Johnny Pesky

He always had a bat in his hands.

Number 6 waves to the fans

It was the very early 1970's and I was attempting to re-start my broadcast career after a stint in the Army.  I noticed this guy--he was impossible to miss--as I wandered about Chain O' Lakes Park in the orange blossom infused air of Winter Haven, Florida.  Back then Winter Haven was the spring training home of the Boston Red Sox and WSIR radio, their local affiliate, was my place of employ.  My boss was a big fan of the Sox and insisted on heavy coverage of the team in addition to carrying every Spring training and regular season game.  I was excited that, along with my duties as morning show host at the station,  my afternoons would revolve around interviewing anybody and everybody in the Red Sox organization for use on our pre-game show.  I had access to pretty much the entire Boston team.  This was going to be a cake gig.

As a kid growing up in Michigan, I had long been a fan of the Detroit Tigers.  My dad was a lifelong White Sox guy and my brother was devoted to the Minnesota Twins and Chicago Cubs.  The Red Sox were merely a team from "out East" whose players often popped up in my youthful baseball card purchases unwanted and for the most part unknown.  Unless they had a cool name--Pumpsie Green anybody?-- I would sooner have an extra slab of bubble gum  than a Red Sox regular.  

Johnny Pesky was a name I knew but really had no sense of the player or the man.  I'd heard of the Pesky Pole, but nothing more.  That changed.

Like I said, he always had a bat in his hands and as a coach was constantly hitting fungos.  In fact he could do that while carrying on a conversation or yelling at a rookie for not hustling.  It was easy to see that the veterans and new kids all liked him.  He smiled because he was genuinely having a good time doing what he was born to do.  His happiness was contagious.  This was a BALLPLAYER!

I was slightly nervous about talking to some of these guys.  The team featured the likes of Yaz, Pudge Fisk, Rico Petrocelli, Rick Wise, Bill "Spaceman" Lee, Tim McCarver, and future All Stars Freddy Lynn and Dwight Evans.  To my surprise I found that most were more than willing to cooperate with an interviewer barely worthy of his press credentials.  

"Needle", because he looked so damn friendly, was one of the first interviews I attempted.  The nickname was a product of Pesky's rather long narrow nose and he didn't seem to mind the moniker.  The older guys used it more often than the kids.  Johnny put me at ease right away as we sat in a shady corner of the home team dugout one day in early Spring 1974.  He was a terrific interview.  He had stories from his playing days in the 1940's and even more from his days as a broadcaster, front office executive , ad salesman and coach.  His best friends were guys like Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, and Dom DiMaggio.  A single question would call forth a world class recollection guaranteed to keep his listener riveted.  He was a raconteur extraordinaire.  I rolled a lot of tape on Johnny Pesky.

Born in Portland, Oregon, he signed with the Red Sox in 1939 after turning down a better offer from the St. Louis Cardinals.  Money was never the most important thing to John.  He became a very good player who had a career average of .307 over ten years in the "bigs", but never made what anybody would call a big paycheck.   Probably the only thing that kept him from baseball's Hall of Fame was the loss of three seasons to his service in the Navy during World War II.  He came back from the war just happy to be once again be one of the boys of Summer doing what he loved.  

Pesky during playing days

During the couple of years I spent in Winter Haven I would talk with Johnny almost every day of the Red Sox camp.  He was good with names and always remembered mine, no small thrill for a kid broadcaster.  I became a true Red Sox fan during those years and would watch them on national TV every time they were on the schedule.  In 1975 they were the American league champs who played the Cincinnati Reds in the BEST, at least in my opinion, World Series ever, and Johnny Pesky was there through all of it.  

By the Summer of '81, I was working in San Francisco doing the morning show on K-101.  Never being stout enough to catch many San Francisco Giant games at windblown Candlestick Park, I had become a bit of an Oakland A's fan.  In fact, the Oakland Coliseum was a convenient stop on my daily commute to my home in Clayton just East of Walnut Creek. Often, if the A's were playing a day game, I would grab the station's box seat tickets and enjoy an afternoon of baseball in the not too warm  Oakland sun.   The seats were right behind the visiting team's dugout and, since the Red Sox were in town, I decided it was a perfect day to catch my favorite team.  

