Painting the Corners Again

by Weintraub, Bob;

  But I’m getting off the subject here. I tend to ramble a little when I get into something, as you Boston guys will probably find out during the season. I always say that learning a little more about one thing or another won’t kill you. That’s especially so for you younger generation people who never saw these things yourselves. You’re better off just letting me finish whatever I’m saying than interrupting my train of thought.

  I didn’t mean for you to think that Bobby and me knew each other growing up. If you didn’t go to the same high school or hang out at the same places, there was almost no chance for that to happen. Bobby and his gang played basketball at a place called the Hecht House, which was where the Jewish kids went for their dances and stuff like that. They got to meet girls from the neighborhood there who they didn’t know from school. By the way, back then a “gang” was just a bunch of guys who lived near each other and played ball together all the time. It was a word you could use without making people worry about what kind of trouble you were going to cause.

  Where I lived, we went to the YMCA to play ball and to church for socials. It was always tougher for us to get on the basketball court at the “Y” because everyone from all over Dorchester wanted to use it, even the guys in their forties and fifties with their two-handed set shots. But it was a lot better place to play in than the Hecht House. I got into some games over there after I got to know Bobby a little better, and you could kill yourself driving to the basket too hard because there wasn’t more than a couple of feet from either end of the court to the brick wall of the building. I could never figure out why they didn’t put some thick mats up against those walls—at least right behind the baskets—but they sure as hell didn’t. Not in my time, anyway.

  We had our bowling alley and they had theirs, although we were still setting up pins by hand a couple of years after the place they went to started using automatic pinsetters. That didn’t bother me, though, because working the alleys was an easy way to pick up a few extra bucks. And in those days there were movie theatres all over the place, so you didn’t have to go into some other neighborhood to catch a double feature or keep up with whatever serial they were showing on Saturday.

  I can tell by those looks you’re giving me that some of you never heard of a serial. Just another one of the finer things in life you missed out on. A serial was an adventure story that they broke down into about ten parts. They used to call them “cliffhangers,” and you got to see the next chapter every Saturday matinee until it was over. At the end of each one, the hero was going over a cliff in his car or was tied up in a building that was about to explode, something like that. You knew he wouldn’t get killed, but you had to go back the next week to find out how he got out of it and see which one of your friends had guessed right. I’m talking about the days when all it cost to get into the movies was twenty-one cents.

  My favorite serial was about Dr. Fu Manchu. He was a nasty character, a real villain with this mean-looking mustache. Whenever some cop or private eye got into his office trying to solve a murder or something, he pressed a button under his desk and the floor opened up where the poor guy was standing. You knew that if they weren’t dead, they’d be on a slow boat to China when they woke up.

  Anyway, about the only time I ever got into that part of Dorchester where Bobby lived was to play baseball on Sunday mornings. The games usually started in May and kept going right through most of October. You just played every week until not enough guys showed up to field two teams.

  There was this real tremendous playground over there, called Franklin Field. You could probably have eight ball games going at one time if no one else came down to play soccer or cricket or touch football. There was one diamond that was laid out beautifully at the far end of the field with a grandstand on the first base side that could hold a few hundred people. It was built out of concrete and had long wooden benches. I never saw more than thirty or forty people in the stands there at one time, except for the Fourth of July when it was jammed because they were the best seats for the fireworks show. For us, it was the closest thing to a big league field that we had.

  A couple of guys in tan uniforms with a City of Boston patch on the shoulder mowed the infield grass on that diamond every week and then did about another 200 feet into the outfield. There were no fences, but some of the players on the park league teams that used that field hit balls you knew were legitimate home runs when they went fifty feet or more on the fly past the line where the maintenance crew quit mowing. They fixed up the batter’s box with chalk, just like you’d see at Fenway. And they had white lines going from home down to the bases, but they didn’t bother with a coach’s box on either side.

  There were four more diamonds in the middle of Franklin Field, with a big wire backstop separating each two fields, home plate to home plate if you know what I mean. The teams that played soccer went to one part of the field that was all grass. Some of us used to watch it for a while but we never got interested in it. It was just boring. There was no action and no scoring, compared to baseball. On some Sundays the black guys who came from the Caribbean islands showed up for a game of cricket, dressed in white, head to toe. And there were always two or three softball games going on wherever there was a little room left. They just walked off the distance between bases and threw someone’s shirt or jacket there to mark each one.

  Each of the diamonds had a regular bunch of guys who showed up to play every Sunday morning. By eight o’clock there’d be batting practice going on at all the fields, and the game I played in always got started as soon as everyone there had taken at least three cuts. Most of the guys were in their late twenties or early thirties, but a few were a lot older. Two of them with gray hair were the managers every week. They’re the ones who chose sides. One always wore a Boston Braves hat, even after the team moved to Milwaukee. Mr. Braves was usually in a hurry to get the game started. He’d flip a bat to the other guy—his name was Pete and he wore a short sleeve sweatshirt every Sunday that said “Norwell” on it. From the spot where Pete caught it, they took turns making a fist around the bat and working their way down the handle until there wasn’t any room left. The guy who squeezed in the last fist got first pick, and everyone pretty much knew who the first seven guys on each team would be.

