-splittingly funny skit from Sacha Baron Cohen’s character, Ali G. Within six months or so, I was visiting YouTube nearly every day, and by now it’s so ingrained into my daily usage, I’d be hard-pressed to do without it.
And now I’ve really joined the 21st Century by purchasing my first cell-phone, nearly two decades after my father purchased his first mobile phone. Yes, I was apparently the last man in America without one, and my daughters were unquestionably the last 13 year-olds on the planet without this All-Important-Basic-Right-Of-Every-Man-Woman-And-Child.
My aversion to owning a cell phone over the years were met with a variety of responses: one friend resorted to calling me Ted Kaczynski (known in most circles as the Unabomber). Others were simply dumbfounded that I could function without one.
“How do people contact you?”
“They call me at home when I’m at home. Just like they did with you ten years ago.”
“What if there’s an emergency and someone needs to contact you and you’re not at home?”
“Then they’ll have to call someone else.”
“How do you talk to people when you’re not at home?”
My flippant response was typically, “I don’t really want to talk to anybody anyway,” figuring that characterizing myself as a misanthrope would end the questions.
But in truth, I just didn’t want to be tied to yet another piece of technology that I was living without quite comfortably.
I never wanted a cell-phone. I couldn’t stand the moms who walked down the aisles of Target talking loudly to friends about personal issues. Couldn’t stand the guy at the park who couldn’t tear himself away from his phone long enough to watch his son go down the slide. Didn’t like my wife glued to her Blackberry when we were on a trip.
That all changed last year when a few logistical mix-ups with my daughters led to elevated blood pressure and unnecessary outburst by yours truly. After negotiating with the girls about the issue for a while, last December I purchased three cell-phones with unlimited texting, one for each of us.
Expectedly, within a short six months, I have become tethered to the little beast.
I love it. I’m not crazy about talking on the cell-phone – the quality is poor and I don’t like being interrupted – but texting has now become a way of life, and though my fingers go at about half the speed of my girls’, I now send upwards of a dozen texts a day, more if there are logistical issues with the kids. Now I can finally get a response from my wife while she’s tied up at meetings. In January, I was able to give my daughter highlights of the Packers/Falcons playoff game while she was at a party. And I’ve been able to keep in touch in a fun, quick way with friends.
In short, I’m now addicted to yet another electronic device. Add it to the list. Hell, I even caved last year and joined Facebook.
What’s next? I figure my next holdout is using Groupon.
“You haven’t used Groupon? How do you shop?!!”
I’ll get there. Just give me a few years to judge your addictions first before they become mine.
