Posted on

A CHANCE TO ASK FERGUSON JENKINS ABOUT DUROCHER — IN REDLANDS!

This is part of a series of mini-Redlands Connections. This is Part 3 of the series, Quick Visits. Magic Johnson and John Wooden showed up at the University of Redlands as part of a Convocation Series. Future NFL Hall of Fame coach, former NBA player John Block, legendary high school coach Willie West showed up. There are others. Cazzie Russell, for instance, came to Redlands with an NCAA Division III basketball team from Savannah, Ga. Russell, out of Michigan, was the NBA’s overall No. 1 draft pick by the New York Knicks in 1966.

Today’s feature: Former Chicago Cubs’ pitcher Ferguson Jenkins.

Here’s where being a media member has its advantages:

Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins had appeared in Redlands to conduct a youth clinic at Community Field and, perhaps, sign a few autographs.

Chicago Cubs’ fans were plentiful throughout the country. One notable such fan, a veterinarian who lived in Redlands, could recite all the Cubs’ doctrine from those Jenkins years.

Here are the guys that fans instantly thought about when recalling those Cubs’ teams from the 1960s: Ron Santo, Billy Williams and Ernie Banks were the headliners. Jenkins, of course, was the ace pitcher. Leo Durocher was Cubs’ manager, a fact that wasn’t enthusiastically accepted by the local vet.

“Durocher ruined Jenkins’ career,” said the vet. “He used him too much. Ruined his arm.”

He was adamant. Mind couldn’t be changed on that.

ferguson Jenkins
Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins spent a few hours in Redlands, teaching baseball to youths and answering questions about former manager Leo Durocher (photo by Wikipedia).

This, of course, was years later — after baseball had starting dedicating a full core of relief pitchers to save games. In Jenkins’ days, legendary pitchers like Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, Mickey Lolich, Don Drysdale, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue, you name it, would pitch 300-plus innings each year.

Bullpens weren’t quite as deep.

So here was Jenkins in my sight line: “Tell me about Leo Durocher.”

Jenkins took it from there.

“Leo helped make my career. If it weren’t for him … I’ll tell you, he taught me a lot. I owe him a lot. I owe a lot of my career to him.”

Under Durocher, Jenkins became one of baseball’s top hurlers.

“When I got traded to the Cubs,” he said, referring to the 1966 deal in which Philadelphia traded away a future Hall of Famer to the Cubs, “we were the worst team in baseball.”

Durocher had just been named Cubs’ manager. Jenkins, under Durocher, won 20 games in six straight seasons — all seasons that Durocher had managed him, incidentally.

“He worked you, no question about that,” said Jenkins.

The Cubs never won a pennant, a division championship, or made it to the World Series.

“Some of those years we came to spring training,” said Jenkins, “and we knew we’d have a chance to win … because of Leo. He turned that team around in Chicago.”

Where was that vet, that so-called Cubs’ fan? He needed to be listening to all this.

The guy who’d been teammates with Ruth & Gehrig, turned the Brooklyn Dodgers into pennant winners, managed Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays, among others, Durocher was, perhaps, baseball’s greatest connection to multiple generations.

“I never had any trouble with Leo,” said Jenkins. “I know what people say about him, what they try to insinuate.”

If there was a criticism of Durocher from that 1969 season, said Jenkins, “it’s probably that he never gave our regular guys a break.”

It was Don Kessinger, Glenn Beckert, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, Ernie Banks, Jim Hickman, Randy Hundley and Don Young. The Cubs took second to the Miracle Mets.

Jenkins finished 21-15 with a 3.21 ERA over 311 1/3 innings that season.

I still have no idea how someone from Redlands had lured the fabulous Jenkins (284-226 over 19 seasons) to Community Field in the early 1990s. In reality, it was Redlands Baseball For Youth President Steve Chapman, a die-hard Cubs’ fan, who sent a white limousine to bring Jenkins to the ballpark.

It was almost an afterthought that Julio Cruz, a onetime Redlands High player, and Rudy Law, a former Dodger and White Sox player, also showed up. Infield play, outfield play, a little hitting — plus pitching.

Ex-Pirates’ pitcher Dock Ellis was also present. Ellis, it’s likely remembered, is the pitcher who surrendered the tape measure home run hit by Reggie Jackson out of Tiger Stadium at the 1971 All-Star game.

Jenkins, incidentally, was one of just four N.L. pitchers in that 6-4 loss to the A.L. Giants’ pitcher Juan Marichal pitched in his final mid-summer classic and so did Houston’s Don Wilson.

Imagine, two of the N.L.’s four all-star pitchers — Ellis and Jenkins — had shown up in Redlands a couple decades later.

Jenkins had arrived at Community Field in that white limo. Dressed in his Cubs’ uniform. Showed kids his style of pitching.

“Show ’em your wallet,” he said, demonstrating his high-leg kick, twisting his torso with his left buttock toward the hitter, “and let it fly.”

That’s how a Hall of Famer did it.

Fans might not remember this, Jenkins said, “but Leo converted me into a starting pitcher. I’d been a reliever. He turned my career around. I became a Hall of Famer.”

Jenkins left Redlands like he’d arrived — in that white limo.

 

Posted on

HALL OF FAME: TIM MEAD SAT NEXT TO HANK AARON, INDUCTED FRICK WINNER

Tim Mead, a Highland, Calif. product, wound up as president of the Baseball Hall of Fame after a 40-year career with the Los Angeles Angels. He resigned his post after two seasons.

From Highland to Anaheim to … Cooperstown?

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — It’s a far cry from Hibiscus St. or Colwyn Ave., where Tim Mead grew up in Highland, Calif. over four decades ago.

His onetime address in Cooperstown — 25 Main St., just a short hop from Otsego Lake in this upper state New York community where baseball’s early roots were planted over a century earlier.

On the weekend of July 20-21, the former Highland resident — a 1976 graduate from San Gorgonio High — was presiding over the 2019 Major League Baseball Hall of Fame inductions.

“I’m just trying to stay out of everyone’s way,” he joked a few days after the smallish upper state New York town came to life while inducting Roy Halladay, Edgar Martinez, Mariano Rivera, Harold Baines, Lee Smith and Mike Mussina into baseball immortality.

Mead didn’t even hesitate with a description about the sacred home of baseball’s greatest participants.

“The Hall,” he said, “is everything anyone ever imagined.”

Throw this in for Halladay, whose death last year took center stage at this year’s inductions: “Brandy’s speech,” said Mead, referring to Halladay’s widow, “made a difference.”

Lost, perhaps, beneath the spectacle of those July 21 inductions was a banquet honoring some 58 living Hall of Famers, with Mead and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred among the ONLY “civilians” at the Otesaga Hotel.

