The Smartest Book in the World

by Greg Proops

  The War and What Happened After

  WWII did not stop baseball, but it was a reality check on what was happening in the good ole USA while the soldiers were away “fighting for freedom.” Women suddenly had jobs and did them well till men came back and put the hammer down. Whites-only in baseball as usual, including older players and one fifteen-year-old. And if you can handle it, a one-armed man. Feel the inescapable indignity of being a star black player and seeing that white owners would rather play a one-armed athlete than have a black on the team. The owners’ excuse was always that the fans weren’t ready for integration. The truth was that they were governed by fear, prejudice, and greed.

  The man who broke the unspoken color barrier was an officer, lettered athlete, college football star, and brother of an Olympic silver medalist. There is so much to admire about Jackie Robinson. Smart, good-looking, poised, articulate, all-around great sports star. The courage and strength of character he showed are inspiring. It had not escaped the public’s notice that black people had fought in every war in the history of the land of the free and had just returned from the war against fascism and “racial superiority.” Yet these same soldiers were hypocritically not allowed equal access to anything back at home. Black papers were all over this, as were the Communists, who once had a voice in politics in America. The time was long past to right this. Baseball as the paragon of all things great like apple pie, and exclusion was the last to fall upon its doops. Branch Rickey, the GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers, signed him in 1945. No one in the game wanted him to. To a man, the owners in the National League voted against integration. The common wisdom was that black players did not have what it took to play in fast company and fans would freak out and riot. The commissioner pretended to support it. Rickey had scouts all over trying to find him a black player he could sell to the public, and Jackie was quickly on his short list. Jackie was a popular running back at UCLA playing on an integrated team, then a second lieutenant in the army. Robinson had fought his way into Officer Candidate School. He had the famous heavyweight champ Joe Louis pull some strings when they weren’t letting blacks in. One night in camp he got on a bus, and the white driver told him to go to the back. He refused and was court-martialed. Robinson won the case eleven years before lifelong activist and goddess Rosa Parks’s boycott in Montgomery.

  Rickey called him into the office in Brooklyn. Jackie had played a while in the Negro Leagues with, you guessed it, Satchel Paige, but he never liked it much. They were old-fashioned in his eyes, and he was from the West Coast and had not seen that much whites-only nonsense. He was too upfront to use the Negro-only restrooms and handle the treatment that those players were dealt. Rickey asked him if he had the courage not to fight back for the first couple of seasons. Robinson agreed. He played in Montreal on the Dodgers farm team. They won the Little World Series, and he was carried around the field by jubilant white fans. The next year he played in Brooklyn. The other players were not all warm. Opposing players rode him. The fans shouted horrible stuff. Ben Chapman, the Phillies manager, went out of his way to call him every hideous racial name. After a few months of abuse, the white Dodgers began to see Jackie’s side and started to fight back for him. They went to the World Series, and Jackie was Rookie of the Year. So much for the common wisdom. Baseball finally let blacks in, though it took another twenty-eight years to let them manage. When minorities own teams and run them poorly, then we can say we made it equal.

  PATER-NATIONAL PASTIME

  Pro baseball is once and ever a macho guy game, but Women are breaking through, and there are a few Women playing in the minors. But baseball changes slowly. In 1987, in a press box in Scottsdale, Arizona, a San Francisco Giants official said to me, “There will never be Japanese players in the majors.” This is the kind of foresight pro baseball is so wisely guided by. It is to be fervently wished that Major League Baseball allows some Women jobs as players and umpires and proves that it still deserves to be the National Pastime—a name they gave themselves. On that special afternoon we will sing “Express Yourself” by Madonna at the Reproductive Rights Dome on the WMLB opening day with Lady Gaga dressed only in a soft pretzel and President Chelsea throwing out the first pitch to Hope Solo III behind the plate. Field that dream. If not, fade away.

  The ’50s and Beyond

  There have been only two geniuses in the world. Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare.

  —Tallulah Bankhead

  Willie Mays is a hero. He still makes grown men cry just to recollect his derring-do. A genius of baseball, he would lay off pitches early in the game, knowing he could crack the same pitch later. He windmilled around the base paths looking over his shoulder at the ball. His cap flew off with every ball he chased because he wore a cap too small so as to provide excitement. Doris Day and Tallulah Bankhead loved him. He swung hard and connected often. Possibly with those ladies as well. He started as a teen in the Negro Leagues and finished as one of the greatest and most joyful players the sport has ever seen. He is also a frank man raised in Alabama in the Depression by his father and his aunts. When his godson Barry Bonds broke the single-season home-run record, Willie got up on that night and said, “I told him he couldn’t do it, but he did it.” At the 2007 All-Star game, he gave Ken Griffey Jr. his jacket, and that millionaire superstar jumped up and down like a six-year-old. That is Willie’s magic. He played like he loved it. He still loves it. That is why people love him.

