I just came off a frigid tour of Texas with the Bacon Brothers. On our last night I got into a conversation with the doorman at The Dosey Do, a big barn of a club near Houston. As “a country boy,” he was curious about what it was like to grow up in NYC. The talk quickly turned to baseball. To my surprise he brought up the Yankees, but not in a disparaging way. I mean, we were in Astros territory so I fully expected some playful “you guys suck” macho jousting. Instead, he brought up the Yankee teams from the 50’s and 60’s. He seemed to be about my age so between us we were able to quickly clicked off the roster of the 1961 team: Mantle, Marris, Ford, Richardson, Kubek, Berra, Howard, Skowren and Boyer. Here I was in Texas of all places and people still talk about that line up!
He said that baseball and music shaped his life. I could relate. Like me, he played little league ball as a kid. He learned on a dirt field in Indiana. I learned on a concrete schoolyard diamond in Queens, NY. I told him I was 8 years old in the summer of 61 and have vivid memories of going to “The Stadium” with my dad and mom: Bob Sheppard’s voice, Eddie Layton on the organ, hot dog vendors, you get the picture.
Years later I was invited by my good friend and onetime band mate David Lulow to join him and his brother Bill at a baseball camp developed by big league pitchers Jim Bouton (NY Yankees), Bill Lee (Boston Red Sox), and a few other pro and semi-pro players at the Esalen Institute. That’s not the first place that comes to mind when you hear the words baseball camp.
More like a retreat than a camp, it was a exploration of baseball from the neck up: equal parts skills training, philosophical discussion, over 50 sand-lot ball and very informal. We bunked in dorms, ate basic meals and ran around the diamond like we were 10-years old. For three days we left our professional responsibilities behind and gave ourselves over to the playful passion of our youth.
My last camp was Fall of 2003 in Vermont. Because it was held after the regular season it was christened “Extra Innings.” I was joined by other music buddies Tom Pragliola and his young son Evan. Luck would have it that former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee was one of our coaches and pitched batting practice. He worked out with us in his 1920’s era Boston uniform. They didn’t call him “the Spaceman” for nothing.
Bill pitched two games in the 1975 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds under manager Don Zimmer. He left both the 2nd and 7th games with the lead and had wanted to finish them out but Zimmer gave him the hook. The Red Sox lost both games and the Series. While we were in Vermont that fall, Boston was facing New York for the league championship and Zimmer was at that very moment the Yankees 3rd base couch. Guess who Bill was rooting for!
On the last day, we put our training to the test by playing a full nine inning game. That year they brought in some University of Vermont players to fill out the ranks. Bill decided he wanted to pitch the game. Who was going to stop him?
I got to stand in against him twice. What a thrill! I mean he pitched in the World Series! The first time I got a clean hit over second base and man, thought I was hot shit. Of course, he was just playing with me. My second time up (with a runner in scoring position as I recall) he threw two fast balls which blew right past my swing. His third pitch was… to quote Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) in Bull Durham, “an ungodly curve” that was coming right at my head. I backed away just as the ball curved chest high over the plate. “Strike three, yer out!,” shouted the ump. All I could do was stand there and laugh. Bill had this Cheshire Cat grin on his face and yelled back at me. “Next bus leaves in ten minutes!”
I always thought that “Extra Innings” made a good song title but it took nearly 20 years for me to find a way into the lyric. I usually don’t dwell on the past. I’m all about what comes next. But I must admit, I’ve finally reached that age of looking back from where I came. I don’t remember the name of the doorman in Texas but I think he’d like this song.