I think I had it in the back of my head all along to try getting Johnny's attention.  I was sure he wouldn't remember me, but I wanted to say "hi".  I hollered at him when I saw his head pop out of the dugout during batting practice and he waved back while he walked toward the fence.  I'm not sure if he remembered me but he was a nice enough guy to do a good job of faking it.  We spoke briefly of Winter Haven and how they were getting along without me.  He allowed that they were doing quite nicely and said that he was glad to see that I had stepped up to a radio market like San Francisco.   Then he was off to work hitting fungos and cracking wise with the guys. 

That was the last time I saw Johnny Pesky.  Oh, sure, I saw him on TV from time to time.  I especially looked for him when the Red Sox finally won the World Series by sweeping St. Louis in 2004.  It was the first time since 1918 and he was there to see them do it!  I thought of him as I watched the celebration.  How good he must have felt.

A few years ago the Sox retired his number, 6, and he was so touched I heard that he cried about it most of the day.  Nobody deserved it more.

Johnny Pesky died this past Monday August 13, 2012.  He was 92--what everybody calls a "good run".
Red Sox Nation is still crying.

Johnny Pesky at the 100th birthday celebration of Fenway Park

The Airport...Always A Wake-Up

"I tol' her not to open the door.  I was NAKED!"

At last, a cell phone conversation worthy of my eavesdropping ears.  I settle in for some aural titillation only to have her turn her back and blend with the myriad muffled and incredibly insipid phone calls surrounding me as I wait for my plane at Lambert St. Louis airport.

I've been in Illinois for most of a week watching the corn commit suicide on the farm my brother and I own.  The situation is dire.  Fortunately we have crop insurance but that won't stop the coming rise in prices for most everything we eat.  Cereal, sweeteners, chicken, eggs, and beef will all be going higher sooner rather than later.  And, don't forget ethanol!   Just what this sick economy needs.

Once, not that many years ago, people brought a book, magazine or newspaper to the plane place to help them kill time, but not anymore.  Now they reach for the omnipresent electronic slave bracelet that is the cell phone.  The worst of them merely push a button on one of those freaky cybor ear clips dubbed Bluetooth.  They look INSANE.

I hate it!  Of course I'm old.   A trip to the mens' room--(damn prostate!)--offers me proof in the mirror as I wash my hands.  My skin is beginning to sport that old guy translucent look.  I'm fading before my eyes.  What next??  That old guy funk?

That said, I'm still fairly certain that people are getting dumber by the minute.  I'm tempted to query a random sample of travelers at my gate regarding their favorite founding father.  Or, better yet, have them explain who Winston Churchill was and why he was the most important man of the twentieth century.  After ten seconds of consideration I scrap the idea as I am certain to be rendered clinically  depressed by my findings.  Whether it's bad schools or mind rot from the cancer that is reality television, most folks are dopes.

Do these clowns vote?  And, if so, for whom?
A family of hillbillies sits down across from me.  As I ponder their vacant stares and jumbo Mountain Dew clutching outstretched hands I think I know the answer.

I make a mental note to remind them to vote...on November 13th.

Try These, Fatso

Are you fresh out of ideas when it comes to diets?

Well, say hallelujah and pass the gravy because DIET GOGGLES are here!

Check it out:  Research geeks at the University of Tokyo have created a pair of goggles that make everything you eat look BIGGER than it really is.  You simply put these babies on before pigging down and a single Oreo looks like a jumbo chocolate pizza.  It seems that these bad boys use an algorithm (whatever the hell that is) that lets them magnify the size of the food while keeping your hand the same size.  That's what makes the food seem so much larger.

As you can tell from this You Tube video, the specs look just slightly clunky and nerdy but...dammit, they work!!!

Naturally, this invention has a myriad of other possibilities.  Just think about what donning these specs will do for the size of your paycheck, or your IRS refund.  How about romance, you say?  The mind reels at the possibilities.

"Just put these on my dear, and take a look at my etchings."  "Eye popping, I think you'll agree."

Getting Slathered In Sleepy Eye

Fitness?? Who are they kidding?

I was pretty sure it was Sherburn, but it wasn't.  It was Sleepy Eye, Minnesota where we saw the banners draped across the main drag.  They tauted Buttered Corn Days coming the very next week in this corn belt crossroads.  My pal, The Skipper, and I were returning to Minneapolis after spending a few days at our fortieth high school reunion in Spencer, Iowa back in 2006.  We had concocted a plan to meet at the Twin Cities airport the week before, I flew in from San Diego and he from Boston.  It was a good plan. After checking out the mens room stall where that congressman from Idaho or Montana had been arrested the week before for having a "wide stance", we rented a car, headed south, visited the Spam Museum in Austin, sponged off his brother in Clear Lake for a couple of days and then, well rested, headed for the meet-up with everyone else who was now forty years older and fifty-thousand brain cells lighter.

