by Bret Boone
The crowd loved it. For the first time I heard thousands of people cheering and clapping, not for Dad or the Phillies or the All-Stars, but for me. That’s a sound you never forget.
I didn’t fully understand it yet, but I was living a pretty special childhood.
While I was entertaining the All-Star Game crowd in Seattle, my mother was back in New Jersey, giving birth again. My second baby brother wasn’t going to wait for Dad to fly home from the game. So the 1979 All-Star break left Bob Boone 2-for-5 as an All-Star and 0-for-3 in the seeing-your-kids-born department. Not that it bothered my parents. After all, Mom had encouraged him to go to Seattle. “You can’t miss the All-Star Game,” she’d said. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” So he’d given her a kiss and said he’d be with her in spirit. As it turned out, he’d be with her on TV, too.
Jean Luzinski was there in person. The Bull’s wife spent the night in Mom’s hospital room, serving as her designated helper for the birth. Jean was one of the first to hear the new baby’s name. “We’ve decided to call him Joshua,” Mom told her. Then they tuned in the All-Star telecast. After the National League’s 7–6 victory, the postgame show featured some of the winners, including catcher Boone. He gave TV announcer Joe Garagiola a few happy comments, and then looked at the camera lens and waved to his wife.
“Hello, Sue! I was talking with the guys in the dugout,” he said. “About the baby’s name.” Mom saw what was coming—he was changing signals again, just like with my name. “We like Matthew.”
So Matthew it was. There’s another baseball first for the Boones. I’m pretty sure my brother Matt is the only person ever named on TV by a bunch of baseball All-Stars.
He was still in diapers while my unusual childhood ramped up in the early ’80s. Aaron was four years behind me, getting bigger and better all the time, but hustling to keep up with my friends and me. For reasons we both forgot long ago, I called him “Arnie.” Maybe it sounded less formal than “Aaron.” Anyway, kid brother Arnie and I spent so many school nights and weekends running around Veterans Stadium that we thought of the place as our second home.
I still remember the layout of the clubhouse. Greg Luzinski’s locker was in the corner, next to Larry Bowa’s. Bowa’s was next to Mike Schmidt’s. Dad’s locker was two over from Schmidt’s, and Carlton’s was two over from Dad’s. And with our own locker and little uniforms, Aaron and I were charter members of the Phillies-kids’ club. Along with Ryan Luzinski, Petey Rose, and Marky McGraw we had carte blanche in the clubhouse, without knowing how special that freedom was.
We got to know the World Champion Phillies in a way fans could only dream of—and not just because we saw them walking around naked, sipping postgame beers and flipping towels at each other. When the stars were out on the field, people in the stands yelled out to them, asking for autographs, calling them Mr. Schmidt or Mr. Luzinski, but to us they were Schmitty and Bull. I remember the tall, quiet Carlton, who always looked like he was thinking deep thoughts, and Dallas Green, the gray-haired manager, who was even taller. There was Tug, the clubhouse jokester, always looking like he didn’t have a care in the world. He was the one who set an example for me by catching batting-practice fungoes behind his back. And then there was Garry Maddox, an outfielder with an Afro that bulged out from under his helmet to join his sideburns and his curly beard. Maddox was so fast they used to say that the oceans covered three-quarters of the earth’s surface, and he covered the rest. And as much as I looked up to those guys, my real backstage buddy was bigger than any of them and greener than any rookie. He was six foot six, 300 pounds, with crossed eyes, purple eyebrows, and a ninety-inch waist.
The Phillie Phanatic was the best mascot in sports. He came along a few years after the San Diego Chicken, a kind of hyper version of Big Bird, and got a lot of attention. In 1978, Phillies GM Bill Giles said, “We need more excitement in the Vet. Let’s get a mascot.” Next thing you know the Phanatic was driving an ATV around the stadium, shooting hot dogs into the stands. He’d dance on the home dugout, hex the opposing pitcher, spray Silly String on bald fans’ heads, even wrestle with the Dodgers’ colorful manager, Tommy Lasorda.
