Foul Ball

by Jim Bouton

  “It’s the first thing I noticed,” he said, tossing the prospectus on the table. “And your opponents are going to notice it, too. They’re going to say, ‘See, they don’t have the money.’”

  “We’re taking the biggest risk,” said Chip. “If anything goes wrong before the closing—if we can’t get permits, if there are environmental issues, if we can’t raise enough money—we’re the only ones who lose.”

  “Plus we’re not taking any salary for two years,” I said. “And we’re both putting our lives on hold. I’m giving up other opportunities and Chip is completely shutting down his business.”

  “Nobody cares about that,” said Picheny. Then he offered some advice regarding his attorney.

  “You should call Jeff Cook.”

  “Somebody already tried that,” said Chip. “He wasn’t interested.”

  “You should try again.”

  We thanked Picheny and said we would keep him informed.

  Even before we left Picheny’s office we knew he was right about the money. Whatever Chip and I spent up front would have to stay in as stock. How much stock should we commit to? We came up with $125,000 each. Now all we had to do was explain it to our wives.

  “I think Steve is right,” said Paula, almost causing me to lose my balance. “It’s the fair thing to do.”

  “That’s wonderful, Babe,” I said, putting my arms around her. “We’ll get it all back and more when this thing is successful.”

  “I hope you’re right,” she said, looking worried.

  Later that afternoon, we called Picheny and told him we were updating the prospectus, based on his advice.

  “I knew you were stand-up guys,” he said.

  And Paula was a stand-up wife. Next morning, she wrote the first check for our share of the Wahconah Park bills to date: $15,000.

  A week after our meeting with Picheny, Chip was speaking with David Bassillion of the Chamber of Commerce. As part of our plan to sell stock to local investors, Chip had asked Bassillion if we could make a presentation to the Chamber. Bassillion doubted he could arrange that. Why? Bassillion said he had to be sensitive to who was on the board.

  Let’s see now, who was on the board? Among others, there were Mike Daly, Andy Mick, and Mike MacDonald.

  Then there was Downtown, Inc., a body that shared office space and some of the same goals with the Chamber of Commerce. This organization was headed by Mike MacDonald. But here we had Mayor Ruberto pushing hard for us. And to help clinch the deal, we even offered to have me stay home and just let Chip make the presentation. They finally went for that.

  “That’s outrageous,” said Paula, who would have made a good lioness. “How do you feel about that?”

  “It doesn’t bother me,” I said, matter-of-factly.

  “Well, maybe it should,” Paula said.

  The most disheartening response may have been the one from a group called WHEN, whose acronym stands for either Women Helping to Empower Neighborhoods, or the far more popular We’ve Had Enough Nonsense. This was the political action committee that got credit for having three women elected to the City Council.

  What happened was that Chip and I had been invited by a WHEN member to make our pitch at a WHEN meeting, only to have the invitation withdrawn by WHEN leader Laurie Tierney. Her email said:

  > We have decided not to get involved in issues,

  > other than to inform the membership that these

  > issues are out there…. We must inform you

  > that it is not possible to have you as speakers

  > on behalf of [Wahconah Park] at this time…

  > these are exciting, and yet precarious times

  > in the City of Pittsfield….

  It sure sounded like nonsense to us. But it didn’t matter. We shrugged it off, just as we had shrugged off the reluctance of Downtown, Inc. and the Chamber of Commerce. What did we need them for? After all, we’d been welcomed by the city. We had a signed license agreement. We had the mayor behind us. We had the Parks Commission. The City Council. The citizens of Pittsfield.

  And fans from all over the world.

  On May 11, in Pittsfield’s City Council chambers, the 1791 Broken Window Bylaw was unveiled to the world. It was a sweet press conference, and very well attended. The original document was mounted behind glass and displayed on an easel. Next to it was a pen and ink drawing of the town hall whose windows needed to be protected from flying bafeballs.

  Mayor Ruberto, a little nervous with all the TV cameras and tape recorders, had fun proclaiming Pittsfield to be “Baseball’s Garden of Eden.” And John Thorn confirmed that Pittsfield was, in fact, “the birthplace until further notice, let’s put it that way.”

