by Lee Gutkind
Wendelstedt had been a raw rookie then, in the first month of his first year of major league ball. The night in question he worked a game in Los Angeles and had had a rough time behind the plate; he had been involved in two controversial calls and was eventually forced to eject Dodger Manager Walter Alston. It was his first ejection in the major leagues and Wendelstedt cursed Providence for making it Alston.
He was the junior man of a crew comprised of Shag Crawford, Ed Vargo, and Doug Harvey. After the game Harvey went to meet his wife, who was visiting from San Diego; Crawford and Vargo were planning to dine with friends. All alone, tired, and somewhat deflated in spirit and confidence, Wendelstedt wandered into the Hollywood Roosevelt Cinegrill, across the street from Graumann’s Chinese Theatre. He sat down at the bar next to an old man with bristly gray hair, who was wearing an old-fashioned, double-breasted, pin-striped gray suit.
For a while, Wendelstedt sat and stared into the mirror behind the bar, sipping Scotch, and regretting every minute he had ever spent in baseball. He had worked four years before being called up to the majors—an unusually brief apprenticeship before reaching the top of his profession—but still, he had worked damn hard. Now here he was, all alone, perhaps the most hated man in Los Angeles at that moment. It just didn’t seem fair.
Wendelstedt watched the band assemble on stage for their next set, then watched as the bandleader in a shiny black tuxedo approached the microphone to announce that the next half hour of music would be dedicated to Sam Messenheimer, the composer of scores for many movies, most especially the Wizard of Oz.
The music soothed Wendelstedt; old music almost always delighted him. And the music tonight brought back memories of an old movie house near Baltimore and the Sunday afternoon when his parents had taken him to see the Wizard of Oz. The memory was pleasant but it also made him homesick. He had come so far and traveled so fast since that lazy, hometown, suburban Sunday years ago; it was a long way from the rage and ridicule he had so recently confronted on the field. He ordered another Scotch and turned to the old man beside him. “Boy, that’s pretty music,” Wendelstedt said.
“I like it,” said the old man, wrinkling his sun-bronzed leathery cheeks in a smile. “It sure beats rock and roll.”
“I like all music,” said Wendelstedt, “but tonight this just fits my mood; it reminds me of old and pleasant times.”
“Same way I feel,” said the man, nodding. “I remember a lot of pleasant moments, listening to this stuff.”
“Yeah,” said Wendelstedt. “I had a bad day today, but this makes me feel a lot better.”
“Sorry to hear that. Me? I had a wonderful day. I went to the ball game.”
Wendelstedt grimaced, but remained silent. He began to turn away, but the old man continued speaking.
“Of course, when I go to the baseball game, I don’t care who wins or loses; I don’t have any favorite players. Me, I got a thing I like to do, never met anybody else but me who liked to do it, but I get a real kick out of watching the umpires. I go to as many baseball games as I possibly can, but all I ever care about is watching the umps.”
“What the hell for?” asked Wendelstedt, incredulously.
“I don’t know. Oh, I guess I do. I’m fascinated with anonymity, the people behind the big plays and the big names. For example, everybody remembers Judy Garland from the Wizard of Oz, but who knows Sam Messenheimer? Nobody.” His smiled faded momentarily to sadness, but then he shrugged and said: “Listen, did you see the game?”
Wendelstedt nodded.
“The most exciting parts of the game were two controversial plays at the plate and an argument over the second play between Walter Alston and the umpire. Right? Now that game wouldn’t have been worth anything without that argument. I mean, it was a boring game until the rhubarb made it exciting, and the umpire made the rhubarb. I mean, he didn’t start it, but without the umpire, there wouldn’t have been an argument. The ump was a young fella named Harry Wendelstedt, a big guy, but still, we wouldn’t know him in a thousand years if he came here. And you wouldn’t know this guy Messenheimer, either. But without Messenheimer’s music for Judy Garland to sing, without Wendelstedt for Walter Alston to dispute with, without them, where would we be? It would be an awfully dull life.”