The guy inside the green shag-carpet costume was Dave Raymond, and to me he was almost as cool as Lefty, Schmitty, and the other players. I used to hang out in his dressing room under the stands, keeping him company between innings. Dave was a twenty-two-year-old PR intern, not much more than a kid himself, when he invented the Phanatic. His dad, Tubby Raymond, was the football coach at the University of Delaware, which probably helped him get the gig but didn’t make him rich. The Phillies paid him twenty-five dollars a game for amusing thousands of fans in that big furry costume, which was so cumbersome that he needed an assistant—another intern—to help put his head on. And as tough as it is to hit in the big leagues, Dave’s job might have been tougher at times. During day games in July and August, the Astroturf field at the Vet got so hot that it was like stepping in a frying pan. It was basically a half-inch layer of plastic carpet over cement. You could see waves of heat coming up off the field. He’d be sweating rivers when he came off the field, guzzling Gatorade in his cramped little dressing room. But Dave was a good-natured Phanatic, willing to put up with a grade school kid’s questions.
“What planet is the Phanatic supposed to be from?” I asked.
“Earth,” he told me. “He’s from the Galapagos Islands.”
“What does he eat?”
“Hot dogs and Silly String.”
“How hot is it in that suit? A hundred? Two hundred?”
That’s the question that pained him. “Little Boonie,” he said, “you don’t wanna know.” Then he’d duck his head to let his assistant put his Phanatic head back on. The assistant was a member of the Hot Pants Brigade, a cute girl in short shorts and white boots—another reason I liked following the Phanatic around.
Some people didn’t like the Phanatic. Baseball purists, mostly. Lasorda hated him, especially after the Phillies whipped Tommy’s Dodgers in the 1983 National League Championship Series. Tommy was a sore loser who didn’t appreciate it when the Phanatic carried a mannequin in a Dodgers jersey—a jersey with LASORDA on the back—and started kicking and stomping the dummy. That brought the real Lasorda running out of the L.A. dugout to attack the Phanatic in one of the dumbest baseball brawls ever. YouTube it—it’s hilarious.
The Phanatic was one of my heroes. Not just because he was funny or because he was nice to me when I was a kid, but because he was a gamer. He gave his best every day and never griped.
I lived for home stands. If my dad didn’t take me to the ballpark with him, my day was ruined.
The manager, Green, was an intimidating figure, but he let me take hitting and fielding practice with the team. That’s something that never happens in today’s more corporate game. And it mattered. I think it helped make us ballplayers. Far from being intimidated when we made the majors almost twenty years later, Aaron and I felt like we belonged. And while we didn’t get formal instruction from Dad and his teammates, if you’re taking hacks in the batting cage and Mike Schmidt says, “Get your hands a little higher,” you listen.
But I wasn’t really looking for technical advice. I was born to swing a bat. What really made a difference was something more like osmosis. More like soaking up what it means to be a big leaguer. Growing up around some of the best players in the game, you can’t help picking up on their habits. Not just how a big leaguer acts and moves and talks, but how he believes in himself. How he acts and talks the same way if he hits two home runs or goes 0-for-4, if he’s a gamer.
Pete Rose was one of the all-time gamers. He used to sit in the dugout with his son, Petey, who was about my age. He’d say, “You don’t have to think, just look. Look at how Joe Morgan plays second base. Watch Schmitty play third. Watch me. That’s how to play this game.”
Yes, Rose gambled on baseball, and that’s one of the game’s mortal sins. Major League Baseball Rule 21(d) is posted in ever
y clubhouse:
Any player, umpire, or club official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has no duty to perform shall be declared ineligible for one year. Any player, umpire, or club official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible.