  Mickey Mantle, the legend, the drinker, the errant dad, the belter of homers, came from the small town of Commerce, Oklahoma. His dad, Mutt, worked in a mine. Nearly every man in his family had died before the age of forty. So Mickey drank and chased as if every day were his last. Mutt named Mickey for a ballplayer—Mickey Cochrane—and drilled him endlessly, making him hit from both sides of the plate. Mickey was the best player in his tiny town and word got out. The Yankees sort of secretly and illegally signed him as a high school student. Mickey was cute and shy and had an “aw, shucks” personality. When he arrived in the majors it was evident he was the fastest player in the game and could hit the ball harder and farther than anyone else.

  He was awkward at first but grew to love New York, where he partied hard and had Women falling all over him. A horrible fluke injury in his rookie season came during the World Series against the crosstown Giants featuring rookie Willie Mays. Mays hit the ball to right center. Joe DiMaggio, who was coincidentally Mays’s and Mantle’s hero, was playing center and called Mantle off the ball. He pulled up and stepped on a sprinkler and tore his knee. He was never quite the same, and a million injuries and wild nights later he still turned out to be one of the greatest of all time. Straight-up immortal.

  The ’60s Did Not Start Groovy

  The parks were ancient and crumbling. White people had moved to the suburbs to escape being around nonwhite people. TV was paying the teams more. Clubs moved to the West Coast when the owners finally awoke from their alcoholic stupor and realized there was a whole country full of fans. Blacks and Latinos were now on every team—yes, it took that long—but were still often segregated on the road, having to stay and eat apart from the white players.

  The 1960s Cardinals finally housed and fed all the players together like humans and they came up with a team that won three pennants. That and the ferocity of their star pitcher, the tall, black, and intimidating Bob Gibson. He was a sickly child, but his older brother, a playground legend, never let him complain and instilled him with maturity and an uncommon drive to win. Gibson was an all-around athlete and signed with the legendary barnstorming basketball team, the Harlem Globetrotters, where he was great at dunking but did not dig all the clowning. The Cardinals signed him and finally paid him to quit playing hoops in the off-season. He hated his first manager Solly Hemus, whom he thought racist and who offered him little encouragement. When the Cards hired the encouraging Johnny Keane, Gibson’s career took off. He was notorious for never speaking to the opposing players and throwing at guys’ heads. He barely spoke to
his own teammates on game day and hated for the catcher to come out for a conference. He told Tim McCarver, “The only thing you know about pitching is you can’t hit it.” He went on to win two games in the 1964 World Series, giving up two homers in the ninth inning of the seventh and deciding game and hanging tough for the win. He then put on a big pitching show, winning three games in the 1967 World Series and winning MVP in 1968, and forced baseball to lower the pitching mound five inches since no one could hit him. Perhaps nothing more exemplifies Gibson than when facing Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente in July ’67—he took a line drive off his leg, shattering his fibula, and stayed in to pitch with a broken leg before the bone snapped. That September he won those three games in the World Series. That is crazy tough.

  Peter Rose is a dynamo. Infamous for his hairdo and being banned for gambling, Rose played for hundreds of years and proudly bore the derisive nickname Whitey Ford gave him when he saw him run to first on a base on balls: “Charlie Hustle.” Pete would dive headfirst on a steal, then leap up, dust off, and call time at the umps. He threw football blocks, tried to beat up a shortstop way smaller than him in the playoffs, played every position except pitcher, catcher, and shortstop, chased chicks, uttered the immortal phrase, “I didn’t drive two hundred miles to fuck my own wife,” and crouched low and whipped his unspeakable ’70s mullet back to watch the pitch pound the catcher’s mitt. Watching him was unforgettable. Booing him was required. Admiring his play was justified. He broke the hit record of that other great maniac, Ty Cobb. But Pete was not a sociopath or overly violent. He just gave 110 percent. He was in several World Series with two different teams. The truth is there wasn’t a team he was on that wasn’t better ’cause of him. He wasn’t fast, but he could run. He wasn’t a great fielder, but played infield and outfield. He managed, but was then caught betting, on his own team, of course. Gambling is the biggest no-no in the game. Remember the Black Sox? Pete got busted while the overly educated poet and chain-smoking didactic A. Bartlett Giamatti was commissioner. Most commissioners are tools of the owners and have the fortitude of a small, dyspeptic kitten. They have been, to a man, desperate corporate drones. They defend the owners’ rights, shit on the fans, and berate the players. Bart was, first of all, educated and pedantic. In baseball, if you read a book without pictures you are an intellectual. He was a Renaissance scholar who wrote many books. He was president of Yale and refused to divest the school holdings from apartheid South Africa. Giamatti did not actually ban Rose—he got Rose to consent to being banned. Rose is still a hero to fans for his tenacious play and never-say-die attitude. He did a reality TV show, of course, and can be found in Vegas signing stuff for money. The warrior player ran into the poet commissioner and the confusion has never ended. The irresistible force met the immovable object. The object passed this realm and the force is floating rudderless through the cosmos.

  On matters of race, on matters of decency, baseball should lead the way.

  —A. Bart Giamatti

  Like a Pope who died after just a few weeks in office, Giamatti has almost taken on the aura of sainthood; a philosophic scholar who descended on baseball from some higher level—or at least a higher level than most of the newspaper and magazine writers who quoted his pretentious, overripe prose with awe, without bothering to figure out the content of his precious emissions.

