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Ed Porray

By Michael Ceraolo

I was a pretty good pitcher in the minors,
even in the Federal League’s year
as an independent minor league
I appeared in three games
in the Federal League’s first year as a major league
and struggled some there
Why am I here? you might be asking
Because I’m one of those statistical anomalies
that baseball fans love:
out of the tens of thousands who’ve played major-league ball
I’m the only one whose birth certificate
gives his birthplace as
“At sea, on the Atlantic Ocean”

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Superheroes Playing Pepper

Memoir by Dan Spinella

When the yellow and red Rheingold truck was parked outside of the apartment, we knew that Dad was home and we were going to a ballgame.

We’d pile into the truck, the smell of beer permeated the cab, and drive to Brooklyn and Ebbets Field. It seemed like a ride that went on forever. From wherever we parked, we could see the Ebbets Field rotunda.

We’d run ahead of Dad, who’d buy grandstand tickets, then we’d walk into the green afternoon at the ballpark. Down below, but not too far away, were Reese and Campanella, Snider and Hodges, and most strikingly Jackie Robinson. Playing pepper.

We knew it was possible to have heroes and witness their feats of small greatness tucked away in our seats in our baseball home.

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Harry Frazee

by Michael Ceraolo

I was the first owner who wasn’t handpicked by Johnson,
and I was the first owner to remind him
that he worked for us, not the other way around
Two strikes against me
Most of the transactions I made
were not thought of poorly at the time;
it is only in retrospect that some look bad
And even among these I wasn’t always to blame:
it was years after I sold the team
that one of the players we acquired
in one of the so-called bad moves, Lefty O’Doul,
was sent elsewhere and became a quality player
Even selling the Babe was defensible:
we finished sixth in the standings and fifth in attendance
even with him; he wanted more money,
and it’s extremely doubtful
he would have become in Boston what he became in New York
And I sold the team to Bob Quinn in 1923,
so their finishing last seven of the next eight years
wasn’t my responsibility: remember,
there were no farm systems back then
Every year you had to acquire some new players
in order to improve your team;
if Quinn didn’t have the wherewithal
to do the job, that was on him,
not on me or any supposed curse
But Quinn was a baseball guy, not a theater guy,
and so he escaped the blame from sportswriters
Strike three against me:
having my baseball reputation in the hands of sportswriters
No one should ever have his reputation in such hands

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Bert Shepard

by Michael Ceraolo

It was in a way because of politics
that I got to pitch in the majors,
though not from a quota system for amputees
I had been returned stateside
in a prisoner exchange in early ’45,
and when I was in Washington
getting fitted for a new lower leg,
I was visited by someone high up in the War Department
I told him my desire was to play baseball
and he mentioned me to Mr. Griffith,
who let me come to camp and be part of the team
Being a lefty, I was fortunate
that it was my lower right leg that was gone;
had it been the left the dream would have been gone also
I know I was kept around mostly as a morale booster
for those in similar situations as mine,
and to pitch batting practice and exhibition games
I did get into one real game and pitched well,
which tells you about the quality of wartime ball,
since I wasn’t very good before the war
with two full legs (too wild),
and I wasn’t very good after the war
with one-and-a-half legs (still too wild)
Yet, as much of a thrill as it was
to pitch in a major-league game,
I’d have to say my greatest thrill
was meeting, almost fifty years later,
the German Army doctor who saved my life

 

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Lefty Righty

Fiction by Jim Siergey

A young pitcher’s career is shaped by politics and zoology….

Baseball season is upon us and I find my thoughts drifting back to a forgotten ballplayer from the 1970s.

I don’t recall his name. It was Daltry or Daugherty or Delancey — something like that. But I do remember his nickname.

It was Dart.

He was a pitcher, and the epithet was hung on him because he threw so hard that the ball flew by the batter like a dart, nestling in the bull’s-eye of the catcher’s mitt.

Dart was one of those rocket-armed phenoms, signed out of high school and on the mound for his major league debut before he was 19 years of age. An auspicious debut it was, because he threw a one-hit shutout. It was a great beginning for what many baseball insiders predicted would be a Hall of Fame career.

Unfortunately, his sudden notoriety also piqued the interest of the Draft Board.

The Vietnam War was still going on, and Dart had wanted no part of it. When he received his induction papers into the United States Army, he simply ignored them.

When the authorities finally came sniffing around for him, Dart hightailed it to Canada. He officially became a “draft dodger.”

Despite his ignominious retreat, the kid was so talented that it was hard for at least one major league owner to ignore it. He wasn’t in Canada very long before he was signed by the Montreal Expos and added to the roster.

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