“For an hour and a half, I sat next to Hank Aaron,” he said, “asking him what his favorite stadiums were to play in and about the pitchers he had to face.”

The Otesaga, looking out on the lake near where the Susquehanna River begins, is right around the corner from the museum itself.

“This is the elite of baseball history,” he said, noting they were “accomplished legends.

Mead said, “I’ll treat this (Hall of Fame) group just like the clubhouse in Anaheim.”

In other words, he won’t be sharing any private conversations, like the ones he had with Aaron, or one he had with Sandy Koufax.

“I asked (Aaron) his favorite ballpark,” said Mead, “and where he liked to hit.”

It was one of Mead’s first official duties as Hall of Fame president to induct now-deceased broadcaster Al Helfer as this year’s Ford C. Frick Media honoree on Saturday, July 20.

“I’d just gotten back from the Tyler Skaggs ceremony,” said Mead, referring to the L.A. Angels pitcher whose untimely death hit the team hard.

It was an Angels’ team Mead had worked for since 1980, having retired after the 2018 season. He was immediately tapped to take over in Cooperstown for the retiring Jeff Idelson.

“I’d been to the Hall of Fame three times before,” he said, rattling off the years 1996, 1999 and last year (2018), “for Vladdy (ex-Angel Vladimir Guerrero).”

Angels fans might recall that it was 1999 when iconic pitcher Nolan Ryan was enshrined.

ROOKIE HALL PRESIDENT

Mead’s duties at his new position include watching over historians, librarians and curators that are typically associated with any museum. He’ll stay in constant communication with all 30 MLB teams, living Hall of Fame members “and their families.”

His growing-up digs on Hibiscus St. to his current post, 25 Main Street in Cooperstown, N.Y., should probably be considered an unusually standout transition. 

Hibiscus is right around the corner from Central Little League, which may not have existed in Mead’s youth days.

Upon his family’s move to Colwyn Ave., Mead was a little closer to San Gorgonio High, where he famously didn’t make the school’s Varsity baseball team. He’d been prepping for it his whole life, playing in Highland Little League, PONY League, Colt League and Big League, which is Little League’s age 16-18 division.

At San G, he was sports editor for the school’s newspaper, The Oracle.

Bill Havard, the school’s junior varsity coach, convinced the varsity coach to allow Mead onto the JV squad as a senior, which isn’t considered rational since a senior JV player might be taking playing time away from another player heading for a possible varsity roster spot.

Havard, who went on to prominence coaching in Redlands over a 46-year period after leaving San G, was tied to Mead from that point on.

The Spartans were highly competitive in baseball that Mead was cut from the Varsity in each of his four seasons under head coach Bill Kernan.

He quickly recalled his “friends for life,” including Ted Rozzi and Spartans’ 1977 CIF-Southern Section pitching hero Tim Miner, plus former Cal State San Bernardino coach Don Parnell.

“I graduated,” said Mead, “a year before they (San G baseball team) won it all (in 1977).”

That might’ve been a San G Hall of Fame moment, but Mead had his own Hall of Fame pathway. Four years after graduating, he surfaced as an intern for the California Angels after his days at Cal Poly Pomona. Forty years later, he retired as an Angels’ executive. His years in various roles proved more than enough to land Mead as Idelson’s successor.

“It’s a chance to celebrate,” said Mead, “and to say thank you. That’s what the Hall of Fame is about. A portion of (the ceremony) is to celebrate a great career, but what it’s all about is that it’s a greater chance to say thank you.

“They (inductees) write those speeches,” said Mead, “and you learn a little more about each person. They expose themselves quite a bit. The whole process is very humbling … for everybody.”

FOOTNOTE: Two months after Mead revealed that there were no players elected via 75 percent of the required vote, he resigned as president of the fabled Cooperstown museum and Hall of Fame memorial.

Here was his comment to the Los Angeles Times:

“I made the recent leap with every intention of following in the footsteps of my predecessors, in continuing their efforts in maintaining the Hall of Fame as a critical component of the game. Try as I might, even with the unwavering support of my family, these last 22 months have been challenging in maintaining my responsibilities to them.”

 

Posted on

HIGHLAND, APRIL 15, 2004 — JACKIE ROBINSON DAY

Three generations of Jackie Robinson descendants are pictured, including his oldest nephew, Ted Colbert, right, Colbert’s daughter, Jennette, center, and his granddaughter, Kristina, front left, a freshman at San Gorgonio High School. The trio live in Highland. Photo by Obrey Brown

* From my files: Eighteen years ago, three generations of Jackie Robinson descendants living in Highland

It was April 15, more than just the deadline for filing income taxes.

On that date in 2004, Kristina Williams, a freshman member of San Gorgonio High School’s track & field team, couldn’t attend her dual meet against San Bernardino.

“Family,” she said, “is more important.”

Family, in this case, means Jackie Robinson.

Williams is the great, great niece of baseball’s pioneer player who broke the color barrier in the major leagues in 1947. On April 15 across the land, it was Jackie Robinson Day at every major league stadium hosting a game.

It corresponds with the date, April 15, 1947, when Robinson stepped onto a major league field for the first time in a regular season game.

Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s widow, stood on the field at Shea Stadium in New York — center stage for the heritage day. Robinson has plenty of relatives spread across the land.

That includes Highland, a city located next to San Bernardino, Calif.

Williams lives with her mother, Jennette, in Highland. Jennette Williams’ father, Ted Colbert, is the oldest nephew to the onetime Brooklyn Dodger star who retired after the 1956 season. Robinson’s family legacy lives on.

“I see him,” says Williams, who has played JV volleyball and varsity basketball for the Lady Spartans prior to the spring track season, “as an inspiration. In our family, we talk about him a lot.

“It took up a lot of courage to stand up against a lot of animosity.”

The Williams family moved to Highland from Glendale, Ariz., due mainly to Jennette Williams’ bout with cancer. She is a patient at the City of Hope. They have been around Highland for about six months. They may be gone soon; possibly to Pasadena — closer to her medical center.

On that April 15 date, Jennette Williams, along with her mother, Ola, attended the Jackie Robinson Day ceremony at Anaheim Stadium. “I got to see a lot of people I hadn’t seen for a long time. I saw my uncle Mack’s family,” she said.

Mack Robinson, a fairly famous athlete before Jackie Robinson’s prominence started on the American baseball scene, was his older brother . “You’ve got to know, I grew up with this, all this talk,” said Jennette Williams.

Neither Colbert, nor Kristina Williams attended in Anaheim. At first, the notion seemed to be that Colbert was ill. Or that Williams wasn’t dressed properly for the pre-game event.