  —Marvin Miller

  The ’70s Were Fun

  The decade that featured Disco Demolition night, nickel beer night, the San Diego Chicken, Astroturf fields, polyester double-knit uniforms, Morgana the Kissing Bandit, and the designated hitter, the ’70s were the actual ’60s, since baseball moves at a glacial pace.

  Dock Ellis was a black man and a pitcher of some regard. He was also outspoken, drove a Cadillac with red leather trim on the outside, and pitched a no-hitter on acid. Yes, he did. Players have always used drugs, and Dock insisted that he never played a game without using methamphetamine. One June day he thought he wasn’t pitching and was at a friend’s house where he took some LSD. He was then reminded that he was in fact pitching that day, so he went to the park. In the stands was a Woman who always gave the players greenies, the speed of choice; he gobbled some trying to keep it together. He says he was hallucinating, could only see the catcher’s mitt in his haze, hit a few batters, walked a few more, and somehow pulled off giving up no hits while tweaking on acid. Dock said of this experience, “I was high as a Georgia pine.” Lest you think he was only a drugged clown, Dock spoke out against racism, claiming in 1971 that he and Vida Blue, another cool black star, would not get to face each other in the All-Star Game because they had never had two blacks start before. In the ensuing storm they both were allowed to start, a first for the great American pastime. He also confronted racists in the crowd by approaching their kids and asking to come over for dinner. The kids were always overawed and said yes and he went over to several people’s houses who had called him terrible names. That is activism on a one-to-one basis. Dock was once fined by the commissioner for wearing curlers, but more than that, after he retired he campaigned against drug use before his untimely demise. A real hero of real proportions.

  Reggie Jackson, a baseball phenom, went to ASU and had the audacity to date white girls. This did not go over well. When he got to the bigs he never stopped bragging about how great he was. He led the Oakland A’s to three World Series and the Yankees to two championships in a row. In his twenty-one seasons, his teams went to the post-season eleven times, and he won two World Series MVPs. He went to the Yankees and fought constantly with the hard-drinking manager Billy Martin, including a fight in the dugout on live TV. His masterpiece was in game six of the 1977 World Series, where he hit three consecutive home runs on the first pitch. He had hit one the night before as well, even though he walked after that at bat. According to baseball rules, a walk is not an at bat, so he actually hit four home runs in a row on four pitches. He got the nickname Mr. October, had a candy bar named after him, hit a load more homers, and was by far the most outrageous player of his day.

  Agents That Are Free

  The most significant thing that happened in the ’70s was free agency. The “reserve clause” that baseball owners had used to keep the players in servitude was finally discarded. Curt Flood, the sensitive Cardinal, had sued for his freedom and was denied. But Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally decided to play without contracts rather than submit to being owned by the team on a year-by-year basis. The owners freaked out and it went to arbitration. Arbitrator Peter Seitz ruled the players were not bound, and the owners who had been hoping for more power fired him. Marvin Miller, the players’ rep, had fought the owners and won. The players got the power of free agency and have bargained for lots of stuff like pensions since. The owners have kept possession of TV rights, tax breaks, and being greedy.

  The ’80s

  The players took coke while the owners looked the other way. The best team of the decade, the New York Mets, managed to win one World Series championship and stumbled around with their contentious superstars Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry. Players were openly buying drugs at the ballpark. Finally, there was a trial, and they sent a drug dealer to jail. Several players did time as well. No owners were harmed in this cleanup. The owners also colluded to keep the players’ salaries down and were forced to make small reparations.

  Mike Schmidt was a giant third baseman who hit lots of homers. He started poorly and hit under .200, which is shocking, but eventually caught fire and won three MVP awards and a championship for the Phillies, who were a doormat. The Phillies fans, by the way, distinguished themselves by booing him mercilessly during a slump. He responded by appearing on the field in a wig and sunglasses.

  The ’90s

  Boom arena baseball was born. The ’80s saw baseball losing ground to all the other sports, so chemically induced action was needed. Pioneering slugger Jose Canseco has had the brass to say he was juicing from jump street. The rest has all been chaos and conjecture. We have made our
feelings clear. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are the two best players of their generation. They juiced. The owners knew and did not say nothing. All the moralizing in the world doesn’t make them or any of the hundreds of others worse people or players. Ruth drank, Mantle drank, all the players have always taken speed or whatever to key up for games. Just like everyone in the regular, not professional, sports world. Let’s test the owners to see if they have taken drugs or if they even have a heart.

  Baseball in the Age of HD

  The fact that football is more popular today than baseball is not in the least surprising. One, the game is over quicker and the season is shorter. All this makes for a much more compact vehicle for gambling. The Super Bowl provides this one-off giant hit of gambling that’s worldwide, and that’s what people like. That’s like the final match of the World Cup or the Kentucky Derby or the Irish Sweepstakes or any of those onetime big-hit gambling events. People love to gamble on sports. It’s kind of the reason why there are professional sports. It’s absolutely born out of that. What about the pride of athleticism and the dedication to a craft and the discipline in bringing your entire mind and body to the equipoise of one specific task that you perform physically better than anyone else? There is always that. Plus chewing and spitting.