RMJ 202 September 5

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 ● San Francisco, vs Giants

I read where they are closing Lefty O’Doul’s, a famous bar in San Francisco. I also read where the Dodgers have concluded negotiations for the sale of the team to Fox Television.

What do these two things have in common? A lot more than the fact that the redoubtable Lefty once played for the Dodgers.

Lefty’s baseball career went coast-to-coast. He was a great young pitcher, and a gifted hitter in the Pacific Coast League.  He was so popular In the Bay Area that he spurned major-league offers until he was in his late 20s. Then he went east to try his hand on the mound.

He didn’t do so well.

When he was with the Red Sox in 1923, he authored of one of the worst innings on record: a 13-run shellacking at the hands of the Indians.

 As a hitter, he did considerably better, collecting 254 hits for the Phillies in 1929, setting a National League record that still stands. His lifetime average of .349 would be third on the all-time list if he had enough at-bats.

Lefty started too late, and the lure of his native San Francisco pulled him back too soon. He came back to manage and play part-time. He opened a hofbrau restaurant and piano bar on Geary Street, just about a nine-iron shot form Union Square. It was, perhaps, the first sports bar in America. Celebrities dropped by drinks and banter.

The place is a veritable museum of the famous personalities of his day, from Emperor Hirohito to Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis.  Mayor Jimmie Walker is with Lefty in one shot. In another, Lefty is seen at the famous Olympic Golf Club with Max Baer.  A photo of Lefty, Joe DiMaggio, and Marilyn Monroe is off to the side.

Lefty is long since gone, but his spirit has remained alive all these years. Now it is going the way of the Dodgers, the way of all things familiar that have become precious: to the moneyed interests, the power brokers.  

How can you run a $4.50 plate lunch joint in the same neighborhood with $300-a-night hotel rooms, exclusive shops, galleries and department stores? You can’t. The current owners of Lefty’s can’t afford the rent anymore.

And the current owners of the Dodgers, the O’Malley family, have lost their taste for baseball for the same reason.

Lefty’s is dark and dusky. It has little street appeal and even less attraction on the inside, unless you are a history buff. Street people drop by for a cheap meal. The piano bar attracts a crowd that grew up listening up to Gershwin music.

I stop by once a year, just to feel the connection with the ballplayers on the walls. If I stay too long, I feel sad. The piano-bar sing-a-long can get downright maudlin.

 

Dodger Stadium is the same way; I went there as a teenager. Except for the DiamondVision, it is exactly the same. The PA announcer sounds like the guy who gave instructions to us children of the Fifties when we were driving the Utopia cars at Disneyland. Disney owns the Angels — not Walt, the corporation.

The pastel hues of Dodger Stadium postdate Art Deco, and they won’t come back in style. Fox knows this. Disney knows this. The O’Malleys know it, too.

 

As I teed off at the Olympic Club this morning, I was not thinking of Lefty, but perhaps I should have been. He was, according to legend, a scratch golfer. I am not. Perhaps I will lend my name to a sports bar near our new stadium in Houston and hang a picture of myself on the links with Lyle Lovett, Sam Shepard, and Patrick Swayze. After I die, the bartender will tell everyone I was a scratch golfer.  

Actually, I had to cheat to shoot 44 on the front today. I had a 39 on the back, but I didn’t realize I was playing so well, because I was riding with Jim Deshaies and we had already given up having a good score and were laughing a lot.

Our host, Gary Allegre of the Allegre trucking empire, was telling us how much money you can make crushing concrete and re-bar debris after earthquakes and floods. He was talking the whole day — to us and to his cell phone. And he shot 78. Very impressive. Cubby had a 78 too. Once again, he was a birdie monster.

 

We got to the ballpark at 2:20 for early batting practice. We usually don’t score many runs when we take early BP — probably because we take it when we are in a slump. The slump continued tonight, but we still had a chance to win.

Shane Reynolds pitched a terrific game. He allowed a homer to J.T. Snow in the first, and he was down 1-0 to Sean Estes as we came up in the seventh.

With one out, Luis Rivera singled to left and came home on a triple by Tony Peña. Both players are well past their prime years, playing out the string in secondary roles. But they got us tied, and now I had to make a decision:

Shane was due up. I could tell the players on the bench wanted to pinch-hit. The way Estes was throwing, I did not view a pinch-hitter as a sure thing.  The way Shane was throwing, I thought I could get one more zero out of him. He already had one of our four hits in the game, and the Giants had to play the infield in.

I looked to third, and Cubby was motioning for a runner; Peña was gassed. Bill asked me if I wanted to run with Brad. If I did that, I would want to hit for Shane, because he was working well with Tony and I didn’t want to change catchers on him.

I decided to let Shane hit. As he left the dugout, I asked him, “Do you know the squeeze sign?” He said he did.

The count went to 2-1 and I signaled for the squeeze. Shane kept staring at Cubby as if he didn’t believe it. Finally he got in the box and did not answer the sign. Without his answer, Peña could not break for home. Cubby yelled at Shane, and he stepped out. Giants catcher Brian Johnson ran to the mound. We took off the squeeze, and Shane eventually walked.

Dusty Baker brought Roberto Hernandez in to face Biggio. Bidge hit a soft liner to second base on a 99 MPH fastball. Then Chucky Carr hit a deep fly ball to center. Darryl Hamilton was playing shallow, and it looked for all the world like a two-run triple. But Hamilton kept churning, dove headlong, and caught the ball inches above the grass as he reached the warning track. It was one of the best plays of the year, and it turned the game around.

Shane pitched well in the seventh, but the momentum had changed. Johnson hit a home run to give them a 2-1 lead. I heard Hernandez was a hard thrower, but you never really appreciate what you hear until you see it. He blew through Bagwell, Bell, and Gutierrez as if they were children.

Russ Springer walked the first two batters in the Giants’ eighth, and they eventually scored on a ball that Rivera dove for, but did not catch.  The ball glanced off his glove, and that was that. Rod Beck finished us off.

Luckily the Pirates and Cardinals lost.

What bothered me most about this game was Shane’s fate. If he returns to form, we will likely make the playoffs, and we could give the Braves or Marlins a good battle.  What could have been a breakthough game for him turned into yet another loss.

This one didn’t cost us anything in the standings, but it still hurt.