Sunday Morning Coffee Thoughts
Edition 70: Thanks Dad for a memorable moment in your life that made me a lifelong baseball fan!
Good morning my friends and Happy Father’s Day. I am blessed and proud to be the father of three loving, generous, thoughtful and pretty terrific adult children. I am equally proud to be the oldest of five children, whose father instilled the values of hard work, dedication to family, giving of yourself to others and being a good person. I honor my dad today with the story of a lucky drawing and the once in a lifetime experience in his life that made his eldest son a baseball fan for life. Sit back, grab your morning coffee as I honor the man who I try to model my life after every day.
The Luck of the Draw
Growing up we lived in Quincy, Massachusetts in a working class neighborhood. My dad worked for Gillette in South Boston and worked second shift on the production line sharpening the steel that would become a razor blade. He worked hard to support his then four kids and give us what he could along with my mom. We all knew we were loved and always felt safe. He had grown up in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston and had lost his own father at the age of 7 to medical issues.
On June 17, 1962, we celebrated Father’s Day with the usual paper cards and pictures made in school and a special dinner made by my mom for him. He was thrilled we cared enough to make these little gifts and even more thrilled to spend the day with us as a family. As luck would have it, an unexpected late Father’s Day gift would appear nine days later on June 26,1962.
At that time, Gillette owned several clusters of seats at Fenway Park, and was a major sponsor of the team. Periodically, they would hold a drawing of workers on the second shift and give them a ticket to that night’s home game and pay them while they attended the game. A fairly unusual thing to do given the times. It was a honor to be the person whose name was drawn and every drawing was a time of great anticipation.
Tuesday, June 26, 1962 the Angels were in town and it was the night that my dad’s name was the one chosen to attend the game. His supervisor came over, shook his hand and said “Enjoy the game, get out of here, you have a subway train to catch!”
Dad left the line, walked across the street to the Red Line Broadway Station and headed to Park Street, where he caught a Green Line Trolley to Kenmore Station two blocks from Fenway Park. He got to his seat, only a few minutes before the first pitch was thrown. He had a great view of the whole field from the old Roof Box seats in Right Field.
The game featured two pitchers, rookie Bo Belinsky of the Angels who had thrown a no hitter against the Orioles in early May, and a reliable starter for the Red Sox named Earl Wilson. The Sox were mired in 8th place at the time with a record of 32-38, while the Angels occupied 3rd place in the then 10 team American League with a 38-31 record, despite them being an expansion team only in the beginning of their third year of existence. What transpired that night was historic in the history of baseball, little did my dad know that he was about to become a witness to that baseball history along with 14,001 other Red Sox fans.
The game started with two scoreless innings from both pitchers, then in the third with one out, Wilson drilled a home run to left field, his second of the season, with one out to give the Sox a 1-0 lead and would prove to be the only run Wilson would need that night. The Sox tacked on another run in the fourth inning with right field Carroll Hardy singling in 3rd baseman Frank Malzone to make the score 2-0. Wilson was solid on the mound and despite walking two batters in the fifth inning, he got out trouble and only walked one more batter in the 6th, all the while not allowing a base hit. My dad told me that the entire stadium was totally aware of the no-hit effort in the late innings. Loud cheers went up when he took the mound, followed by louder cheers with every recorded out.
He continued his efforts and completed the no-hitter by getting the final three batters on a pop-fly to short left field snagged by shortstop Eddie Bressoud, a fly to left-center field caught by future Hall of Fame left fielder Carl Yastrzemski and the final out recorded by center fielder Gary Geiger on a fly to the warning track in center. My dad recalled everyone standing after the game and realized they had a front row seat to greatness. At the time, what they did not know was that Earl’s no-hitter was the first one thrown by a black pitcher in the American League, as Sam Jones of the Chicago Cubs had accomplished the feat in 1955 in the National League.
I can remember him telling me about the game the next morning, I was confused as I said something along the lines of “I thought you went to work”, it was then he explained the circumstances and how fortunate he was to watch a no-hitter in person. I was already beginning to follow baseball and listening to my dad describe the game, the atmosphere and his excitement about being there cinched the deal, I was now a diehard baseball fan and more importantly a Red Sox fan for life!
For Wilson, he earned a $1,000 bonus from owner Tom Yawkey that night. He posted a 12-8 record for the 1962. Later, he would be traded to Detroit in 1966 just before the Impossible dream year of 1967. He would be a key contributor for Detroit in 1967 with 22 wins and again in 1968 the year they won the pennant.
For the Red Sox in 1962, they finished 76-84, 19 games out and in 7th place, another in a long line of unimpressive efforts by the club until 1967. For my Dad, it was one of the fondest memories of his life, other than family.
Thanks Dad being lucky enough to win the ticket, save the ticket stub and trolley transfer, which he kept in a special and safe place to commemorate that night in 1962, but most of all spending time with me sharing and explaining what he had witnessed and thus making me the baseball fan I am today!
A dozen years have gone by since he passed and for me, him sharing his experience has become the foundation of this weekly effort on my part. I just wish you were here to share it with me. Happy Father’s Day in heaven Dad!