  At the very end, I announced that “in celebration of finding the Broken Window Bylaw,” a vintage baseball game between the Pittsfield Hillies and the Hartford Senators would be played at Wahconah Park on the Fourth of July. Displayed on a table was a turn-of-the-century glove (no bigger than a hand), a vintage ball and catcher’s gear, and a mocked up Hillies uniform shirt.

  The coverage was sweet, too. Not just nationwide but worldwide, with a front page story in the International Herald Tribune headlined: BASEBALL DISCOVERS ITS ‘GARDEN OF EDEN.’

  “I see busloads of Japanese tourists,” said Chip.

  We were even going to have our own television special.

  Twenty-four hours after the 1791 press conference, Mark Durand, a producer at ESPN, called to say that ESPN Classic wanted to broadcast our vintage game—four hours, live, from Wahconah Park! This would be ESPN Classic’s first live game broadcast. (It was ESPN Classic that had canceled SportsCentury: Ball Four back in 2002, before airing it a year later.)

  The ESPN call was the big break we needed. Chip and I had always said we could attract a national audience, but we thought that would come later. Four hours on national television would put our marketing program ahead of schedule. Way ahead. Especially combined with the 1791 document, which suddenly put Pittsfield on the world map. And directly or indirectly, we were responsible for both. That’s got to win a few people over, we figured.

  How about Berkshire Bank?

  In a two-page letter to Mike Daly, Chip wrote:

  The Wahconah Park project, in conjunction with baseball’s newly discovered 18th century heritage right here in Pittsfield, has the potential to make this town a national shrine for baseball pilgrims… as a point of civic and personal pride I would like to see most of the investment and most of our 400 investors come from Berkshire County…. I know of no one person nor one business better equipped to accomplish that than you and Berkshire Bank.

  The July 3rd vintage game [the date was changed from July 4th to accommodate the ESPN program schedule] will begin with pre-game activities at 4:00 p.m. with a ‘Taste of the Berkshires’ food extravaganza, whereby the Berkshire’s best eating establishments will offer samplings from their menus under a big tent in front of the ballpark. At 6:00 p.m., a parade down North Street will feature local marching bands and the Hillies riding in vintage automobiles. Upon arriving at the Park, the Hillies will disembark and immediately take to the field of play. The game will commence by 7:00 p.m., following introductions, and will end with a fireworks display.

  ESPN expects to have ample time during the game to interview notable people in attendance, including individuals from the worlds of politics, business, entertainment, and sports. We would be pleased to have Berkshire Bank be introduced as the cohost, together with Wahconah Park, Inc., of this great celebration of Pittsfield’s baseball history and future.

  Chip asked Daly to propose to his board of directors that in addition to co-hosting the event, the bank become a major investor in Wahconah Park, Inc.; that the bank’s branches become the sole outlets for walk-in ticket sales; and that the bank be the sole sponsor of our official game program.

  Attached to Chip’s letter was a Berkshire Bank vintage billboard ad that I had prepared.

  After a presentation to th
e board, which included Larry Bossidy, the vote was unanimous: “They don’t want anything to do with you,” said Daly.

  And that was just one bank president. Angelo Stracuzzi of Greylock Federal Credit Union, Berkshire County’s second largest financial institution, was equally enthusiastic.

  “I’d like you to meet Jim Bouton,” said a mutual friend, who tried to introduce us at a Chamber of Commerce mixer.

  “I know who he is,” said Stracuzzi, with a look of disgust. “I don’t want to shake his hand.”

  I wondered if Stracuzzi’s greeting had anything to do with the fact that Cliff Nilan was on the Greylock board.

  If not the banks, how about Cain Hibbard?

  I didn’t call Jeff Cook, but I did call his partner Sydney Smithers, who was our attorney when Paula and I first moved to Massachusetts. I thought a good way to break the ice might be to offer Cain Hibbard some business, namely the intellectual property work for a variety of trademarks, including Hillies T-shirts, hats, uniforms, and beer (Hillies Summer Brew), and Pittsfield of Dreams T-shirts and 1791 Ale, all of which would be available for sale at the July 3rd vintage game.