The rule doesn’t say anything about the Hall of Fame. The Hall changed its policy to keep ineligible players out in 1991, after Rose lost his job as the Reds’ manager for betting on his team. As a player, my dad’s teammate Pete had 4,256 base hits. Go back and look at that number for a second. Four thousand two hundred and fifty-six hits is more than 21 years’ worth of 200 hits a year. It’s not just 67 more hits than Ty Cobb had in his 24-year career, it’s almost 1,000 more than Willie Mays had in his 22-year career. There may be spitballers, racists, drug addicts, and all-around bad guys in the Hall of Fame, but there’s no room for a player who had almost half again as many hits as Tony Gwynn or Rod Carew or Wade Boggs? More often than not, the Hall of Fame voting is a joke. Pete Rose was a 17-time All-Star who won the Rookie of the Year award, an MVP award, three batting titles, two Gold Gloves, and a World Series MVP. On the field, at least, he epitomized what a ballplayer should be.
Okay, he was a family friend, too. But friendship has nothing to do with my views about the Hall of Fame. In fact, Pete was no big fan of mine, at least at first. Watching batting practice in the early ’80s, he’d tell his son to watch Morgan and Schmitty and the others, and then he’d point out one lousy example.
“Look at Boone’s kid out there,” he’d tell Petey. “Stylin’ and showboating, catching long fly balls behind his back. That’s not the way to be.” Of course, this was coming from baseball’s leading showboat, a guy who sprinted to first on walks and spiked the ball on the stadium’s Astroturf after third outs. But let’s give Pete a break. He was never the top talent in the game, but to me, he was always the ultimate ballplayer.
Pete had a name for me, too: “mullion.” That was a ballplayer’s word for an ugly girl, but he gave it to anybody he wanted to needle. Some nights when I’d go home from a game with him and Petey, and sleep over at their house, Pete would wake me for breakfast, saying, “C’mon, mullion, up and at ’em. But don’t look in the mirror—you’ll break it.” That didn’t bother me. I thought I was pretty cute. Pete’s view of my “showboating” didn’t bug me, either. We just didn’t see eye to eye about that, and being old didn’t make him right. I didn’t see my outfield catches as stylin’ or showing off. I saw them as fun.
It all seemed normal at the time, but now I keep thinking how abnormal my childhood was. In a good way.
I liked to sit in the clubhouse with Manny Trillo, helping him paint his gloves. Manny, the second baseman from Venezuela, liked them black. Rawlings didn’t make black gloves yet—that came later—so I’d help him use shoe polish to get the job done. He didn’t speak much English, and my Spanish was pretty much limited to bueno, beisbol, and caca cabeza (poop head), but he’d ruffle my hair and call me niño simpático.
During games, I sat in the dugout every chance I got. That was a game-time decision, depending on how the team was doing. If the Phillies were winning, Green let the players’ kids into the dugout. If they were losing, we were expected to disappear. Nobody had to tell us. Dad would give me a look—See ya. I’d head for the Phanatic’s dressing room, or other parts of the stadium the fans never saw. Players’ kids could join our moms in the wives’ and girlfriends’ section behind home plate, but sitting still for nine innings was more than our preteen attention spans could handle. We hit against pitching machines in the batting cages under the stands. We played tapeball in the equipment room. Or pickle, a tag-the-runner game you might know as “rundown,” in the hallway outside the clubhouse. We followed hot dog and peanuts–and–Cracker Jack sellers up and down the aisles. I liked the ones who fired packs of peanuts to customers with behind-the-back throws. Just showin’ off! A couple of them had control like Carlton. They never missed.
When that got boring, my brother and I would watch a few innings.
I liked to sit with the grounds crew. They were hardworking guys who got paid even less than the Phanatic. I used to sit on a rolled-up tarp talking with them, just me and these “old guys,” some of them nineteen or twenty. They’d needle me if Dad had a bad at-bat. “Oh, you got the strikeout gene!” Not to be nasty, just to see if I’d get mad. There’s no needle like a baseball needle; it’s usually good-natured, but with an edge. If you’re touchy, it can get under your skin. The thing to do is needle the needler right back.
I’d say, “Don’t worry about Dad striking out. I’ll make up for that one someday.”
