Opening Day
There was some doubt whether the opening day game would be played on May 7. There was the kite dropped about Chris Marshall, the racist charge, the missing jersey, and the battle over the status of the A’s–were they an A team or a B team. The kite, or death letter, supposedly from an A’s player, maybe a white player as Chris is black–if the prison got word of it the 2011 baseball season would likely be lost. We managed to keep it a secret known only to about two thousand inmates.
Racism–in my case it would be reverse racism, was clearly absurd and no one entertained it for long–the whole of it seems to me to be nothing much more that an attempt to sabotage the season. Perhaps a jealous wannbe ball player or maybe just an angry man who can’t stand others enjoying themselves and who sat up long nights figuring how to cause mischief. It will probably remain a mystery.
May 7, 2011, 8:30am we were at the East Gate, and there were a number of us. In my van were Jim Parker, Vern Smith, and Shane Hedegar along with the video cameras and tri-pods. My intent was to document the event. And Bill Mauck, my old friend, was sitting in the front passenger seat with his camera to take photos as he has done for a number of opening days. I have thought it might be possible to produce a documentary and suspecting this might be my last chance to do so, I had plotted carefully during the run-up to the game to have all the pieces in place. With no story-line in mind I considered that it might be little more than a keep-sake, or something to show family and friends, but nevertheless, I wanted to document opening day.
Lt. Sam Robinson, the prison’s public information officer and an A’s fan, would be there so that cameras could be taken into the prison. No Lt. Robinson, no cameras; this would also be a chance to take team photos as well as individual shots. Many of these photos I will put up on flickr so that families and friends of the guys can view them. Not a small deal either and the guys will be on me to get it done. As soon as they know the photos are up they will get the word out.
It was the usual confusion on the lower yard with the hustle to get the uniforms on, the field prepared and stripped, and a whole lot of other details attended to.
The A’s were throwing out in right field. They occupied the first base dugout, the dugout used by the visiting team. A couple weeks ago one of them, sent by the “brain trust” of the A’s, approached me and asked if there would be a coin toss to see which team would be the home team. My answer was one word, “No!”.
The Giant’s were stretching in left field. I walked out to check on the emotional condition of the guys; the desire to beat the A’s and just smash them, prove to them they were not an A team was running higher than I hoped. I knew it would be there, and I had not done a good job in cooling things down. The whole team knew I wanted to win, and badly. We all suspected that if the A’s won, they would be demanding to be the A team, and that would be utterly intolerable. The stakes were indeed high. Stakes–a lot of betting would be going on too.
I was anxious now too. For the A’s Marvin Andrew was going to be the starting pitcher, Ke Lam would be at short and batting leadoff–anything can happen in a one game series.
Kevin Loughlin and I had figured out a line-up two days earlier, at the Thursday night practice, and before we left that night I read it out to the guys. This has long been a practice of mine so that the players could mentally and emotionally adjust to their assignments whether as a player on the field or on the bench.
A couple of players would be disappointed, too, Marcus Crumb for one. Our back-up catcher, he was no Johnny Taylor for sure, but has improved considerably since last year. Stafont Smith, the third base back-up to Matt White and Kevin Discoll, third on the depth chart; I thought he might be expecting to start. Stafont is a very good player but not to the caliber of Matt and Kevin. If I were him I would switch to second base which would mean that only James Bautista would be in front of him. Pete Steele would feel bad but he was behind Redd Casey at first base so he knew he would not be a starter.
Pete Steele played for me before. Probably about 2001 he was on the team and pitched. It was a real fluke how he came to be on the team. Early that year we had a Wednesday night game and the Hispanics were locked down in North Block and the whole of H Unit was also locked down. Don’t recall why but probably fighting, racial stuff, Mexicans versus blacks. Only seven players showed up to play and at the same time I found out about the trouble I saw the visiting team walking down cardiac hill toward the ball field. In desperation I walked over to the fence behind the Giant’s dugout and yelled out, “Anybody know how to play baseball?”
Two cons walked up to me and said they could play the game and would play ball right then. Pete was one of them. He pitched that game, warmed up a little, and ended up winning the game and playing for the team the rest of the year. The other walk-on was Donnie Worthy, a Black guy, and he caught Pete that game and became our starting catcher the rest of the year. Donnie was voted MVP for the season. I will never forget it and now Pete and I talk about that season and team now that he is back.
The game was not all that interesting as the Giants beat the A’s 9 to 4, but it was not that close; it could easily have been 14 or more to 2 or less. The umpiring crew blew easy calls; I say blew because I would not want to accuse them of rooting for the A’s. Four clear, easy calls went against us. It was no simple thing to keep our bench at ease after the second one. The home plate umpire, although Johnny said he was consistent in his calls over the course of the game, still I saw pitch after pitch, grooved pitches, called balls. I polled our pitchers later on and they told me that low strikes were called balls so that our pitchers had to elevate the ball upward toward the “happy zone,” which is about waist high.
There was never a time I felt anxious about the outcome of the game. The A’s, bless their hearts, are the B team though they did their best to beat us. If only the competition between the teams could be managed so that games between them would be enjoyable.
During the top of the seventh inning a guy I had never talked to before approached me and asked when the soccer players were going to get the field. Now the soccer players are all Hispanic and are to get the field at 1pm. It was 1pm, the A’s at bat, and I wanted at least for them to finish their part of the inning.
Sitting up against the left field fence, strung out for about twenty years, were the soccer guys. I walked out, got in the center of the line, and pleaded for one half an hour more–1:30pm and we would vacate the field. All along the fence I heard the voices or approval; I thanked them and walked back to the third base dugout and announced the decision.
The A’s did not score against Matt White who had relieved Kevin after the fifth inning, the Giants tacked on another run in the bottom of the seventh, and Pete Steele finished off the A’s in the top of the eighth. Game over, we lined up for high fives.
The meeting at the holy mound was quick and upbeat. I asked again that we not rub our win in the face of the A’s, and that we would not argue calls and little things that happened in the course of the game. We determined that if A’s players complained or criticized certain things that we would listen and not be defensive. I reminded the Giants that any team can beat any other team–such is the game of baseball.
Play the A’s again? I don’t think so. We will probably slide past this win, but one, two, or three more wins in a row and the peace might be broken. The combination of boredom, anger, hopelessness, meaninglessness, loss of whatever is left of one’s youth, these along with the power of athletic competition does not add up to confidence that the peace will hold.[1]
[1] As it turned out, the two teams played each other one more time with the Giants winning again, and easily. The Giants coaches decided there would be no more games between the teams. The coaches were somewhat divided on the issue but the players insisted they did not want to play the A’s ever again.