But Colbert spilled the true facts. “There are certain family members they’d allow on the field for something like this. I’ve done it a lot. Kristina wasn’t going to be allowed on the field for the ceremony.

“I stayed home with her. I let her go out with her friends.”

A shrug of the shoulders. Yes, she feels bad. Kristina , an ailing travel softball player suffering from a rotator cuff injury, said, “I’d be out playing softball instead of track.”

In class, it’s a different story. When it comes to writing essays about famous Americans, she didn’t have far to go for anyone. “I’m related to him,” she said.

Of course, she wrote about Jackie Robinson.

“Everyone (at San Gorgonio High) thinks I’m lying about all this.”

Before that April 15 Mariners-Angels game in Anaheim, representatives from both teams said they were delighted to take part in the celebration of a great life and a greater legacy. Garret Anderson and Chone Figgins, said Jennette, each expressed great admiration for what Robinson did.

Colbert, 64, says there are players in this generation who don’t know the name of Jackie Robinson. “I really believe that,” he said. “There aren’t very many, but there are a few. I’m disappointed in that.”

Being a nephew of baseball’s great legend didn’t bother Colbert, who noted there were still barriers for Black players, even after Jackie’s MLB debut in 1947.

“That kind of thing (racist reactions) happened every day when I played a game. It was O.K. with me. Other players would give me their best.”

His memories of Robinson are immense. “I was a bat boy in a lot of the games he played in,” he said. “I remember a game at Wrigley Field in L.A. when Satchel Paige pitched against Bob Feller. There were 43 strikeouts in that game.

“I think Jackie went 0-for-3.”

Colbert talked about a time Robinson returned from Brooklyn after his 1947 rookie season. “He must’ve had 30, 40 cousins who were at his (Pasadena) home, ” said Colbert, “and he gave them all a dollar. That was a big deal.”

Colbert recalled the patience Robinson had with fans. Colbert said, “We went to the theatre one night to see the Ten Commandments. We walked up to the mezzanine level. All of a sudden, everyone started coming at him for autographs.

“He was just as cool as anyone I’ve ever seen.”

If Robinson hadn’t broken the color barrier, said Colbert, “I don’t know who’d have done it.”

Colbert doubted that it would have been Larry Doby, the first American League black player. Nor could Roy Campanella, the famous Dodger catcher, an eventual teammate of Robinson’s in Brooklyn.

“It would’ve probably been Willie (Mays),” he said. “Nothing bothered Willie.”

Kristina Williams has learned her family history well. She said, “He didn’t play baseball just to be the first Black player. He wanted to play baseball.”

Right, said Colbert. “He wasn’t out for that. They had to get the right man for that. He was that man. He went to college. He was in the military. He was a little older. He had everything they needed.”

Seventeen years after Robinson’s 1972 death, Kristina Williams was born. She started figuring out who her famous relative was in about fifth grade.

Williams had one elite memory about Robinson before moving to Highland. During an eighth grade basketball game in Arizona, Williams said she was walking down the hall at a rival school. She spotted a poster of Robinson in a classroom, walked in and told the teacher she was a relative of the Hall of Famer.

“The teacher took the poster off the wall and gave it to me,” she said. “Right now, it’s on my wall at home.”

Posted on

ANDRIESE, CHATWOOD: REV-BASED MLB PITCHERS IN TAMPA, CHICAGO

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown

All talk of trading Chris Archer might be music to the ears of Tampa Bay Rays’ pitcher Matt Andriese.

Tyler Chatwood, meanwhile, could be in for a stunning summer in Chicago.

Andriese and Chatwood, a pair of former teammates on some very strong Redlands East Valley High School teams, are headed for spring training with one thought in mind:

Claiming a spot in the starting rotation with their current teams.

Both seem destined for mound duty when the 2018 season opens. Both will be in Florida on March 28 when the season opens. Tampa hosts the Boston Red Sox and the Cubs will be in Miami.

Former Redlands East Valley pitcher Matt Andriese, drafted originally by the San Diego Padres, is now toiling for the Tampa Bay Rays. (Photo by Wikipedia Commons)
Former Redlands East Valley pitcher Matt Andriese, drafted originally by the San Diego Padres, is now toiling for the Tampa Bay Rays. (Photo by Wikipedia Commons)

Andriese, an original draft pick by San Diego, was dealt to the Rays in a Jan. 22, 2014 deal that sent southpaw reliever Alex Torres and right-handed starter Jesse Hahn to the Padres. Andriese was joined by second baseman Logan Forsythe (now with the Dodgers), plus right-handers Matt Lollis and Brad Boxberger.

The onetime REV star, who was drafted out of UC Riverside in the third round of the 2011 draft, is a career 16-18 over 72 games with a shutout, four saves and a lifetime 4.35 earned run average.

Andriese heads into spring training as a possible fifth starter in the Rays’ rotation behind Archer, Jake Odorizzi, Blake Snell and Jake Faria.

Both Archer and Odorizzi, meanwhile, have been rumored to be a target of the New York Yankees and Minnesota Twins, among other teams, since the Rays likely have no shot at pennant contention in 2018. Dealing them might be the team’s best chance to land some coveted prospects.

Chatwood, on the other hand, was dealt to the Colorado Rockies by his original team, Anaheim Angels, on Nov. 30, 2011 for catcher Chris Ianetta.

Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher Tyler Chatwood (52)
Tyler Chatwood, the former Redlands East Valley ace, is shown pitching for the Anaheim Angels during his rookie year in 2011. (Photo by Wikipedia Commons.)

When his Rockies’ contract expired following the 2017 season, the 2016 World Series champion Cubs quickly sprung to sign Chatwood on a 3-year, $38 million deal. It could be the under-the-radar signing of the off-season.

Chatwood, 40-46 with a 4.31 ERA between 2011-2017, may be ready to fire on all cylinders. Moving from hitter-friendly Colorado to a more pitcher-friendly Wrigley Field could lift numbers of the the 2008 second-round draft pick.

He’ll follow the likes of Jon Lester, recently-signed Yu Darvish, Kyle Hendricks and Jose Quintana in what appears to be a solid Cubs’ rotation heading into 2018.

REV has produced one other major leaguer. Right-hander Tommy Hansen (49-35, 3.85) spent five seasons in the majors, mostly with Atlanta, plus a season with the Angels. He concluded his 2006-2015 career in the minors with San Francisco’s Class AAA team in Sacramento.

Tragically struck down at age 29 when he died on Nov. 9, 2015, Hansen was the first of REV’s growing list of professional signees. He signed in May 2006 after being taken by the Braves in the 22nd round of the 2005 draft.