  Now the time I’m talking about is the end of my junior year at North. School still had a few weeks to go, but the baseball team had already finished up its schedule. I’d done real well in the league we were in and there were a few good stories about me in the local paper after some of the games. The guys on the team who got letters and were coming back the next year elected me captain, and my picture was on the front page of the Dorchester paper. So a lot of the regulars I played with on Sunday knew something about me. Besides, I think I’d impressed a few of them the summer before that when I started showing up in July and got into a few of the games.

  Most of the time I was somewhere between the twelfth and fourteenth player to get picked each week. It usually depended on how I’d done the game before. Mr. Braves would play me at first if I was on his team because he knew that was my position at school. But Pete was his own first baseman, so he’d stick me in left field or center, depending who else was on our side.

  Like I said, the first fourteen guys or so were pretty much the same ones every week, and there’d usually be about seven to ten more there, hoping to get on one of the teams. After both sides were picked, the extras usually drifted off, but one or two always hung around in case someone had to leave early or two guys got in an argument over some play and one of them said, “Screw this,” and took off. That happened a few times.

  Anyhow, I began noticing Bobby at the games because he had the letter “B” painted in white on top of each of his spikes. He told me later that his mother made him do it. She didn’t want to spend twenty bucks for a pair of spikes in the first place just for him to “waste your time playing with a ball,”—that’s how he said it. She made sure he understood there wouldn’t be a secon
d pair if he lost those. Some of the guys kidded him about it, and it bothered him until he started wearing a matching Red Sox cap with the fancy “B” in front. That’s when he stopped worrying about what his spikes looked like.

  Bobby showed up every Sunday, but both Pete and Mr. Braves always looked right past him when they were choosing their teams. You couldn’t blame either of them because he didn’t look anything like a ballplayer. He was short and pudgy—like he was in training to get as fat as he is today—wore glasses and had a pasty baby face. He swung righty, and if he hit the ball at all in batting practice, it was usually either a weak grounder or a popup to the right side. He moved pretty slow, too. But he always stuck around while we were playing, and tried to get someone else who wasn’t in the game to play catch with him down one of the foul lines. Once in a while, at the end of some 16–11 kind of game that dragged on all morning, he got in for the last inning or so when someone had to get home. When that happened, one or two guys always got moved around and Bobby was put in right field. In those days, the worst player on any team got sent out to right and then got crucified if he couldn’t field like Willie Mays.

  Okay, so this day I’m telling you about was the first time Bobby and I ever spoke to each other. We were standing about ten feet apart in the infield during batting practice—out at shortstop—when he asked me if I knew what college I was going to when I graduated North. I didn’t know who he was or why the hell he was interested, but just being there on a baseball diamond together made it seem okay to answer.

  “I haven’t thought about it, but my family couldn’t afford it anyway,” I told him. “You go to North?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding?” he shot back. “The eleventh commandment at my temple is, ‘Thou shalt not go to Dorchester North.’”

  Now that’s the kind of answer that could get you pissed off at someone real fast, right? I mean you’d figure he’s an asshole. But there was something about the way he said it, the same way he still is today after all those years. You could see that goofy smile on his fat face, with those two chipped teeth in front, and then he had a quick follow-up to show you he was just fooling around. “But if I ever have to get my car fixed in Dorchester, I’ll never take it to someone who graduated from South.”

  When I kind of half smiled at that, he said, “I’m at South, part of the college-bound crowd, same year as you. I’ve seen you play in school games and here too, and you’re good, in case you don’t know it. You could get into some college in Boston on a baseball scholarship if you had half decent grades. Did you take the PSATs this year?”

  For some reason I had, just on the wild chance that I might apply to one or two schools if I could get a big enough loan, and I told him. When he asked me my scores, I said I had a six-fifty in English and seven hundred in Math. That got him excited.

  “Holy shit!” he kind of hollered, “You’re a goddam genius. Your score would probably put you in the top fifteen percent at South. That means eighty-five percent of South is dumber than some goy.”

  He waited a few seconds and then asked me if I knew what a goy was. I’d heard the word before but I wasn’t sure what it meant. So he explained it to me. Then he said there was probably some Jew in my family history who passed down all the brains. But before I could tell him to get lost, or something worse than that, he gave me the toothy smile again and said, “Just kidding, I’m just kidding.”

  The guy at the plate hit a grounder to my left and it took a tricky hop just as I put my glove down, but I reacted fast and fielded it cleanly. Whoever was throwing batting practice was already in the middle of his next pitch, so I just flipped the ball back over near the mound.

  “Nice play,” Bobby said. “You know, you could probably get accepted to play baseball any place you want. You’ve got talent and smarts. You don’t need money or good looks.” And there was that shit-eating grin again.

  I felt real good about it when he said that. The guidance counselor at North had never said a word about college to me, and I knew that she already had a copy of my scores.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “Bobby Sadovitz,” he said. He came right over and shook hands with me although I never would have thought of doing it if he hadn’t made the first move. “I live over there, across the field on Wales Street. It’s that brown house on the corner.” He pointed toward Talbot Avenue, a main drag that ran next to the field.

