Home Game

by Bret Boone

  Okay, it was a small sample—he had a single and a double in five at-bats at the end of the 1948 season—but that average sure looks good in the record books.

  Gramps batted once in that year’s World Series, facing the Boston Braves’ future Hall of Famer Warren Spahn. He struck out. But Cleveland went on to win its first Series since 1920, and he soon settled in as the Indians’ shortstop. Teammates called him “Ike” for his resemblance to an Ike Boone who played in the 1920s and ’30s. Gramps hit just enough—a .301 average in 1950, .233 with 12 homers in 1951—to make fans forgive his erratic fielding. Remember, this was a catcher playing shortstop in the majors. But then, when the Indians finished two games behind the Yankees in 1952, some fans and sportswriters blamed his league-leading 33 errors.

  “Many people in Cleveland think we ought to get rid of him,” Indians general manager Hank Greenberg said. “Well, it’s easy to say a player had a bad season. It isn’t so easy to find a fellow who is certain to do better.”

  There’s nothing like a GM’s vote of confidence to make a player start packing his bags. Halfway through the next season, Greenberg traded Gramps to Detroit.

  Ray Boone was a family man by then. He’d married Patsy Brown, his high school sweetheart, after his 1946 season with the minor-league Wilkes-Barre Barons. He was twenty-three. Patsy was twenty-two. A year later she gave birth to a boy, Robert. My dad.

  Dad tells me he was at the 1948 World Series, but he might have fallen asleep by the time Gramps struck out against Spahn. “I don’t remember the game too well,” he says. “I was eight months old.”

  We Boones are a pretty athletic bunch. Patsy, my grandmother, and her twin sister, Martha, were synchronized swimmers who swam with Esther Williams in the movies. Martha went on to be a golf pro. My great-aunt Betty was one of the best softball pitchers San Diego ever produced. My dad’s sister Terry was a champion swimmer, and his brother Rod was a college baseball star who played Triple-A ball in the Astros and Royals organizations. And Dad’s uncle George played guard for Navy and made the College Football Hall of Fame. The NFL wasn’t much more than a minor league at the time, so George Brown went to medical school and became a doctor of some distinction. For one thing, he served as team physician for San Diego State University’s sports teams. For another, he delivered me.

  But we’re not there yet. Twenty-some years before that, preschooler Bob Boone was going to work with his father, my Gramps. Dad remembers riding shotgun while Gramps drove down cobblestone streets toward Cleveland Municipal Stadium, and watching a man use giant tongs to pull a chunk of ice the size of a TV set off the back of his truck. People still had iceboxes in those days, the original fridges.

  Gramps would park near the stadium, right on the street. His son didn’t know much about his job yet—Dad was only four or five—but he could tell there was something special about it. They’d walk past fans who wanted to shake his dad’s hand. These strangers would say, “Hiya Ray,” or “Have a good game, Ray,” and hand him programs or baseballs. He would write his name and they’d slap him on the back and say thanks like he was giving them a gift. And you know what? That’s just what he was giving them—a moment with a guy who had the greatest job in the world.

  That’s how he thought of it, too. Gramps used to tell Dad how special it was to be a ballplayer, and Dad told his sons the same thing. “Never forget you’re playing the best game in the world.” That’s something none of us ever forgot.

  Gramps got traded to Detroit, and then to Kansas City, and then to the Chicago White Sox. Each trade uprooted him and his family, but they didn’t complain. “It’s all we knew. I figured everybody’s dad might get traded,” Dad says. “I got to see different cities and see all the greats up close. Ted Williams, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle. I was eleven when my father got traded to the Kansas City Athletics, and they let me work out with them. Roger Maris played right field for that team. Whitey Herzog was a substitute. Then Dad got traded to the White Sox, and I worked out at Comiskey Park. They gave me one of Nellie Fox’s uniforms. It was big on me but not too big because Fox was a little guy. The ‘Mighty Mite,’ they called him.”

  The White Sox won the American League pennant that year. Early Wynn won 22 games and the Cy Young Award—and threw batting practice to my eleven-year-old dad.