The Chatwood-Andriese combination led REV into the 2007 Southern Section Division 2 championship game at Dodger Stadium against El Toro High School. El Toro, buoyed by the presence of future Rockies’ slugging third baseman Nolan Arenado in its lineup, handed Chatwood the loss in a 7-0 win.

Chatwood and Andriese pitched against each other in the majors in 2016 – Chatwood with the Rockies and Andriese with the Rays.

Andriese didn’t start for Tampa Bay and Chatwood lost for Colorado when the Rays beat him badly in a 10-1 outcome on July 20 in Denver.

Long after Chatwood was knocked out by Rays’ hitters – lasting three innings, surrendering seven runs – Andriese entered the game for the final three innings.

Andriese had relieved Matt Snell, pitching three frames of three-hit ball (three strikeouts, no walks) and picked up the save, surrendering a ninth inning home run to Rockies’ rookie sensation Trevor Story.

Snell surrendered just one hit to a Rockies’ lineup featuring All-Stars Carlos Gonzalez and Arenado.

For some reason, the Rays continued to pitch Andriese – who concluded that game with a sparkling 2.78 earned run average – out of the bullpen while most of their starting pitchers had much higher ERAs.

As for Chatwood, he surrendered a home run to Rays’ slugger Evan Longoria, among other hits.

“I didn’t throw any curveballs tonight,” he said, “and it’s always been my best pitch. I threw a lot of fastballs and didn’t miss barrels (of the bat) and kind of put us in a hole.

“I lost the game for us, pretty much. At some point, you’ve got to make an adjustment, and I didn’t make an adjustment.”

 

Posted on

PART 3: WILLIE … ALMOST MICKEY … AND THE DUKE

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open and the Olympics, plus NCAA Final Four connections, NASCAR, the Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown

That was Jordan Snider out in center field, wearing jersey No. 44. The site was The Yard, which is the home field for the University of Redlands. Snider was a senior Bulldog.

Temecula Chaparral High, located about an hour’s drive from the University of Redlands, was where this right-handed ballplayer had come from only a few years earlier.

Batted .295 in 2008, .361 as a sophomore in 2007, .252 in his frosh season right out of the Pumas’ Varsity program, where he’d hit .305 with two HRs in Temecula.

Starting all 36 games as a Bulldog senior in 2009, he’d played four straight seasons with winning teams, hitting .321 with 4 HRs.

His grandfather watched him play a plus number of games.

I’d shown up to chat with University of Redlands baseball coach Scott Laverty. Game still taking place. I’d have to wait. Sitting on the first base side of the bleachers, I took a seat near an older gentleman, wearing a hat to keep the sun off his head.

Seemed to be a nice guy. You run into that occasionally at ball games. Nice guys. Friendly. Talkative. It’s always fun to talk a little baseball, right?

After the game, I approached Laverty for a little post-game chat.

We talked a little about the game. At one point, he said, “I saw you out there talking to Duke.”

Duke?

There was no need to explain. The second he said that, I knew he’d meant Duke Snider. It all came together like clockwork. Jordan Snider in center field. “Duke.” Something told me. I was a little tongue-tied, though. I’d been talking to a baseball Hall of Famer and didn’t even know it. I was a little ashamed.

Duke Snider (Photo by Wikipidia Commons)
Duke Snider, from his Brooklyn Dodgers days, wound up in Fallbrook, where he drove from to watch his grandson play at the University of Redlands.

“That’s his grandson out there in center field,” said Laverty.

Well, that adds up, doesn’t it?

It was a Snider from Temecula.

Edwin “Duke” Snider, the Duke of Flatbush, lived a little south of Temecula. The kid was all-conference one year. A good fly-chaser out in center – just like his grandpa.

There might’ve been something symbolic about Jordan wearing No. 44, especially since his grandfather wore No. 4 in Brooklyn for the Dodgers. A tribute, most likely.

DUKE OF FLATBUSH ORIGINALLY FROM COMPTON

The Duke of Flatbush really came from Compton, Calif. At the end of his life, he lived near in the San Diego County city of Fallbrook – a nice retirement area.

A couple games later, I showed up at Redlands … looking for Duke. Sure enough, he was there.

“Do you have a minute?” I asked him.

You always hesitate when asking someone – a Hall of Famer, celebrity, well-known name, you know – if they’d mind an interview. He was there to watch his grandson who, at that moment, was playing in the same part of the field he’d played in 45 years earlier.

“For crying out loud,” I could just hear anyone say, “I’m here to watch my grandson play. Maybe later.”

But he didn’t say that.

Brooklyn, L.A., New York Mets and, finally, the Giants in San Francisco.

I’ve got to say it. There was nothing all that special about the interview. My questions would’ve been stale and useless. What do you ask a guy like that? Nothing that hasn’t been asked a hundred times before, right?

I settled on an angle about how he finished his career in a Giants’ uniform, 1964. Sold to San Francisco by the Mets. I tried to have a conversation rather than an interview.

“I can’t say I was all that upset at the trade,” he said at Redlands’ The Yard with a few people listening to the chat. “I was friends with a lot of those guys, anyway, Willie (Mays), Al Dark (Giants’ manager), Don Larsen …”

Besides, he said, “I lived out here on the West Coast.”

Oh, man – Don Larsen! The guy who’d pitched a perfect game against the Dodgers in the 1956 World Series?

How many times must he’d have been asked about Larsen?

I skipped the topic.

Did he remember his last home run?

“I do,” he said. “Candlestick Park. San Francisco. Jim Bunning, a very good pitcher. Yeah, that was my last one. Only hit four that year. Fourth of July game, I think, pretty sure. I never hit another one.”

That was his 407th.

You play much center field?

Duke laughed. “For the Giants? Not quite. Somebody named Willie Mays was already playing there.”

Though he was mostly a pinch-hitter, he said, “I played either left or right.

“I remember being in the lineup one day … can’t remember where we were playing, though. Dark had me leading off. Mays was second. McCovey was third and Cepeda was hitting clean-up. What’s that? A couple thousand home runs between us, or something like that?”

Mays at 660, McCovey’s 521, Duke’s 407 and Cepeda’s 379 equals 1,967 lifetime bombs. There may not have ever been another quartet in major league baseball hitting back-to-back like that with those kinds of impressive numbers.

Said Snider: “I can’t remember anything about the game, though – who won, nothing.”

Upon reflection, I should’ve asked him about Jackie Robinson.

Or Leo Durocher. Roy Campanella. Gil Hodges. Don Newcombe. Sandy Koufax, mystery man who rarely does media interviews.