They liked that. And they weren’t really ripping Dad anyway. They knew that he hardly ever struck out. And while he might not have been one of the big stars, he was a Phillie and they loved him. When the Phils won and we watched Dad shake hands with the pitcher and walk off the field with his teammates, the grounds crew guys would pat me on the back like I had something to do with it.
Once a year, the Phillies put on a father-and-son game at the Vet. They moved the bases in to Little League dimensions. Carlton and Tug McGraw pitched underhand. The other dads kicked ground balls and made blooping throws so their kids could be safe on every play, and the next day’s Inquirer would run pictures of all the smiles and fun family moments of the father-and-son game. I wasn’t in those pictures because I wasn’t smiling. I was twelve years old, and I was pissed. Because I didn’t want any free outs. I wanted to win the father-son game. Don’t condescend to me, Bull! You better play me deeper, Schmitty! Sometimes I’d smoke a liner up the middle. The dad who was pitching would back up and throw overhand, trying to get me out. Even then I’d foul the ball off or hit a grounder. Then I’d run past the shorter bases to the full-field sliding pits because I came to play.
Rose used to act a little annoyed at my antics. He liked to tag me out. “Yer out, mullion. Now get off the field.” But then he’d grin and give me a slap on the back pocket.
I was a B student at school. Not too good, not too bad, not too interested. No straight-A’s Bob Boone type, that’s for sure. The schooling that mattered to me was going on at Veterans Stadium. Before I ever got to elementary school, I knew where I was going in life—nowhere but the big leagues. If you’d asked if I planned on going to college, I would have said, “Why?” I must have been three or four years old the first time Gramps asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I told him I was going to be a ballplayer like him. When Dad asked the same question, I said I was going to be a ballplayer like him, only better.
Our dinner table talk revolved around a particular subject. You can guess what it was. As Dad likes to say, “If you put a bunch of Boones around a table, we won’t be talking about modern art.”
We talked baseball day and night, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snack. Shop talk was the background noise of my boyhood.
“Warren Spahn!” Gramps would say. “Now there’s a pitcher. Do you know he struck me out in the World Series?”
Dad would nod and say, “Yes, sir, we have heard that. Nineteen forty-eight, Boston Braves against the Indians. But you were only a rookie.”
“Warren Spahn! There’s never been a better left-hander.”
“Well, there was Koufax…”
“Better than Spahn?”
“…and I’ve been catching a fellow name of Carlton. He won twenty-three games last year and struck out two hundred eighty-six. That’s about a hundred more K’s than Spahn in his best year.”
Gramps wasn’t convinced. I don’t think there was ever a man who was prouder of his generation. “Carlton’s good,” he admitted. “But did he face Joe DiMaggio? Did he face Ted Williams?”
Sometimes Dad pushed back. Sometimes he said no, Lefty Carlton never faced DiMag or Williams, but he faced Tony Gwynn and George Brett. Mostly
, though, he let Gramps sound off. It was only after Aaron and I got to the big leagues that our dinner table talks would get really interesting. When we were little, Dad, the ever-respectful son, let Gramps sound off on the wonderfulness of the olden days, his playing days. After all, Gramps was our patriarch. We owed him everything. Suppose he’d followed his father into the carpentry business instead of running off to play pro baseball—today we might be Boone & Sons, Woodworkers. And while there’s nothing wrong with carpentry, it would have taken a lot longer to make a million dollars.
And thanks to Marvin Miller and the players’ union, Dad was earning almost a million a year in the ’80s. Aaron and I were earning postgame Slurpees for Little League victories.
With Mom in the bleachers, keeping score, little brother and I dominated local and regional competition. (Matt would do the same a few years later.) Travel teams were still new in the ’80s, not nearly as dominant as they are now, but we dominated them, too. It was like the other teams were playing in slow motion. I mean, at the same age other players were trying to catch pop-ups and hit 50-mph fastballs, I was snagging warning-track drives and smacking 75-mph fastballs during major-league batting practice. Compared to that, Little League wasn’t just easy. It was too easy. So I tried mixing things up.