  My phone call didn’t even scratch the ice.

  “This firm has been working for the good of Pittsfield for thirty years,” said Smithers, with a touch of anger in his voice, “and that’s not how we were portrayed in your book.”

  “I didn’t make anything up,” I said. “The quotes are accurate and the actions speak for themselves. It’s also the view of my partner Chip Elitzer who was a witness to the same events. We, too, felt we were badly treated, but we were persuaded by the mayor to let bygones be bygones. Let’s work together for the good of Pittsfield. I’m calling in that spirit.”

  “There’s something to be said for that,” said Smithers. “Give me a few days and I’ll call you back.”

  Two days later Smithers called back.

  “If you believe your book is accurate, you don’t want to be associated with us,” said Smithers, who sounded even angrier than the last time.

  “Reasonable people can disagree on the meaning of events,” I said. “We’re willing to accept that you have a different view, and move forward on that basis. For the good of Pittsfield.”

  “I spoke with my partners,” said Smithers, “and they believe the book is actionable or near actionable. You don’t want to do business with us.”

  Then he hung up.

  CHAPTER 20

  “Not in my wildest dreams”

  With the vintage game fast approaching—and no end to the work involved with our master plan for the ballpark—it was all Wahconah, all the time for the Bouton and Elitzer teams, which now included eighteen-year-old Sam Elitzer “as a force multiplier,” as Chip put it.

  To maximize efficiency, we divided the vintage game work. Chip: Food court (vendors, tents, sanitation), game tickets and food coupons (distribution, cash sweeps), parade, and fireworks. Jim: Graphics (logos, tickets, posters, game program, merchandise, hand operated scoreboard, and signs), Hillies uniforms, and equipment. Chip and Jim: Sponsors, ESPN liaison, and TV necessitated ballpark upgrades. Cindy: Bookkeeping. Paula: Music, costumes, and props. Sam: Whatever else was needed, which was plenty.

  Chip and Sam and I were practically living in Pittsfield. But now we took separate cars to multiply the mobility of our force multiplier. While Sam was handling special assignments, Chip and I would go to meetings with contractors about improvements to the ballpark for national television, and meetings with engineers and architects regarding estimates or permitting.

  We were getting a good response on the environmental front.

  “Thank you for being the first in the history of Pittsfield to actually send out the [Environmental Notification Form] to the local groups asking for input,” wrote Jane Winn of the Berkshire Environmental Action Team.

  My reward for all this, besides the fantasy of our dream coming true, was to try out for the Hillies. This involved asking Chuck Garivaltis what he thought about it, and Chuck saying he believed it would be a great idea, and his decision had nothing to do with the fact that the Hillies were playing with what amounted to my bat and ball. In anticipation of a favorable response, I had begun throwing a ball against the wall in my basement again.

  It also helped that ESPN wanted me to pitch to a few batters during the game. Who better for a vintage baseball game than a vintage pitcher? ESPN probably figured a sixty-five-year-old knuckleballer would attract the type of viewers who like to watch people wade through crocodile-infested swamps.

  The tryouts reminded me of my sandlot days. Guys wearing all kinds of mismatched outfits—shorts, uniform pants, jeans, hats, no hats, T-shirts, sweatshirts, and all of them with logos and colors representing everything from junior colleges to building supply companies. My kind of players.

  And there were a lot of them. More than eighty showed up over a three-week period. The fun part was watching them try to catch a ball with what looked like gardening gloves. At first, it was almost impossible. With no webbing, you had to catch the ball directly in the palm of your hand, which hurt like hell. If the ball didn’t land squarely in your palm, it would bend your fingers back, or break them. For the first few weeks, more balls were dropped than caught. A running catch in the outfield was out of the question.

  But these were good athletes and they wanted to master the vintage game. They also wanted to play for the Pittsfield Hillies. At Wahconah Park. July 4th weekend. On national television.