That would’ve been a nice tack. What was it like to have Koufax on the Dodgers for those six or seven years before he started blazing away?

Never got another chance, either.

A couple years later, the Duke died in Escondido.

We’d talked baseball in Redlands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on

PART 2: WILLIE … ALMOST MICKEY … AND THE DUKE

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open and the Olympics, plus NCAA Final Four connections, NASCAR, the Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown

Subbing for the Cashman part of the song, “Willie, Almost Mickey and the Duke.”

I never came close to chatting with The Mick. I’d only seen him play in person a couple times. That came in 1968, his final season, but only because the Oakland A’s had moved to the Bay Area. It meant the Yankees had a few stops to make out there.

About a decade later, during the 1977 season in Oakland, I got a press pass to a mid-week afternoon game with the visiting Yankees, a team managed by Billy Martin. These were the Reggie Jackson Yankees who, incidentally, wasn’t in the lineup against his old team.

Billymartin1
For some reason, Billy Martin, one of baseball’s fiercest managers, showed up in Redlands sometime in the early 1980s (Photo by Wikipedia Commons).

It was Vida Blue against Ron Guidry.

The world champion A’s had long since been disbanded – trades, free agency, you name it. The Yankees, meanwhile, had picked up Jackson and Catfish Hunter from those old A’s teams.

Guidry, leading 2-0, had tamed the A’s for 8 1/3 innings before he gave up ninth inning home runs to Manny Sanguillan and Dick Allen to knot the score at 2-2. Martin replaced Guidry with Sparkly Lyle, who was the Cy Young Award winner one season earlier.

The game went 15 innings. Blue lasted 13. Finally, in the 15th, the Yankees broke through for three runs, winning, 5-2. There weren’t even 10,000 fans in Oakland’s park that day.

I couldn’t wait for the post-game chat in the clubhouse. I wasn’t really working for anyone. I’d gotten a media credential through my college, Chabot. There was no difficulty getting a pass – not like it is today.

As a budding reporter, I wanted to watch the New York reporters talk about the game with Martin. I wanted to experience the give and take between media and manager. I’ll never forget that as long as I live. I figured that was part of my “education.”

With Martin, the media discussed Guidry’s brilliant game, despite giving up the ninth inning HRs. There was expected second-guessing: Why didn’t you bring Lyle in to start the ninth. Martin, a little annoyed, told them he felt Guidry had “enough gas left.”

There was some discussion of Jackson not being in the lineup on his return to Oakland. He’d played the day before and struck out three times. Martin said, “We just wanted to give him a day off.”

Vida Blue, he told reporters, looked sharp and strong.

The chat lasted, maybe, 20 to 30 minutes. It started to break up. Guys had deadlines. Martin probably had plans, too, especially since he was a Bay Area guy. I was one of about a dozen guys that circulated in the visitor’s office.

I won’t ever forget how he looked right at me, saying, “Something I can do for you, son?”

In all honesty, I had a couple questions for him. I’d hesitated to ask. After all, I was a nobody.

“That play (Graig) Nettles made in the ninth, the double play,” I said, “was unbelievable. Went to his left. Sort of a semi dive. That bailed Lyle out of a tough spot.”

It came in the ninth. Sanguillan and Allen had homered. Wayne Gross drew a one-out walk off Lyle. Earl Williams, a home-run hitting catcher, was looking to drive one out, too. But he cracked a shot into the hole toward left field. Nettles, reacting quickly, got the ball to Willie Randolph at second in a hurry.

Double play, ending the threat.

I also asked him about a couple of steal attempts that catcher Thurman Munson had shut down. A’s speedster Bill North was one of those. There was some dispute on the call at second by North, but he was called out.

There were a couple other plays I wanted to ask about, but I didn’t want to press my luck.

Martin took those questions on with a full head of steam. Those N.Y. reporters ready to depart instead hung around. On Nettles and Munson, Martin rhapsodized about how “this game wouldn’t have been won without those plays. Big keys to the game.”

Was I done? He wanted to know. Yeah, I said.

“You know, we’ve got a lot of high-priced talent here from New York that didn’t even pick up on those plays,” said Martin. “You keep asking questions like that, young man, you’re going to go a long way in this business.”

Where was my Mom? My friends? A tape recorder?

I couldn’t believe this.

Billy Martin said that to me? In later years, I wondered if he was just picking away at his regular press corps.

SHOWING UP AT A REDLANDS AMERICAN LEGION

Seven or eight years later, I was sitting in my Redlands newsroom office. I got a call from an area baseball-lover, Fred Long. Guy had been a scout for Montreal, maybe Kansas City or Milwaukee. Can’t remember each of Fred’s affiliations.

“O.B.,” he said, “Billy Martin’s here.”

He was drinking beer at a local American Legion Post.

What the hell was Billy Martin doing in Redlands?

I dropped everything. Rushed over to the legion post. Sure enough, there was Billy Martin, a beer in front of him, four guys sitting around him, a bar tender hanging out. Talking baseball. I snuck myself into the mix, listening, hearing the chat back and forth.

For nearly three hours, I watched him down one beer after another. He never cracked. Kept talking baseball. There was talk of Mickey Mantle, his good buddy. “No one,” said Martin, “could come close to his power … or speed.”

How he shouldn’t have lost his jobs in Minnesota or Texas or even the Yankees. He’d just gotten finished managing in Oakland, of all places – Billy Ball!

It was the off-season, I should report. Martin was in the Redlands area because he’d married a gal who had Yucaipa connections. Yucaipa was the city just east of Redlands. While she was visiting friends and family, Billy visited the legion post. He’d had a little military in his background. He felt comfortable in such a place.

Finally, when I felt comfortable enough, I mentioned that Yankees-A’s game in Oakland from a few years earlier. How he’d been real classy to me in the clubhouse after the game. I asked him, despite all the beer he’d downed, if he’d remembered.

He stared right at me. Took a swig of beer. He even grabbed a pretzel and stuck it into his mouth, kind of smiling as he thought. I figured he was getting ready to say he’d remembered.

“No,” he finally said, “I can’t quite remember anything like that. It’s been a few years, right?”

Oh, yeah.

Said Martin: “A lot’s happened since then.”

Part 3 of Willie, Almost Mickey and The Duke next week.

Posted on

RONNIE WARNER: LIFER, OBSERVER, COACH AND A CARDINALS’ DIE-HARD

Ronnie Warner, a Redlands High product from the 1980s, has spent his entire 32-year professional baseball career in the St. Louis Cardinals’ chain, rubbing elbows with the likes of Hall of Famers Ozzie Smith and Tony La Russa, not to mention future Hall of Famers Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina (photo by the St. Louis Cardinals).