  In the mid-1950s, Gramps hit 20 or more home runs four seasons in a row. His fielding troubles disappeared after the Tigers moved him to third base. He drove in 114 runs in ’53 and homered off Robin Roberts in the 1954 All-Star Game. He led the league with 116 RBIs in ’55. Gramps earned $28,750 that year, which doesn’t sound like much, but it was equal to about $200,000 today. Naturally he expected a raise after another All-Star season in ’56. But when he went in to discuss his contract with Muddy Ruel, the Tigers’ general manager, Ruel said, “Ray, we finished fifth last year. We could have finished fifth without you.”

  Like most players, Gramps didn’t even have an agent. It would be another twenty years before free agency and million-dollar contracts turned .220 hitters into millionaires. In 1956, with no bargaining power and only two options—sign Ruel’s contract or go home to San Diego—he signed.

  How big a raise did the Tigers’ All-Star third baseman get for hitting .308 with 25 homers the year before? He got a pay cut of $750.

  His knees were almost shot by then. He batted .273 with 12 home runs in 1957, and .242 with 13 homers in ’58, practically limping around the bases. A year later he was a bench player, a substitute first baseman. Managers now had someone pinch-run for him every chance they got. Gramps was hurting. When the Milwaukee Braves traded him to Boston in 1960, he pictured himself knocking doubles off the Green Monster—the left-field wall at Fenway Park. He’d always hit like hell at Fenway. But he was so broken down that he hit only one homer all year. Still, there was one thing he loved about that last season. One of his teammates on the 1960 Red Sox was Ted Williams, still playing left field at the age of forty-two—with an attitude, too.

  Gramps wasn’t like that, but he always respected Williams for being his own brash, supremely confident self at all times. He never forgot what Williams did back in 1941, the year he went into the last day of the season batting an even .400. Boston manager Joe Cronin wanted to give him the day off, but Ted said hell no. He played both games of a doubleheader, went 6-for-8, and finished at .406—the last player ever to bat .400. Gramps always called that the most impressive thing he ever saw in baseball. Twenty years later, he was thrilled to be Ted’s teammate, even if it was near the end of the line for them both.

  They did an old baseball exercise together. In those days players would drill a hole in a bat and knot a length of rope to the bat. They’d tie the other end of the rope to a ten-pound weight, then twist the bat, “reeling in” the weight till it touched the bat’s barrel. “Builds up your forearms and hands,” Williams said. Gramps loved spending time with his hero. He’d talk hitting with Williams while Ted went through his fan mail, and Gramps never forgot the offers Williams got for personal appearances. He’d hold up a letter and say, “Twenty-five thousand dollars to sign autographs.” Then he’d wad up the letter and throw it away. “Can’t do it. I’m goin’ fishing.” Gramps struggled to bat .205 in 1960, with that one lonesome home run at the age of thirty-seven, while Williams hit .316 with 29 homers at the age of forty-two. Then they both retired.

  Gramps finished with a career batting average of .275, 151 home runs, and 737 RBIs. Not like his hero’s .344, 521, and 1,839, maybe, but a damn fine career. And the Boones weren’t finished. Not even close. For one thing, Ray’s son Bob was already a Little League superstar.

  After his baseball career ended, Gramps couldn’t imagine working a nine-to-five job. He’d been a ballplayer his whole life. After retiring in 1960 he signed on as a scout for the Red Sox, his last big-league team. At that point the job had nothing to do with radar guns, which wouldn’t be invented for another fourteen years. In Ray Boone’s day, scouting meant using your eyes, your
experience, and your gut to tell the prospects from the suspects.

  He signed some good players, but the best one grew up right there in the house where Gramps and Grandma Patsy raised their family. Their first son, Bob, was a straight-A student and multisport star at San Diego’s Crawford High School. For a future pro athlete, Dad was pretty typical. Meaning great. Meaning special.

  Do you remember the most popular guy at your high school? The student council president who excelled at every sport, throwing touchdown passes, pulling down rebounds, pitching perfect games, and dominating at the plate? The All-American hero? Well, that was my dad. I don’t say that because we’re family. I say it because that’s the man he was and is. But you know what? The vast majority of high school heroes get weeded out long before they reach the professional ranks.