  Our fund-raising was going well. By mid-June, eighty-four investors had committed nearly $1 million, not counting the combined $250,000 from Chip and me. Our more sophisticated investors included a retired chairman of a large New York law firm, the managing director of a prominent New York investment bank, the chief operating officer of one of the country’s most respected venture capital firms, and a financial executive of Boston’s largest insurance company.

  Chip estimated the total net worth of our investor group at about $300 million. Unfortunately, less than 3% of the money raised was from Pittsfield, whose appeal as an investment locale seemed to be inversely proportional to the proximity of the investor (see the geographical breakdown of investors in the documents section).

  Our cost estimating, however, left something to be desired. Based on preliminary drawings it was clear that our wish list was bigger than our wallet and that we were not going to get everything we wanted for $1.5 million. A scaled-back proposal would get us the new third base line bleachers and Hall of Fame Walkway with clubhouse and restrooms underneath, plus a food court with twenty-four concession stands. But the first base line bleachers with clubhouse and restrooms underneath, the outfield fence-top bleachers, and the new dugouts with Not-So-Luxury Boxes above would have to wait.

  As the committed dollars were coming in, the real dollars were going out. By that time, Paula had written checks totaling $38,000 to cover our share of the expenses. And there were more bills on the way.

  Meanwhile, we were ahead of schedule on a few improvements to Wahconah Park, as a result of the vintage game. Most noticeable was a new paint job on the grandstand exterior, where we covered a hideous electric blue—a Jonathan Fleisig special that looked like a bridge primer—with a soft sage green. We also replaced the illuminated plastic Black Bears sign above the grandstand entrance with a hand-painted wooden sign that read: Historic Wahconah Park, Organized Baseball Since 1892.

  Inside the ballpark, fans would be greeted by another hand-painted wooden sign reading: No Spitting, Cursing, or Gambling Allowed by Ballplayers. In the outfield, we covered the electronic baseball and football scoreboards with hand-painted, hand-operated, wooden scoreboards that featured sage green lettering and white numbers on a dark green background. Like a page from a history book.

  Finally, to make room for our concession tents, we removed some rotting sheds and replaced an old chain-link fence with a new construction fence that quintupled the food court area.

  We discarded Chip’s idea
for a statue in the food court.

  “We could have you stuffed, like Trigger,” he said, “and posed in your pitching motion, with your hat on the ground.”

  “People could toss their gum wrappers in my hat,” I said, “and snuff out their cigarettes on my knee.”

  We had only one small problem. With a little over two weeks to go, we still had no staff—no ushers, ticket takers, cashiers, or parking attendants. What would we do if two thousand people showed up? An English soccer riot came to mind.

  The answer? “Booster clubs,” said Chip. “High school sports teams are always looking for ways to raise money.”

  A hastily arranged meeting with booster club leaders from three local schools—Pittsfield, Taconic and Saint Joseph—proved once again that Chip is a genius. For $2,000, and a rush order of official Hillies Staff T-shirts, we’d have 100 trained volunteers for the game. This would be in addition to the actors and the paperboys.

  “If it works,” said Chip, “that can be our staff for next year. That’s a lot of money for school programs.”

  “It beats standing in the road with a car wash sign,” I said.

  In the days leading up to the big game, Pittsfield was abuzz with the Hillies. Using John Thorn’s Treasures of the Baseball Hall of Fame as a style guide, I had posters made that pictured manager Garivaltis and his coaches, in deadpan poses, wearing period Hillies caps. Under the headline: VINTAGE BASE BALL AT WAHCONAH PARK, it read: Pittsfield’s best Amateur Players Coached by its Greatest Legends. The oversized (three-by-eight-inch) tickets looked like they could have gotten you admitted to Comiskey Park in 1918.

  The team was looking good, too. With a roster of twenty-seven players, which included a painter, a cop, a lawyer, a civil engineer, a real estate appraiser, a chiropractor (who broke a finger in practice), two carpenters, a lifeguard, a fifty-one-year-old school teacher, and a sixteen-year-old student, the Hillies resembled the town teams of years gone by. And they were learning. No more “sissy gloves” (their new name for regular gloves) for these guys.