Dateline, St. Louis:

Pop Warner is a household name around this Midwestern city.

Around Redlands a few decades ago, he might be remembered as Ronnie Warner, a 6-foot, 3-inch point guard in basketball, or a possible high school QB, even a would-be track sprinter, but certainly a baseball shortstop.

Get ready, Dodgers’ fans, because the St. Louis Cardinals had gotten a wake-up call after a few years of sub-par seasons. Retired Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa’s successor, Mike Matheny, was dismissed. Manager Mike Shildt, who led the Cardinals to three straight playoff berths, was fired last fall, replaced by Oliver Marmol.

Warner, a Cardinals’ lifer now at 32 years and running, is now coaching third base in St. Louis — his fourth season in that spot.

It’s a long and winding way from those days hanging around with his Redlands buddies Glenn Trunnelle, Jerry Requejo and Buck McGilvary. There was a shoutout for his old Redlands High baseball coaches, Bill Havard, not to mention Don DeWees.

“I learned a lot from those guys,” said Warner, who could also be remembered for playing point guard on the Terriers’ varsity basketball team. “Then we’d run into those Long Beach  (high school basketball powerhouse) teams in the playoffs and I’d find out just how good I really was.”

What he was really trying to say was this: How good he wasn’t.

In baseball, though, Warner was the skinny, no-power, no-hit kid that was in the lineup every day for the Terriers at shortstop. “They DH’d for me,” said Warner, chuckling, “because they said I couldn’t hit.”

Who knew what his future would be?

At some point, the kid went to his dad, Ron, now into his 80s, and said, “Dad, I want to concentrate on baseball.”

Concentrate, he did.

There was that appointment with Barry Martin, an academic counselor at RHS, who sat down with the younger Warner to chat about post-high school goals and ambitions.

Did he want to go to college? Play sports? The course set that day was more than helpful.

“I should’ve gone back to thank him,” said Warner, “because he really helped me.”

Armed with a serious plan, Warner left Redlands for Riverside City College. Afterward, there were near commitments to Univ. Pacific (Stockton, Calif.), St. Mary’s (Moraga, Calif.) and Cal State Northridge. Instead, NCAA Division 1 University of Wyoming came calling.

It’s where Warner stoked those fires that eventually got him drafted by the Cardinals (17th round, 1991). If you’re talking baseball history, you can argue whether it’s the Yankees, Dodgers, Giants or Cardinals that gets the most positive historical recognition.

 

The offer was for $1,000. Rookie ball. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. A scout called him to find out if he’d accept the offer.

“I had no idea I’d last this long,” said Warner.

Pop Warner? No, not the legendary football coach, Glenn Warner (Cornell Univ. and Stanford, among others) who has a current nonprofit youth football program named for him all across America.

Pop Warner, aka Ronnie Warner of Redlands, got that nickname from his first manager, George Kissell, in Hamilton. At practice one day, Kissell explained to Warner, not to mention all the other players, about the legendary football coach.

“By the time I got back to my locker, the trainer put a piece of tape over my name. It said, ‘Pop.’ ”

The nickname stuck.

Except for this: A few years later, when he was playing at Memphis, Warner heard someone calling him from the stands.

“Ronnie … Ronnie.”

“I thought, ‘no one calls me Ronnie around here.’ I looked up in the stands and it was Randy Genung.”

Genung had been Warner’s basketball coach at Redlands High.

“Another big influence in my life,” Warner said.

Forget his minor league numbers. Anyone can look those up. Getting to the majors as a player was another question.

“I think I was good enough to get there,” said Warner, who never got that call, “but I wasn’t good enough to stay there. I morphed into coaching. I used to coach some of the guys when I was playing. The organization wanted me to coach.”

In the Cardinals’ chain, he’s done everything from roving minor league instructor to manager at Triple A Memphis, Double A Springfield, Class A Palm Beach — 1,500 minor league games as a manager — plus a batting practice pitcher for the MLB Cardinals in 2000.

“The (catcher’s) throw went down to second,” said Warner, “and Ozzie threw it to me. I remember thinking, ‘Hey, I’m getting a ball from Ozzie Smith.’ ”

Said Warner: “We still reminisce.”

His best season as a player might’ve been his last, 1999, when he slugged a career-high 11 HRs and batted .290. Keep in mind that the Cardinals’ shortstop during Warner’s minor league years was either Smith or his replacement, Royce Clayton. By then, Warner was more a utility player than a fulltime shortstop.

St. Louis hosted the L.A. Angels in June, but that interleague duel didn’t include a return trip to the West Coast. The Cardinals were in L.A. to play the Dodgers this week.

He, his wife, Laura, and their kids are Colin, Ben and Callie, who live in St. Charles, Mo.

“The travel’s a grind,” said Warner, who started the 2023 season again as Cardinals’ third base coach. “Anyone who thinks this is easy … I’m lucky to have a good wife.”

She’s married to a guy with a household name.

Posted on

PART 1: “WILLIE … ALMOST MICKEY … AND THE DUKE”

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open and the Olympics, plus NCAA Final Four connections, NASCAR, the Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown

Talkin’ baseball. Terry Cashman. His song, released in 1981, seemed to summarize a special part of baseball. A musical contribution to baseball history. It surrounded the great center fielders in three New York boroughs – the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Cashman wrote about … “Willlieeeeee … Mickey … and The Duke.”

Duke Snider came to Redlands.

Mickey Mantle came to … well, as far as anyone knows, he didn’t come to Redlands. But his longtime friend, Billy Martin, showed up here at least once.

Then there was Willie Mays. I can’t honestly say that the “Say Hey Kid” ever set foot on Redlands soil. But me, the sports editor from Redlands, took part in a rare discussion that probably never came up in baseball circles.

It would’ve made a nice little change in Cashman’s song, “Willie … Almost Mickey … and the Duke …”

Say, hey!

Say, hey!

Say, hey!

Willie_Mays_cropped
Willie Mays talked about a “trade” that could’ve happened regarding a Dodger pitcher named Koufax? (Wikipedia Commons photo)

It was in the early 1980s. Bob Hope Desert Classic. Deep in the heart of Coachella Valley. Willie Mays, a golf lover, was playing in the celebrity Pro-Am, along with plenty of others from music, film and sports.

There we were in the VIP tent. Food was being served. It was the middle of the day. Willie had played his round. I was talking a break. Other than the serving staff, no one else seemed to be around.

Sitting at a table near him, I could just feel the opportunity. I grew up in the Bay Area watching this guy play in the twilight of his career in the late 1960s.

What should I ask him? Finally, I came up with something out of sheer desperation.