“You’re putting me on,” said Wendelstedt angrily, his large hand rolling into a sledge of fist. “I had a bad time tonight and I’m just not up to being put on.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” said the man, who was suddenly getting angry too. “You know, I’m under a lot of strain tonight myself and I don’t need no young punk to make it worse. You started talking to me first, I didn’t speak to you.”
“If you weren’t such a goddamn old geezer, I’d punch you right in the mouth,” Wendelstedt nearly yelled. “I don’t like being put on.” A number of people had turned to listen to the argument, but at that moment he didn’t really care. For an instant he felt as if he were confronting Walter Alston all over again, jawing at home plate.
“What the hell are you talking about?” the old man repeated, lifting himself from his bar stool and curling his fists. “I may not be your age, but I’ll fight you any time you’re ready.”
Wendelstedt almost laughed at the frail old man. Why, Doug Harvey could knock him cold with a splat of tobacco juice, he thought. “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he said, “I’m Harry Wendelstedt.”
“No!” The old man peered intently through the dark at Wendelstedt’s face.
“That’s right.”
“No.”
“I’m telling you.”
“And you know who I am?” said the old man.
“I suppose you’re Sam Messenheimer,” said Wendelstedt sarcastically.
“Right.”
“No.”
“I’m telling you.”
Immediately, they whipped out their wallets and exchanged driver’s licenses. Both men had to read each other’s identification two or three times to believe what had happened.
From then on, there would be two tickets waiting for Sam Messenheimer at the Los Angeles Dodgers’ press gate whenever Wendelstedt or any of the other umpires to whom he introduced Messenheimer came into town. Messenheimer often returned the courtesy by inviting umpires for bourbon and music at his tiny apartment in North Hollywood, which was crammed with records and scores of original music in every corner and cubbyhole of each shabby room. Although the Wizard of Oz and other Messenheimer hit songs had brought fame and fortune to many people, the old man lived modestly on a few remaining royalties and social security payments. Without the umpires, he couldn’t have afforded to go to so many ball games, nor would he have had so many good friends.
“Hey, Doug,” said Wendelstedt to Harvey, as the four umpires sat in an airport, sipping coffee, waiting to catch a plane. “You know who I was thinking about the other day? Sam Messenheimer.”
“Old Sam. Goddamn, I miss that old cockroach. How long has he been dead?”
“Couple years. I ever tell you how I found out about his death?”
Harvey shook his head.
“The year before last,” said Wendelstedt, “I had been in L.A. two, three times without seeing him. You know, he’d come down to the dressing room after the game, or he’d meet us at the Cinegrill. Anyway, I called him up one day, and there was no answer. Finally the operator clicked on and told me the phone had been disconnected.”
“He was always so damn nice to umpires,” said Harvey. “You know, you’re away from home twenty-nine out of thirty days a month, and it was comforting to know that there would always be a friendly face and some real good music waiting for you when you hit L.A. without your having to sit in a bar. He was probably one of the few real fans umpires have had.”
“An umpire can count his fans on his thumbs,” said Colosi. “I get cards once in a while on my birthday. People wish me a happy birthday, then they say they hope it’s my last.”
“So the operator tells me that
his phone is disconnected and that all calls are being taken by another number. I call there, of course, ask for Sam, and this guy on the other end, sounds like a kid, maybe twenty-five or thirty, tells me matter-of-factly that he’s Sam’s son and Sam’s dead. Been dead a couple months. Well, you know I suspected something like that, with his telephone disconnected and all, and not seeing Sam around that season, but still, you know? I felt like somebody had dropped a ton of shit on me.”
“Sure.”
“So I offered my condolences and hung up. I was in shock. He was an old man, but still, you’re always sad and surprised when somebody you really like dies without warning.”
“Anyway, I got myself together, and the next day I called back, introduced myself again, and asked the kid if I could have a picture of his father. Do you know what he said?
“He said, ‘That’s the stupidest sentimental thing I ever heard.’”
“Damn,” said Harvey.
“I said to this kid, you know how Sam’s closets and shelves were stuffed with all those old compositions and records? I said, ‘Do you have any of his old music you might be willing to give away? Just so I could have something as a keepsake. He was really a good friend to me.’