The reunion went off perfectly.  Well, it was perfect except for the fact that many of our former cellmates from the penitentiary we called Spencer High School had not shown up.  They sent their parents instead.  At least it seemed that way.  Of course Dave, (the Skipper's given name) and I hadn't changed a bit and were cackling like a couple of escapees from the laughing academy as we contemplated the decay of old friends while we drove north headed for Minneapolis/St. Paul and a return to our post high school lives.

The "Buttered Corn Days" celebration was not in our plans.  Heck, we didn't even know it existed until we rolled into Sleepy Eye.  We briefly toyed with the idea of phoning our wives and extending our road trip in order to indulge our taste for sweet corn and that yummy Minnesota butter, but decided against it after weighing the cost of divorce.  Instead we decided that a Buttered Corn Days debauch would make a remarkably terrific bonus side trip package to accompany our fiftieth high school reunion.  And, right now---that's the plan.  It's dandy really.  We tack a couple of extra days on to the trip and-- bingo, we're knee deep in buttered corn and polka music.  I checked the Internet and saw that the Sleepy Eye town fathers have booked at least two polka bands for this year's event.  (By the way, it is still ON for this year in spite of the devastating draught that has ruined at least half of the Midwest corn crop.)  You can check the Internet for details.  Buttered Corn Days runs from August 17 through the 18th.  There is even a fun run.  Yeah, just what you want to participate in after gnawing on thirty ears of corn.

I'm hoping for a bumper crop of golden corn deliciousness in 2016.  The Skipper and I have plenty of Hawaiian shirts and will pack lots of "fat boy" pants to accommodate our expanding girth.  It should be a grand old middle America pig down for two deserving boys from the corn belt.  (Speaking of belts, I won't pack one.)

The "Land of 10,000 Lakes"?  How about the "Land of 10,000 Ears of Corn"?  My tummy is already saying HOWDY.  Lookout Sleepy Eye, two heavy hitters from the coast are ready to change Buttered Corn Days forever.   We plan to eat like we're going to The Chair.

Why Must They ALWAYS Look Like This?.

Why not Bridget Fonda?  One of the Olson twins, or even Flo from those Progressive Insurance commercials?  Nope.  Every time somebody gets naked to protest something or to make a point it's ALWAYS a guy.  Never a good looking guy, even they know that keeping things mysterious is the key to good marketing.  Invariably the "nekid" dude is an overweight, not particularly attractive schlub who is oblivious to the stomach churning propensities of his decision to ditch the shirt and pants.

John Brennan, a technology consultant, determined last April that he had been called on to make his displeasure with TSA frisking known to the screeners at Portland, Oregon International airport.  As a protest against TSA personnel, who he felt were harassing him after he tested positive for nitrates on his clothing, he simply decided to chuck the threads and proceed through security sans clothing.  "They are just doing their job, and as a citizen of the U.S. I'm doing my job to protect my constitutional right to privacy," Mr. Brennan said in a telephone interview with the San Jose Mercury News.  "The TSA had already violated my privacy by doing a pat-down and being pulled out of the line.  It's stripping me of any dignity."

The Portland cops thought otherwise and arrested him for indecent exposure.  The end?  Uh....not quite.  That was last April and now, after careful Portland style consideration, a judge in that weirdest of all West Coast cities has found Mr. Brennan NOT GUILTY of the misdemeanor charge.  It seems that the Oregon state Supreme Court has ruled that nudity is protected speech, and old John had disrobed with the idea he wasn't breaking any laws.

I pass this on as a public service for those of you planning Summer travel that involves a stop in the Pacific Northwest.  Make sure that you choose Portland International as your point of departure.  Just pile everything, and I DO mean EVERYTHING,  into a couple of those tubs the TSA folks run through the x-ray machine and you're good to go.  No fuss, no muss...and NO CLOTHES either.  You might even get early boarding.

Once aboard make sure you mention that you're "looking for a little hog-eye for your ham bone" and you should have plenty of room to relax in comfort.

