The one exception was the second baseman of the "B" team, Billy Duss. That he was on any team at all was a tribute to the boys who played ball at Stockton. We respected Bobby Duss. He came to play. For what-ever reasons, perhaps just ones to teachers' minds, but incomprehensible to kids, teachers hated Bobby Duss. When the teachers imposed them-selves as decision makers in the selection process of the team try-outs, they at least had the good sense privately to ask some of the obviously best players, who were also "good" students who should really make the team. They made the popular choices. With the one exception. Bobby Duss didn't make either the "A" or "B" team. We were outraged. I guess I've always been some-thing of a troublemaker. But usually surreptitiously. "We" started a petition protesting Bobby's absence from either team since he was clearly the best second baseman in the school. Under pressure Miss Haas relented to the extent she added him to the "B" team and claimed his omission had been an oversight. (We knew she was lying. We knew he should have been on the "A" team, but this reversal was more than we had expected.)

I went to bed early the night before the big game. At my request Mom got me up early that fateful morning. Instead of a bath in the bathroom my sister and brother and I were accustomed to using, I was allowed to take a shower in my parent's bathroom. It was a big day. A momentous occasion.

All the fourth through sixth grade students were let out of class for "The Championship." The "B" team won the coin flip and were the home team. Six inning game. Winner takes all. It shouldn't have been close. And, indeed, we went into the bottom of the sixth, the last inning, leading 4-1. How could it have been otherwise?

Our pitcher threw fast! His name was Maurice. We, his team-mates, who thought we knew him well, were absolutely stunned and incredulous to discover when his parents showed up for the game, that they were both mute. The revelation brought him even more respect in our eyes.

The catcher, the gritty little catcher, was Dickie Lazarus. Dickie's father was a semi-pro softball pitcher. I had seen him pitch often and he had always won. We were vaguely aware that Dickie was the product of a "mixed" marriage. Then, nor now, do I know what the actual mix might have been. It may be that his father was Jewish. It may be that his mother was Hispanic. It was only a topic I occasionally overheard in the hushed tones of adults talking about children as if children weren't there.

Paul Davidman was our second baseman, as mentioned, Bobby Duss playing for the "B" team. Paul was the most respected boy in the sixth grade. I felt the same regard for him but sometimes wondered exactly why. For being so popular he was particularly aloof. Neither did he conform to the standards of his classmates being the only boy in the sixth grade to wear short pants. Nor was he the best athlete, or best student. Nor was he wealthy, or witty. But he had something ineffable about him such that even our teachers sucked up to him. And he was a solid second baseman.

If Paul was our high priest, Ted was our captain, always had a joke, started a school wide fad by insulting his friends by calling them "Poes." If you made a gaffe, you were called a "Poe." School wide. Pee Wee Reese and Ernie Banks had made shortstop the premiere position among boys. Ted was our shortstop because he was our captain, not because he had the best range or the best arm.

Hank had better range and a better arm, and if Ted was captain, Hank was lieutenant. His last name was Gonzales, but I don't know of anyone in our class who would have thought about that being a Spanish name. And I guarantee we would have loved to have a Negro-Black-African-American on our team as a tribute Jackie Robinson. Lloyd was the only kid in our class who was a racist. And he didn't play ball very well either.

Wally played right field. He hit well. Had a good arm. Never said two words to anyone.

Philip was our centerfielder. He was my "discovery" in fifth grade. Our P.E. period was usually a free play period. We always played softball when given the chance. At least the first eighteen picked played. The others watched, or did something else.

In retrospect I realize virtually all of us were in some part of the Middle Class. My only awareness of that then was our contrast to two kids in our school who were dirt poor. A girl, Janet, and Philip who was to become our most valuable player. To some extent they were both shunned, not necessarily because they didn't have money, but because it wasn't evident, at least at first, that either had anything other kids valued. (That didn't change for Janet until late sixth grade when she became the first girl with breasts. Maurice, our pitcher, by the way, was the first to notice that.) Philip got his chance in fifth grade both because I was arrogant and because I went to Sunday school.

Philip always hung around our softball games even though he was never picked. After a regular Sunday diet of stories like the Good Samaritan and Jesus with the Samaritan at the well it finally dawned on me that Philip was an outcast something like a Samaritan. I was usually one of the team captains and my team usually won more because I was a shrewd judge of talent and invariably picked a winning team more than because I was a good athlete. One school day it dawned on me I could probably pick Philip, seem like a great guy to myself, and still win. With great fanfare on that day of moral awakening I surprised everyone by choosing Philip with my last pick. And I was so generous I didn't even make him bat last. I wanted Philip to feel good about himself. It was, after all, the Christian thing to do.