“‘I threw all that shit away,’ he says.”
“No!”
“‘And listen,’ he says, ‘don’t bother me about my father any more. I couldn’t stand that old bastard.’
“I’m telling you, that’s what he told me. I tell you, if I woulda known where to find him, I woulda gone out and beat that kid’s young ass. You ever hear anything like that before? That goddamn punk bastard,” Wendelstedt said, raising his voice and frowning, “I woulda ripped into that guy like a grizzly bear after a pig.”
“Sam was part of our family, Harry, he was one of us. He was as much an umpire in spirit as you or me.”
“Don’t you think I know that? Why do you think I was so mad?”
“You know, it’s surprising when you think back,” said Harvey, “it’s surprising how many good people you meet, traveling the way we do. I mean, it seems so lonely almost all the time. We’ve got so many hours to waste every single day; the traveling and the motels are such a drudge. Then you look back and consider how many fine people like Sam we’ve run into, really nice, downhome, decent people.”
“And some famous people, too,” said Colosi. “Remember when Ernest Borgnine came to visit in the dressing room?”
“And Milton Berle?” said Harvey. “There’s a sharp guy who’s always been friendly to umpires.”
“It gets you sick when you find somebody fucking over people like Sam,” said Wendelstedt.
“There’re good people all over,” said Harvey, “if you only take the time to look for them. We’ve got our own little family, you know, in every town.”
“Will you ever forget Shag’s (Umpire Shag Crawford) birthday party in Pittsburgh?” asked Wendelstedt.
“Oh shit,” said Harvey, resting his head on the cushioned back of his chair and lifting his eyes.
They were all there that night—all the friends Harvey and Shag and Wendelstedt had made over the years in Pittsburgh. Billy Conn, the former heavyweight fighter, one of the few men who had ever knocked down Joe Louis; Joey Divens, Conn’s good friend and part-time bodyguard; and Bobby Conroy, the policeman who had guarded the umpires’ room at Forbes Field, and then at Three Rivers Stadium. Good old guys.
Someone, maybe Conn or Divens, had brought Shag a big box of dollar cigars, so thick and long and juicy they looked like foot-long hotdogs. They met at Coyne’s Shamrock Bar in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh after the game, an old Irish cafe and a longtime umpire hangout, with pool tables and murals of Billy Conn and other great fighters handpainted on the walls. Harvey lost track of the time after a while, from swilling boilermakers (whiskey with beer chasers). With so many men puffing on those long fat cigars, one after another, the whole place began to look like a steamroom, wrapped in a gauze of smoke.
“I was half-finished my fourth or fifth cigar,” said Harvey, “and it was finally getting to me, making me nauseous, what with the whiskey and beer I had consumed and everyone else’s smoke. But I couldn’t find an ashtray and I didn’t want to throw it on the floor and waste it. So I had to find something to put it out on. I looked all over the place till I found just the right receptacle.”
“My arm,” Wendelstedt nodded toward Colosi. “That son of a bitch Harvey dug the hot coal of that cigar right into my arm, twisted it around a few times, and put it out in my burning flesh. I think he drilled halfway down to the bone. I’ll tell ya, I never felt more pain in my whole life.”
“But do you think for one minute that Big Bad Harry Wendelstedt would admit that it hurt?” asked Harvey.
“No way,” said Wendelstedt. “You think I want to give you the satisfaction of knowing you’ve inflicted pain on me?”
“But you did the next best thing,” said Harvey, nodding and laughing.
“Goddamn right. I did the only thing a man like me could do,” he said, extending his arms and slightly bowing toward his comrades. “I put my cigar out on Billy Conn’s arm.”
“And do you think that bad guy would show pain?” Harvey laughed. “No way. He just smiled that goddamn, steely-eyed grin of his—he’s the meanest, roughest-looking son of a bitch I’ve ever seen—then turned and put his cigar out on Shag’s bare arm. Then Shag put his cigar out on Joey Divens’s arm. And Joe put his cigar out on Bobby Conroy’s arm.”