  And yet, millions of parents watch their sons dominate the local Little League and assume their little guy is headed for the big leagues. They forget one thing: There aren’t millions of spots on major-league rosters. There are 750. I’ll come back to this topic later. For now, just bear in mind that practically everybody who plays pro ball was a total legend in high school. And you still never heard of 99 percent of them. It’s hard to make a living playing baseball.

  It’s all about levels. At every level, from high school to the rookie leagues up to Double-A, Triple-A, and finally the majors, ferocious competition eliminates all but the most elite talent. By the time you reach the majors—or the NFL or the NBA or the PGA Tour—the very worst guy is a lot better than your typical high school hero.

  Take Dad, for example. He starred at third base for Crawford High. He was also San Diego’s best high school pitcher and the Crawford basketball team’s star forward, not to mention an A student (which he likes to mention). Stanford University offered him a scholarship, but all he wanted was to play major-league baseball.

  Gramps, being a Red Sox scout, asked him, “Would you sign with the Sox for thirty-five thousand dollars?” A small fortune, worth about $250,000 today.

  Dad said, “Give me the paper. Where do I sign?”

  But Gramps shook his head and told him to forget it—because Dad was going to college. He wanted his son to be a Stanford man. A smart man himself, he’d signed with the Indians right out of high school, and always he’d wished he’d had a college education. Gramps also knew that the odds were stacked against every high school hero who dreamed of making the majors. The smart play was taking the scholarship.

  My dad pictured thirty-five thousand dollar bills scattered in the wind. Four years of college, he thought. I’ll be a creaky old man with gray hair by the time I get out.

  Actually, he only recently turned into a creaky old man with gray hair. But I know how he felt at that age. Impatient. Dying to prove himself in the pros. Every young ballplayer wants to start his trip to the majors today, if not sooner. But Dad listened to his father. He put his big-league dreams on hold, and headed north to Palo Alto.

  At his first Stanford basketball practice, Crawford High’s hoops star got a look at his college teammates. “We scrimmaged a little, and there was no doubt I was one of the worst guys on the team,” Dad remembers. “I asked the coach if I could quit the team and focus on baseball. He looked relieved.”

  Dad had found his level in basketball. The weed whacker got him. Baseball was another story.

  He played third base at Stanford for four years, and while his grades could have gotten him into medical school, he signed with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1969. “I got a twenty-five-thousand-dollar bonus,” he says. Since that was ten thousand less than the Red Sox would have given him four years before, he figures, “I guess my college education cost me ten grand.” He reported to the Raleigh-Durham Phillies of the Class A Carolina League in the summer of ’69, the first summer when he could legally drink a beer. “The first surprise was how life in the minors was worse than college ball. I was making a hundred and twenty-five dollars a week, living on soup and hot dogs. My first minor-league uniform was so old and threadbare you could see my leg right through the pants. The ballpark lights were so bad you had to squint to see the pitcher. And I loved it because I was a professional baseball player.”

  Raleigh-Durham manager Nolan Campbell, a baseball lifer out of Weedpatch, California, took a look at the Boone kid’s range at shortstop—basically one step left or right—and moved him to third base. Dad made 20 errors that year, reminding a few old-timers of Gramps in his early, error-prone days. But he also batted .300.

  He was married by then. He and his high school sweetheart, Sue, not yet known as Mom, were teenagers when he popped the question after asking her father’s permission. His proposal wasn’t the smoothest. After a long dinner at San Diego’s best restaurant, Mr. A’s, he finally got up the nerve on the elevator to the parking garage.

  “Here,” he said, handing her an engagement ring. “Do you want to marry me?”

  At her bridal shower, her friends all gave her girlie gifts: tea sets and frilly stuff. It was Grandma Patsy who gave her what Mom calls “the best gift I ever got.” After twenty years married to Gramps, she knew what a ballplayer’s wife would really need. “I unwrapped the box and found a thermos, a seat cushion, a stadium blanket to keep my legs warm on cold nights, a scorebook, and a box of pencils.” Welcome to the life of a baseball wife and mom.