His first at bat Philip tripled. He was a right handed batter but he tripled to right field. He would have been expected to pull the ball to left field. I knew there was a God because my magnanimous gesture had been rewarded with a fluke hit good for two runs. When he tripled again his next time up again to right field, I was less sure it had been luck. By the end of the week I had to have the first pick and to choose Philip first if I wanted him on my team, which I always did because he was by far the best player at Stockton Elementary School. So, Philip was our center fielder and he not only knocked in one go ahead run in our Champi-onship Game, he had made two great running catches.

Like the great Dodger teams of the fifties, "someone" played left field. I have a picture in my mind of a kid it might have been, but I don't even remember his name. He might have worn glasses. But that would have been unusual then and I think I'd remember. So it gose.

And I played first base. I wasn't a natural athlete. But I made all the normal plays, took walks, hit singles, played smart. I had read every baseball book in the library and knew about strategy.

And I lost our game.

As much as I love softball it has not always been a field of valor and distinction for me. My first recollection of "the national pastime" was watching my father play a game. I was a little bored and more interested in the actual field itself. It had rained some time before and the mud had dried in such a way that it had cracked in wildly odd ways. I begged my mother to let me leave the bleachers and play in the mud in foul territory. She insisted I'd get hit in the head with ball. I insisted I wouldn't and my will prevailed. Naturally, I was immediately hit in the head with a foul ball. I suspected, vaguely, that my mother was godlike and had made the ball hit me.

Later, in my own career, I had similar distinctions. Once I tagged Ginny Barron too hard--give me a break, I was running hard to catch her--in a game of street ball, causing her to slide face first across the pavement, an accident for which she is still yet to forgive me. Although most of the participants didn't remember it, I also pitched the ball her father, Mr. Barron, hit so far it went across the street and through the nursery window of a local baby. (I could see pride, not sorrow, in Mr. Barron's eyes as he apologized to the parents and personally replaced the window.) If you were to visit Occidental College in Los Angeles today you would still find that the intramural diamond is on the northeast corner of the field instead of southwest be-cause another one of my pitches went so far it went through the stained glass window of the school chapel delighting the European artisan who had to be brought in to fix it.

I also hit my four year old brother directly in the head with a hardball in a simulated game behind our house. That I had any of these opportunities at infamy is still remarkable to me since I once ran directly in front of a car chasing a missed ball. Either it was a miracle I wasn't hit and killed; it was an angel driving that car; or the woman driving the car had seen me playing from further up the street and could tell I wasn't very good and would probably miss the ball and run in front of her car so she'd better stop.

I have made all these digressions to emphasize how important this game was to me. I love the game. And in a championship game we had a 4-1 lead with one out in the last of the last inning when Maurice, as sometimes happened, became wild and walked the bases full. That brought Pat Bowen to the plate. Pat always wore flannel shirts, white socks, black shoes, and pulled everything directly down the third base line. It was great when we played other schools because the other elementary schools didn't have advance scouts and would play Pat normally. Then he'd hit one directly down the third base line for a double (he wasn't very fast). Every time. Unless you adjusted and played him directly on third base. Then he was an easy out.

So, the bases were loaded and I yelled at Hank to guard the third baseline. I didn't really need to tell him that because ev-eryone in the whole school by now knew that Pat always hit there. Always. I looked over my shoulder and Wally had already moved from a normal right field position to right center field.

As Pat came up to bat I thought only about moving over quickly to the first base bag to receive a throw. Hank had to worry about whether to throw home for the force, take the easy out at third, or try for a second to first double play. I was glad I wasn't in Hank's shoes because Pat hit the ball hard, very hard, if always in the same direction.

Well, Pat did smoke the ball. On a line. Directly down the first base line. Directly at my feet. I never imagined that he could ever do that. If I had been one of those infielders who crouches low with glove on the dirt, to my mind an awkward posi-tion, it would have hit exactly in my mitt. As it was it virtually went between my legs in the air. It didn't bounce up; it didn't stay up. It exploded right between my feet and I didn't get the glove down. Didn't seem to have time to do so, as a matter of fact. But right between my legs. Wally was so far over towards center field I was the one who chased down the ball. Further than I'd ever seen a ball hit to right, all the way down by the swings. By the time I got there I knew it was too late for it to do any good. A grand slam. We'd lost 5-4. By the time Wally got there I was cry-ing. The game was over. I stood there. Devastated. Glad only that the one player who had seen me cry, Wally, was the one player who didn't say two words to anyone. No one else would know I had cried. Everyone knew I had lost the game. Inglorious.

Chapter 3

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