Naked flying--it could catch on.  Portland has always been so cutting edge.

"Somebody frisk me.  I'm packin'!!"

Calling It a Career

Retirement isn't what it used to be.  My father's generation usually toiled for the same employer most of their adult life; got the gold watch and headed to Florida or Arizona to settle into a sunny but boring decline.  Golf and dinner at 4:30 PM were pretty much the only events on the schedule until it was time to fall into the hole.

Like everything else, change has come for working men and women.  It's now dads AND moms who have careers and those jobs generally come with serial employers and tenures that don't get you to age 65 or even 62.  It is increasingly rare to find someone who can actually call their own "time out".  For most of us our last day on "the job" is determined by our employer.  And, if you're over 50, your boss may be the one who schedules the surprising day you're put out to pasture.  Many a working stiff is retiring early--and not by choice.

Show business careers have always been especially fragile.  If that is your chosen path it is almost certainly imperative to have a backup profession to ease you past the employment gaps in an often short career.  God knows I got an education in the broadcast racket.  When my radio partner and I got the boot from what turned out to be my seventeenth and final station, we both really assumed we'd be back on the air somewhere in no time.  We didn't count on the entire industry slashing thousands of jobs while  committing suicide via the elimination of compelling content.   These days giant corporations have the idea that paid infomercials for colon cleansers and real estate scams are just what listeners are hungry for.  They also seem confused by those massive ratings declines.  Bankruptsy anyone?

The movie business is in an even greater state of flux.  Audiences are tired of mind numbing content and $12 popcorn when they can wait a couple of weeks to stream the films they care about on their big screen TVs right there at home.  So,  the little noted announcement that show biz icon Peter O'Toole is saying so long to acting is such good news.  He is leaving on HIS OWN TERMS!  He could still work if he wanted, but he doesn't care to anymore.  He turns 80 on August 2 and has decided that he has nothing left to prove and is more than happy to do little or nothing until the ultimate gig in the big "up yonder" has his name on the casting list.  

"The stage and screen have brought me together with fine people, good companions with whom I've shared the inevitable lot of all actors:  flops and hits."  "So I bid the profession a dry-eyed and profoundly grateful farewell."

A classy exit for a classy guy.   We should all be so lucky. 

"Fifty years is enough."

It's a WHAT?

A DERECHO, that's what.

  

You know how it is.  Every once in awhile the big shots in TV news departments have to promote a fancy new word that we peons have blissfully been doing without and make it the new "IT" word.  In the sixties the stuff outdoors went from being, well---"the stuff outdoors" to The Environment, then roughly ten or fifteen years ago "hot enough for you?" became Global Warming.  Naturally, when folks began to notice that they weren't hotter than Barney Frank at Boy Scout camp, it became  Climate Change.

I can't keep up.

Now we have DERECHO.  This Spanish expression meaning "straight ahead" is all the rage at the Weather Channel, CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX.  (Probably CNN and MSNBC too--but who watches?)  Now we're all supposed to just hop aboard and start working that awkward mouthful into our conversations.  

I believe I'll opt out.

"Frog strangler" in the making.

I prefer weather related conversations to reflect my rural and small town American roots.  In the "sticks" we prefer communicating like this:

Zeke--"Hey Kermit, hot enough for ya?"

Kermit--"Damn straight buddy."

"That gully washer that come up last night pert near blasted me and the missus out of bed and into Watumka county.  Most that bed has shook since our honeymoon."

Zeke--"I hear ya.  That rain sounded just like one of your cows pissin' on a flat rock."

Kermit--"Funny you should mention it...Wanda, my number one milker is givin' nothin' but cottage cheese this morinin'.  AND, the wind blowed down Fat Crumpler's barn."

Zeke--"Sum bitch, Fat had my good manure spreader in there, not to mention that not too bright cousin of yours!"


Kermit--"Yep, I got plenty more cousins but a good spreader...well, them's hard to come by."


I just can't imagine old Zeke and Kermit working derecho into the conversation.  And, why should they?  Isn't it bad enough that politicians do that?  You know--taxes are "revenues", terrorism is "man caused destruction",  hand outs are "entitlements",  raising the budget by 4 % is called "cutting spending" and taxing everybody to pay for thirty million deadbeats is called "AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE".
Perhaps it all depends on what your definition of "IS" is.
Baton down the hatches baby, we've got a derecho out there.

Typical Americans prepare for derecho