  “You mean the one across from the gas station?”

  “Yeah, we’re on the middle floor.”

  “I’m on the middle floor too,” I told him. Then I asked him if he knew where he was going to college.

  “B.U.” he said. “They have a large quota for fat, Jewish kids, even those with a straight “C” average who didn’t crack twelve hundred on the exams.”

  Just then Mr. Braves started hollering for everyone to come in so we could choose sides and get started. Bobby looked around, and I could see he was counting how many guys were out there, figuring his chances. There must have been about two dozen. Mr. Braves and Pete were already on their third picks—Pete got first choice—by the time we got close to them. I was hoping Mr. Braves would get me on his side because I wanted to play the infield, but Pete took me sixth.

  After they both had eight players, Pete looked around at who was left. Some of them began staring down at the ground or turning their heads every which way. I guess they knew how bad they were and seemed almost afraid to eyeball Pete and be picked to start the game. But Bobby had a real eager look on his face and he had both hands around the handle of a bat that he was resting on his shoulder.

  I happened to be standing next to Pete just then, and all of a sudden he said to me, “What do you think, Jim? Help me out.”

  I looked at the hopefuls, pointed at Bobby, and told a fat lie. “I’ve seen him play in other games and he’s a pretty good outfielder.” I figured Pete was looking for someone to stick out in right field.

  Pete gave him the once-over and looked like he wondered if I knew what I was talking about. But then he said, “Okay, we’ll take the man with the ‘B’ on his spikes. What’s your name, kid?”

  “Bobby.”

  “You’re number nine today, Bobby,” Pete told him. “Play right field and hit last.”

  Bobby looked real serious when he shook his head to say okay. But as soon as Pete turned away, he gave me that big mouth grin of his, with one chin flopping on top of the other. I can still see it like it was yesterday.

  I know what you’re going to ask. The answer is that Bobby didn’t get any hits in the game or do anything unusual in right field, but he did help us win. The guy up ahead of him got on base twice to start an inning, and Pete had Bobby bunt each time. Well, surprise, surprise, he really knew how to handle the bat to lay one down. He didn’t drop his arms and show bunt until the pitch was on its way, and he held the bat just right to make nice, soft contact with the ball. Bobby moved the runner up both times and someone else brought him in.

  Pete made a point of going over to him on the bench and telling him he’d done a good job. He put his arm around Bobby’s shoulder the second time and said, “Nice bunt, kid. That’s the way it’s supposed to be done.” So I figured Pete would remember what Bobby did and pick him again when he was looking for a ninth man. And I was right. That’s how I first got involved with Bobby Sadovitz.

  Now let me tell you quickly what happened after that because everyone will be out on the field in a few minutes and I’ve got a practice to run.

  Bobby helped me get a baseball scholarship at B.U. He went through the whole application process with me, and I asked him to be my roommate. I could tell you a lot of wild stories about those days but we don’t have time for that right now. I’ll say this much. We became better friends all the time. We both liked living in the dorms and there was never any question about staying together from year to year. Bobby had some sort of moneymaking business going on all the time, it seems, to help pay his room and board. I w
orked with him on most of them to make a few bucks for myself. At one time or another we delivered pizza in the dorms, picked up dry cleaning, sold stationery out of our room and scalped theatre tickets. Bobby’s dad had a friend in a downtown Boston agency who could get us a bunch of tickets any time there was a hot show around.

  He also spent a lot of time playing cards for money, and he usually won. I didn’t mind leaving our room whenever there was going to be a game there that might last all night. I’d just go sleep in one of the player’s beds.

  My biggest contribution to his life back then was helping him get dates. I was B.U.’s best baseball player my last three years there, and that got me a lot of attention. There were always girls hanging around the team, and I could usually get the one I was going out with to bring along her roommate for Bobby. It just so happens, by the way, that I fixed him up with Arlene, his wife. They got married a few years after we graduated.

  The Cardinals signed me when I got out of school and I played in their system for three years before being traded to Cleveland. The Indians optioned me out a couple of times, but then I stayed with them for ten seasons, from ‘61 through ‘70, before finishing out my playing career with the Tigers. That’s when I got lucky, getting myself a World Series ring for being the 25th guy on the club when they won it all. I knew I wanted to stay in baseball, and Detroit gave me the chance to coach in “A” ball. Eventually, I worked my way up to managing at the top level in their farm system.

  Meanwhile, Bobby was doing all those things that made him as rich as he is today. He started as an accountant after he got his degree, and made his first bundle buying a lot of two-dollar stock when a company owned by one of his clients went public. High tech and computers were brand new stuff back then, and you had to have a real sense of vision about the future. I thought he was nuts at the time, that he was throwing money away, but he kept after me until I bought some of the stock too. I don’t have to tell you how big PlanetSoft is today. After a couple of stock splits, Bobby sold all his shares at about fifty points higher than what he got in for. And needless to say, I made a small killing on it myself.