“Willie,” I said, “tell me something about your career that didn’t get much attention.”

He responded crudely, which shouldn’t have come as a complete shock. In sports, you often run into replies like that. In the clubhouse. In a locker room. On a field or court. Willie had probably been approached by thousands of media guys looking for something – stories, opinions, recollections, you name it.

He wouldn’t be talking – at least to me. It’s okay. I tried. No big deal.

Suddenly, out of the blue, he blurted, “We almost got Koufax.”

Huh? What? Say that again!

Yeah, he said. A year, or two, before Dodger southpaw Sandy Koufax really hit his Hall of Fame stride, the fireballing southpaw was stewing about how the Dodgers were using him.

Translation: Or not using him.

Apparently in Willie’s presence in San Francisco – likely at Seals Stadium – Koufax approached team general manager Buzzie Bavasi to request a trade.

Said Willie: “He told Bavasi, ‘you’re not using me. Why even keep me? It’s better to let me go. Trade me somewhere so I can pitch.’ ”

Willie said he jumped right into the discussion. “Trade him to the Giants,” he remembers telling Bavasi. “Trade him to us.”

There was some discussion. Wow! The Giants’ star player was discussing a trade with the GM of their chief rival, the Dodgers.

Willie was told by Bavasi to tell Horace Stoneham, the Giants’ owner who made all deals for the San Francisco-based team.

“Did you do it?” I asked him.

He nodded. “I talked to Mr. Stoneham. Didn’t hear much about it for awhile.”

Willie was chewing his food. Some guys were entering the VIP tent. Hoping that it wasn’t people looking for Willie – which would interrupt our chat – I prodded him a little.

“Any discussions take place about Koufax going to the Giants?”

Willie Mays nodded again. He was chewing. Swallowing. Didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to answer.

“They wanted Cepeda.”

Orlando Cepeda, one of baseball’s younger star sluggers, was a San Francisco favorite. He was an established star.

Koufax had yet to reach that portion of his career that would get everyone’s attention. At that time, Cepeda-for- Koufax might not have seemed logical for San Francisco.

(Funny thing, though, was in 1966, the Giants sent Cepeda to St. Louis for southpaw Ray Sadecki – not quite the same caliber of pitcher that Koufax had been. At least Sadecki had won 20 games a couple years earlier.)

Koufax had a little success in his early years, but had yet to really hit his consistently Hall of Fame stride. In his mind, apparently, the Dodgers weren’t treating him respectfully.

Between 1961 and his final season, 1966, Koufax was unhittable, unforgettable and, evidently, untradeable.

I summarized this for Willie Mays.

“Are you telling me that you guys almost had Sandy Koufax, Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry on the same pitching staff?” It would have been a couple of years before Perry joined the Giants’ staff.

Wow!

Willie didn’t answer. Just kept chewing. I wasn’t all that much of an interest to him. At the moment, though, I was the only one sitting near him to chat about this remarkable trade possibility.

“How close do you think this came to happening?”

I should mention this: During this entire chat, Willie Mays never looked at me. Not once. Didn’t have to, though. This was more than I’d bargained for. I don’t even know if he had even heard that last question.

At that point, more people started entering the tent. Food was being served. Willie Mays acknowledged some of the people he’d played golf with that day. My time with him was apparently over.

It was exciting, to say the least. I was practically finished with my sandwich and potato salad. I was nursing my drink when Willie Mays got up to leave. My heart kind of sank. I’d have really liked to get more conversation with him.

I watched him shake hands with a few guys.

“Nice to see you again, Willie.”

“Thanks, Willie.”

“Let’s get together soon, Willie.”

You know, typical sendoff lines.

Willie Mays was leaving. He’d walk right behind where I was sitting. When he walked past me, he said into my good ear (I only hear out of one ear), “Stoneham would’ve never traded Cepeda.”

One-third of the Cashman song – done.

Part 2 of Willie … Almost Mickey … and The Duke next week.

Posted on

DEE FONDY: REMEMBERED BY BUD SELIG AND WILLIE MAYS

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open and the Olympics, plus NCAA Final Four connections, NASCAR, the Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and more, the sparkling San Bernardino County city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown

In memory of the 1973 World Series:

Dee Fondy, an ex-major league baseball player who lived in Redlands for years, never seemed to show up in the spotlight. He was completely without fanfare. For an ex-big league ballplayer with some real time in the spotlight, Fondy preferred to keep his collar up and the brim of his hat down.

His son, Jon Fondy, said his late father never sought the publicity of local newspapers, preferring a low-key existence. A war hero and a local product (though he was born in Texas) from San Bernardino, Fondy was a golf-playing member at Redlands Country Club during his retirement years.

It wasn’t all that well-known, however, that Fondy was a premiere advance scout for the New York Mets — a spot that is most likely among baseball’s under-appreciated roles. A year after producing a scouting report that nearly helped the Mets win the 1973 World Series, Fondy landed a spot with the Milwaukee Brewers.

It was Fondy who scouted the defending champion Oakland A’s for the Mets in its 1973 showdown against a Hall of Fame-led team, namely Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, “Catfish” Hunter, not to mention a well-traveled manager Dick Williams.

The Mets, injured and suffering throughout the season, managed to package an 83-79 season together. It was good enough to win the National League Eastern Division.

In the National League playoffs, New York outlasted a 99-win Reds’ teams loaded with Hall of Famers — Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, manager Sparky Anderson, Tony Perez, plus Cooperstown’s overlooked non-inductee Pete Rose — in five games.

The A’s were baseball’s defending champions, having beaten the Reds in the 1972 World Series. This time, it was Oakland taking on the Mets, whose Hall of Fame talent included future Hall of Famers Tom Seaver, Yogi Berra and Willie Mays, who was playing his final season.

The Mets had a 3-2 lead in the Series, based off 10-7, 6-1 and 2-0 wins over the A’s in Games 2, 4 and 5. Hunter outdueled Seaver in Game 6, 3-1, before Kenny Holtzman beat Jon Matlack in Game 7, 5-2, for Oakland’s second straight World Series title.

Fingers, the loser in Game 3, saved three of those A’s wins. It took Oakland’s best efforts.

“Dad’s scouting report was in Yogi Berra’s back pocket,” said Jon Fondy, Dee’s son, who had produced the report. “They almost pulled it off and beat the A’s.”

Berra, a Hall of Famer, was New York’s manager. Part of Fondy’s scouting report had to be data that led to Mets’ pitchers holding A’s hitters to a .212 Series average with just two home runs.

The comparative rosters of both teams should have left Oakland in position to sweep the Mets, or at least take them in five games. Fondy’s notes on the A’s, however, gave New York’s pitchers a strong advantage.

