Setting the rosters
The Giant’s roster is for the most part the veterans returned from 2010 except for Terry Burton who thought he might not make the team so went with the A’s.
Terry, very helpful with both teams in terms of helping with the field, the equipment, and gathering the information needed to create the memos allowing the players to be released early for practice and games.[1] In his early fifties now, can still play the game, pitch, play first, and any outfield position. While playing right field I have seen him throw out more than one man who thought his hit to right meant a single. We are friends and we treat each other with respect.
A couple of new guys on the team, one is Frank Braby. Tall left hander, young, played college ball in the south bay, red headed, and a real pitcher. Must throw in the low to mid eighties and is a real vacuum in center. Will be perhaps out best hitter and fastest runner, faster than Mike Tyler or Charles Lyons. Quiet, unassuming, not sure what brought him to prison, but he is in H Unit so not a lifer. Probably something to do with dope, possession, dealing, something like not–but no violence or sex related crime, I think.
Matt White is back, pitcher, third base, good swing–well instructed and you can tell he has played a lot of baseball. He disappeared mid-way in the 2010 season: he wanted to go back to court and get any outstanding issues taken care of. He had been due to be released around September of 2010, but as a result of facing up to legal troubles, he will be with us for at least the whole of the 2011 season. Matt must be in his late thirties, and has lost about twenty pounds and looks to be in good shape. Not sure who will be the ace of the team, he, Frank, Kevin, or Mario. Four starters–what a problem to have. One or maybe two will have to pitch in relief. Love to have a Brian Wilson type closer.
Our coaching staff is back in tact–Kevin, Elliot, Mike, and of course, Stan, and Stan is no coach. He is the enforcer, the guy who settles problems, cuts the hard deals. Mid to late seventies now, Stan was a cop for 25 years in San Francisco and ran security for Bill Graham Presents, the rock and roll impresario, for another 15 years. Stan roams the lower yard, talking to cons, and getting the job done. He often asks me if there are any problems needing to be taken care of, I tell him, and done. I don’t know how he does it; he has no power, no authority except moral authority.
Stan and I met at a gym in San Rafael at least twenty years ago and became good friends. He has worked on my little television show, The Bible Study, for more than twenty years now. It is not an exaggeration when I say I would never have lasted at the prison all these years without Stan looking out for me.
Our inmate coaches are Frankie Smith, Douglas (have not learned his last name yet), and Curtis Roberts. Curtis, a three striker, all non-violent crimes, wants to focus on cleaning up the goose crap before games and practices. Geese, great big fat geese, Canadian geese, make the outfield a real mine field. It is illegal to chase them or molest them in any way. Years ago I heard a story about an Asian convict who grabbed one, wrung its neck, stuffed it inside his prison issue blue coat, then defeathered it, cleaned it, and fried it in a container of oil of some kind. Story is it took him months to build the cooker, collect the oil, and figure out a way to run a wire from his cells light socket to the cooker–and presto, cooked goose. Sadly, as I understand it, he never got a bite down as the smell of the cooking goose wafted down to the cops at the desk in North Block. I think it was a three month stretch in the hole was all the reward he got. Whenever I see those damned geese crapping all over our field I think of that guy who only wanted to taste something good he had made. I would have rewarded him for ingenuity if nothing else.
A’s, now run by Ed, Ollie, and Steve, looks like will be a good team, a B team, but a good team. We are going to start and end our season playing the A’s. The tension is already building and yesterday evening we had a scrimmage and it was intense. I umpired from behind the pitcher’s mound and I had to be very careful with my calls.
The A’s, the rebels or the no name team of last year, have earned respect from the way they have approached the situation this year. The cancer types are quiet and the big trouble maker has been cut, and I did not have to have a thing to do with it. The whole thing is the guys just want to play baseball and they felt they had to muscle me to get it done. And the way I acted last year only feed their concerns. Now it appears that we are going to be able to cooperate and enjoy some baseball. Who knows what will happen down the road though.
Kevin and I settled on seventeen players per team with three inmate coaches per team. That means I have to bring in twenty Giants and A’s uniforms, plus all the rest of the equipment. Baseball is not a cheap sport to operate at all anymore. When I was a kid growing up in Los Angeles not much money was involved. Not so now. To play the game with all the right stuff, jersey, pants, cleats, gloves, socks, belts, undershirts, caps, you are looking at around $250 per player. Then bats, catcher’s gear, batting helmets, and baseballs–around another $500. Baseballs, we will go through $180 worth a week; two teams, three games a week, require a dozen balls a game and a dozen balls will cost $60. Maybe a little less if we are able to retrieve the balls that go over the wall into industry, but over the course of sixteen weeks–several thousand dollars worth of baseballs will be needed. There are other costs as well: batting gloves, cups and jock straps (the guys do hope they will one day get out), and other stuff that goes with the game like donuts for the bats, pine tar, even a resin bag for the pitcher. It goes on. What happens is the coaches–we come up with stuff and the outside teams may help out in various ways but that cannot be discussed here.
Bobby, the player who lobbied for a second team real hard last year and boasted he was going to start another team and was in a sense squaring off against me, is still very much a presence, but we have learned to get along and a little more–not friends exactly but cooperative colleagues. Found out, from him directly, he has been in prison for fourteen years, and is only thirty-two years old. He has at least eleven more years to do. A lifer we say, felony murder rule, and he was not the shooter. Not sure of all the details but I would guess the usual: dope, gang, young, stupid, stoned, and wanting to show he was a tough guy. In a moment life changes and irreversibly. An old story.
[1] A change from 2010, the players will no longer be released early as always in years past. Perhaps this is the influence of the new warden, but probably comes from the new captain overseeing North Block. It means that the players are not ready to come down to the lower yard until 5:30pm and thus our games will not begin until about 6:30pm. Games must stop at 7:45pm–maybe allowing for 4 innings.