  Grandma Patsy was Mom’s mentor in that department. My parents were both nineteen on their wedding day in 1967. They had grown up together, but Mom had never been to a baseball game before she met Dad, so her mother-in-law showed her the ropes. She taught her how to keep score, filling in the little diamonds in her scorebook when a run scored, writing a K for strikeout if the batter swung and a for a called third strike.

  “You’re going to see a lot of ballgames,” Grandma Patsy said. “Keeping score keeps you interested.”

  She taught her daughter-in-law to pack a suitcase. “Always pack an electric fry pan,” she said. “You can use it to make a meal out of anything, anywhere.” She also showed Mom how to fold shirts so that Dad, who couldn’t care less, looked as sharp as he could. Then the newlyweds went on the road. Call it a baseball honeymoon. They rented rooms in Durham, North Carolina, a dozen little towns in Florida, and even in Alaska. Money was always tight, so the young wives pitched in together, cooking and babysitting for each other while their men—most of them nineteen or twenty years old—tried to prove themselves as pro ballplayers.

  A little less than a year later, Mom met Dad after a long road trip. “Bob, I’m pregnant,” she said. They couldn’t afford a doctor, so Dad’s uncle George, the college football Hall of Famer who went on to be an MD, pinch-doctored for free. He had to act fast, because Bob and Sue Boone’s first baby was in a hurry to get going. Dad was at a basketball game—the 1969 NBA Finals between the Wilt Chamberlain–Jerry West–Elgin Baylor Lakers and the Bill Russell–John Havlicek Celtics—when Mom went into labor. The word went out: Call Bob, it’s happening! He raced to the hospital, and came hustling in just in time to see his wife holding my minutes-old self.

  Mom remembers the moment. “Bob came in and kissed me. He took his first look at the baby and said, ‘Well, we’re batting a thousand.’ ”

  They had decided to name me Sean. But then Dad sprang a surprise. He was a huge fan of the ’60s TV show Maverick, starring James Garner as the poker-playing cowboy Bret Maverick. So Bob Boone went all maverick on his young wife. He said, “Sue, you can name our baby whatever you want, but I’m calling him Bret.” So I was Bret, not Sean—Bret with one t like the TV cowboy. Mom went along with the name, but she made her tardy husband promise one thing—if they ever had another child, he’d be there for the birth.

  Gramps had his own view of my arrival. He always said, “Bret came out of the womb hitting.” In a year or two I’d be toddling around his backyard, smacking Wiffle balls onto the roof with Gramps. Meanwhile, my dad was fighting his way to the Show—and the World Series.

  After serving a hitch in the Arm
y Reserves, Dad returned to the Double-A Reading (Pennsylvania) Phillies in 1970. Still minor-league ball, but a level up from Raleigh-Durham. The pitching was tougher, the buses and motels a little more comfortable. In 1971, his first Double-A season, my dad batted .265 with just four home runs. That was the year Philadelphia drafted a skinny shortstop out of Ohio University. Gramps, still scouting for the Red Sox, kept hearing that the Phillies planned to move the new kid, Mike Schmidt, to third base. Dad’s position.

  Gramps spent a few days watching the two young infielders in action. Then he told his son, “You may want to think about another position. Schmidt’s better than you.”

  “Gee, thanks, Dad.”

  “Can you catch?”

  At that point, Dad had worn a catcher’s mitt once or twice in his life. He said, “Hell yes. If that’s what it takes to make the big leagues, I can catch.”

  Two things I can tell you about my dad. He’s smart. And there’s no quit in him. In my book, that’s about the best thing you can say about a man.

  And so, at the pivot point of his career, he switched positions. It’s kind of weird—his own father started out as a catcher and wound up as a third baseman. Dad went the other way. A ballplayer does what it takes to get to the big leagues.

  Mike Schmidt hit .291 and clubbed 26 home runs for the 1972 Eugene Emeralds of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League. Emeralds catcher Bob Boone hit .308 with 17 homers. The last-place Phillies gave them both a quick taste of the majors at the end of the season. Then, in 1973, Philadelphia manager Danny Ozark put the two rookies in his everyday lineup.