One season later, Fondy was off to Milwaukee to join the Brewers.

Dee_Fondy_1953
Virgil Dee Fondy spent four decades in major league baseball, notably as a first baseman over eight seasons, later as an advance scout (photo by Wikipedia Commons).

Fondy, a lefty during his playing days, wound up with the young, expansionist Brewers – eventually heading a scouting department that signed Robin Yount and Paul Molitor. In the Brewers’ only World Series appearance, 1982, those future Hall of Famers were paramount in the teams’ success.

CONSTRUCTING AN OBITUARY

Upon Fondy’s death – Commissioner Bud Selig responded to a call from a local newspaper – to laud the career and life of the onetime Pirate, Cub and Red first baseman. Fondy had once been traded with Chuck Connors, who went on to fame as television’s “The Rifleman,” a CBS production.

Selig, of course, knew Fondy from his days as Brewers’ owner. Fondy worked for Selig.

In August 1999, Dee Fondy died at a retirement home in Redlands.

In his obituary, I wrote: “He played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds and was the last player to bat in Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Died of cancer. He was 74.

In the obit: “Fondy, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a year earlier, died at Plymouth Village.”

His death reverberated through baseball. He was well known.

While working on Fondy’s obituary, I placed a call to the MLB offices in New York City, seeking comment — a standard procedure. Baseball usually responded quickly. In this case, it was the commissioner, Bud Selig, who placed the return call.

Bud_Selig_on_October_31,_2010
Alan “Bud” Selig, a Hall of Famer as onetime Commissioner of Baseball, weighed in personally on Dee Fondy’s 1999 death (photo by Wikipedia Commons).

I was out of the office when Selig returned the call. Mike Brown, the news editor (no relation), took the call, jotted down Selig’s comments, and forwarded them to me. I must’ve missed the commissioner’s call by just minutes on that August day.

“Dee Fondy was one of my favorite people,” Selig told Mike Brown. “He had a great sense of humor. He and I used to kid each other a lot.”

FONDY’S MAJOR LEAGUE CAREER 1951-58

Fondy hit .286 with exactly 1,000 hits (69 HRs) over eight seasons in the majors, having batted .300 in four of those seasons. His debut, in April 1951, came just a month before Willie Mays’ legendary MLB entry.

Signed originally by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946, Fondy came to spring training in 1949 and competed with Gil Hodges and Connors for the starting job at first base. Dodger lore shows, of course, that Hodges prevailed to win that notable spot.

A side note, of course, is that Hodges was the managerial architect of that 1973 Mets’ team. Hodges died just before the 1972 and was replaced by Berra.

Fondy played in the Dodgers’ farm system until being traded, along with Connors, to the Cubs for outfielder Hank Edwards. It was a golden era of Dodger baseball that included Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, plus Hodges, Pee Wee Reese and a host of other highly popular Dodger players.

Fondy won a spot on the Cubs. His first major-league hit was a bases-loaded triple off St. Louis pitcher Ken Raffsenberger on opening day, April 17, 1951, at Wrigley Field.

Eventually, Chicago traded Fondy to Pittsburgh in 1957.  In that deal, the Cubs sent Gene Baker and Fondy for the Pirates’ Dale Long and Lee Walls. Midway through that ’57 season, Fondy was leading the National League with a .365 average, eventually finishing at .313.

Traded to Cincinnati for slugger Ted Kluszewski, a transaction mentioned by Tom Cruise’s character in the 1988 movie “Rainman,” Fondy’s career concluded  in that 1958 season.

In a remarkable twist of baseball trivia, it was Fondy who grounded out for the last out at Ebbets Field in Pittsburgh’s 2-0 loss to the Dodgers on Sept. 24, 1957. That grounder went to Don Zimmer, whose throw to first baseman Jim Gentile ended an era.

The Dodgers moved to Los Angeles the following year.

Jon Fondy had some fun memories.

“I ran into Willie Mays once and he said, ‘I’ve still got the bruises from the tags your dad used to give me. He was a hard-nosed player,’ ” said Jon, a freelance cameraman who has covered major league games.

Willie Mays
Willie Mays once told Dee Fondy’s son, Jon, that he laid some pretty hard tags on him. “I’ve still got bruises,” said the inimitable Mays (photo by Wikipedia Commons).

It was off to work, eventually, as a scout for the Mets and in Milwaukee, where he signed Molitor, who went on to a Hall of Fame career. Upon Fondy’s arrival, the Brewers took off to becoming a top-flight American League team that reached the World Series in 1982.

Fondy retired from baseball in 1995 after serving as a special assistant to the Milwaukee general manager.

“He was as good a judge of talent as I’ve ever known,” Selig told Mike Brown. “He played a great role in the development of the Brewers. I had as much faith in his baseball knowledge as anyone I know.’”

FONDY’S FUNERAL: ONE FINAL HURRAH

It was at Fondy’s funeral that several ex-players – Ray Boone and onetime Oakland A’s third baseman Sal Bando included – had shown up to pay final respects. Another funeral-goer was a man named Fred Long. For years, Long coached local baseball, eventually rising to becoming a major league baseball scout.

Fondy’s influence had been felt in Long’s scouting life.

Long, who was nearing 80 at the time of Fondy’s funeral, had plenty of stories to share, sporting a World Series ring — Florida Marlins, 1997.

Fondy, said Long, was one of the best guys he’d ever known. “And the guy knew baseball, too. You should’ve heard him.”

His minor league career included stops at Santa Barbara (California League), Fort Worth (Texas League) and Mobile (Southern League), each a Brooklyn Dodger farm club.

Before his climb into the major leagues, Fondy racked up 863 minor league hits, whacking out 130 doubles and 52 triples.

His career as a minor leaguer, major leaguer, scout and scouting director covered 1946 through 1995.

Isn’t it interesting that Fondy worked as a scout for the same Mets’ organization in which Hodges — who edged him for Brooklyn’s first base job — was the manager?

Born on Halloween in 1924, Dee Virgil Fondy’s death took place on Aug. 19, 1999 in Redlands. Fondy, a native of Slaton, Texas, served in the Army during World War II and was part of the forces that landed on Utah Beach in Normandy in 1944, three months after D-Day. He received the Purple Heart.

Fondy had also been survived by twins, Jon Fondy and Jan Cornell of Las Vegas. His wife, Jacquelyn, had died a year earlier. Fondy’s funeral was in nearby San Bernardino, almost directly next door to Perris Hill Park’s Fiscalini Field.

Growing up in San Bernardino, Fiscalini Park was where Fondy played plenty of baseball.