Wendelstedt grinned. “Before you know it, we’re all staggering around the room, lighting our cigars, puffing till the ends are red hot, then dowsing them on somebody’s bare flesh. We were burning holes all over everybody’s goddamn body.”
Wendelstedt, Harvey, Colosi, and Williams were all laughing so hard now they were shaking.
“The funny thing was,” whooped Wendelstedt, his cheeks gleaming like polished red automobile fenders, “it hurt like hell. It hurt worse than anything I ever felt in my whole life—I still got six or seven burn scars on my arms and legs—but not one of us would admit to it. Not one of us would relent and show the slightest pain. Everyone in that goddamn bar was cooking everyone else’s flesh, but not one person had the guts to admit that it hurt. I sneaked up to Shag, right behind him, and shoved that burning cigar right through his pants, almost up his ass. And he laughs. He looks at me with his eyes absolutely livid with anger, but all he can do is laugh. Laugh! Then he sinks his goddamned hot coal deep into the back of my neck. I’m tellin’ you, I coulda killed him. But what do I do? I laugh!
“We’re all screwed up drunk and we’re all in excruciating pain, but all we can do is look at each other and laugh like stupid hyenas. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever been a part of in my whole life.”
Wendelstedt whipped out a handkerchief and blew. It sounded like a foghorn. “Of course, old prim and proper Indian squaw Harvey didn’t want to have anything to do with us. He had started the whole thing, but then at some point I realized he wasn’t joining in the fun. I looked around and found him hiding in a corner of the room pretending he didn’t know us. Anybody got near him, he’d stick up his goddamn white, lily-livered, chicken-ass hands and say, ‘Not me, fellas, not me, count me out of this.’”
“Well, listen, Harry,” said Harvey, “I was wearing this white turtleneck ski sweater my wife had just spent half her life knitting for me. What the hell was she going to say if I came home two weeks after she sent it to me wearing something that resembled Swiss cheese?”
Wendelstedt shrugged.
“You got me pretty good in spite of my protests,” said Harvey.
Wendelstedt turned, regarding Colosi and Williams with contemptuous scorn. Colosi was coughing and Williams was pounding him on the back and, at the same time, wiping the tears from his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt. “Look at those idiots,” said Wendelstedt. “They don’t even know what the hell they’re laughing at.”
“You guys are out of your minds,” said C
olosi. “That’s what we’re laughing at.”
“I couldn’t do that again in a thousand years,” said Harvey. “My old bones ache right now just from thinking about it. ’Course, back then we were younger.”
“We had this giant birthday cake,” said Wendelstedt, “biggest damn birthday cake I’ve ever seen, sitting on the bar. It said ‘Happy Birthday, Shag, You Faggot’ or something off-color like that. Anyway, Shag was getting pretty damn angry at old Straight Arrow here for not participating in the fun. So he went up to that cake, scooped a handful of rosettes and blossoms and stuff off the top, mushed this all up into a ball and hurled it across the room.”
“Splat,” said Harvey. “Right on the back of my head.”
“That started a whole new activity,” said Wendelstedt. “Suddenly everybody was tossing birthday cake balls at everybody else. Splat, splat, goop.”
“At everybody else, like hell!” Harvey objected, poking his chest with his thumb. “At me. I felt like a garbage dump for a bakery shop. I had ‘Happy Birthday, Shag,’ splattered under my armpit and rosettes sticking out of both my ears.”
“You looked pretty bad, I admit.”
“That’s about the last thing I remember of that whole night,” said Harvey. “‘Most everything else seems to have faded away. I’ve got some other vague recollections, but they never did jive together. I remember trying to wipe my sweater, digging the cake and icing out, but every time I got it halfway presentable, somebody would hit me with another glob of cake.
“I remember hearing sirens and a few minutes later feeling myself being loaded on a stretcher, at least I assumed it was a stretcher. I felt myself being picked up and I felt the air on my face when we got outside. I remember opening my eyes just for a second and seeing myself being dumped into a Pittsburgh police paddy wagon. I remember trembling a little bit, sort of scared about what was going to happen to me and my career. Then I completely blacked out.