Tomorrow, Saturday, May 26, 2018, I go back into the prison. To catch up a little, I will relate part of the history from June of 2012 until now.

            For the first four years, 1997 to 2000, Dan Jones and I managed the San Quentin Pirates/Giants. Dan had to leave due to medical issues. I continued alone for a number of years with a couple of guys I brought in to lighten the load. Then about 2009 several baseball guys came in to serve as real coaches. Chief of these is Kevin Laughlin, who I met when our two teams (the Tamalpais Hawks frosh team and Kevin’s frosh team, the San Rafael Bulldogs) played each other at Albert’s Park in San Rafael, 2005. (This is the field where the Pacifics now play.)

            Besides Kevin, there were several other coaches. One of these showed up occasionally, mostly Saturday mornings; he would arrive late and leave early. His main focus was criticizing the operation. After I left, for 2012, Kevin managed the team up until he was also forced to leave.

            Son Vernon was also kicked out a few months later. Vern had taken over the Blues Brothers, an 8-man flag football team I had begun some years earlier. Being a Philpott he had to go.

            Then one of the other coaches, a real baseball guy, solid coach, faithful, had a home invasion take place and was shot but survived. It was a message sent from the **********. He concealed all this from the prison officials and came back in the next season, I think 2014. Parcels would arrive at his house with instructions to take the baseball equipment—baseball gloves mostly—into the prison in his equipment bag. All he had to do was, whenever the A’s played or practiced, leave the bag in the A’s dugout on the first base line. Simple as that.

            Finding that you could stuff about 1000 plus meth tablets into a hollowed-out catcher’s mitt, he called son Vernon on the phone. Vern visited this man’s new residence and took photos of the contraband.  This was the last straw, and this coach never went back in, destroyed the dope, and hoped he would not be attacked again.

            Back now to the coach who loved to criticize me—in 2013 or 2014—he took over managing the team, except with a difference. He merely acted as a sponsor, bringing outside teams in but leaving the running of practices and games to the convicts. Mistake. This of course worked for the ********** as they could continue, in various ingenious ways, to get drugs and cell phones into the prison. And one particular gang did this, what we call “The White Boys.”

            Yes, there are gangs in San Quentin, but all under cover, well mostly. If someone is identified as a gang member, they are shipped out to a higher security level prison like Corcoran, High Desert, or Pelican Bay among others. SQ is a level 2 prison and due to things like the age of the structures, it does not make for the kind of security necessary.

            Nevertheless, controlling drugs is power, and the cell phones allow gangs to do all kinds of wonderful things. I could go on and describe what power means in a prison, but it does not seem like something I want to do right now.

            This baby-sitting coach (Do I sound angry?) ran the program down. Every year attempts were made to get me back in. A number of the inmates, the head of the athletic program, and one other person whom I will not name eventually succeeded in bringing me back in. Somehow this one person was able to convince the Internal Security Unit (ISU)to allow it.

            For two or more years I would get a call from the ISU and talk to a sergeant or lieutenant who would say something like, “Look Philpott, I have your file in front of me and if we were to let you back in and something happened to you, the State of California would be on the hook.” My response was always, “I understand.”

            Tomorrow I will park in the lot below the visitor’s center, I plan to get there about 8:20am, wait for a beige card holder, one of the present coaches, and get through the East Gate, make the long walk to the Count Gate, sign in, and walk into the prison past the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, American Indian, and others now, chapels, turn right at the hospital building, head right down cardiac hill and into the lower year. On the right will be a giant wall with the gun towers situated along and the inmates will spot me. On the left is an old iron door, fenced off now, where the old morgue was. When I get down past the “ Out of bounds” sign painted on the tarmac, and the  cons spot me, who knows what might happen. But I suspect there will be some who will recognize the old coach and come up to meet me. We’ll see. For sure though I will see guys I was close to, and sometimes for years. It will be quite emotional for me.

            Let me state why I am going back in. First, I spent 32 years as a volunteer at San Quentin, 16 of those years as the baseball coach. I was removed because of a gang’s need to bring in drugs and cell phones. There was not a goodbye, no thanks, no nothing. I want to go out on my own terms, not due to death threats, finish with my own resignation, after some years. I am seventy-six years old and I think I still have some good years left. And frankly, coaching at the prison is a whole lot easier than doing high school baseball.

            Second reason for going back in is that I want to start a second team, The Pirates. The Pirates, the name of the original team, third generation of baseball at San Quentin, that Chaplin Earl Smith began in 1995. The Pirates became the Giants in 1999 when the San Francisco Giants donated uniforms and equipment to us. Chaplain Smith was the Giants chaplain, the first African American to be a chaplain in the state’s prison system, and he made it work. Earl is, by the way, still the chaplain for the San Francisco 49ers and the Golden State Warriors. Side note: one of his sons, Franklin I see from time to time as he is the head coach for the San Rafael Bulldogs Junior Varsity baseball team. Franklin, and his brother Earl Jr., I watched grow up while they lived on the grounds of the prison.

            One story I will tell about Earl Jr. About the year 2007 I pulled up to get gas at the Chevron Station on Miller Avenue in Mill Valley. The guy pumping gas in front of me was Earl. We shook hands and I asked him, and I am not sure why I did this, but I asked him if he knew how I get ahold of a pair of cleats for a guy with a sized 14 shoe. Earl did not say a word, but opened the trunk of his car, reached in, grabbed a pair of brand-new cleats, sized 14, and handed them to me. Typical of the Smith family.

            Okay another story. At a high school game, at home, and playing the San Rafael Bulldogs, I was standing against the rail at our third base dugout. The game was about to begin and here came the oppositions coach to take his place at the third base coach’s box. A big Black man, full beard and all, and he was looking directly, and hard, at me. In a moment he yells out, “Philpott.” It was Franklin Smith, Earl’s brother and son of Earl Smith. The baseball world in Marin County is a small one.

            Tomorrow I am going to try to let the guys know of my intention. The baby-sitting coach refused to allow a second team, too much trouble. And he would be right, but I did it for years and want to do it again.

            Either there will be another team or there will be another paragraph below saying my plan did not work.

            Can’t help it, I have to let you know how the visit went. It was a huge success. I was overwhelmed by the response from the guys, many I knew, many I did not know. As I feed this into the computer, I am still having a stunned feeling. The short of it is, they want me back and as soon as possible. The program has been a mess since I left according to several dozen inmates, and not only the baseball program but the football program as well.

            Of course, I do not believe everything that was said to me, but I had four rather long and serious conversations with former players I trust and I am convinced I heard right. My most trusted informant told me that scores of young offenders, ages 18 to 24, are coming into San Quentin, mostly on drug charges, and I was told there will be 50 plus guys wanting to play for the Pirates. Looks like the ‘Skull and Cross Bones’ will fly again.