A Midsummer Madness Read online

  Dad

  Here it comes…

  Why, there they are, both baked in this pie,

  Where of their mother daintily hath fed,

  Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.

  Sister

  Ooh, that’s a hard one.

  Shake

  Titus Andronicus. Act five, the last scene, I think.

  Dad

  Very good.

  Mom

  What does it mean, the ‘eating the flesh’ and all that?

  Shake

  There’s this evil Queen and Titus kills her kids then cooks them up and feeds them to her in a pie.

  Mom

  I see. There will be no more talk of eating people at the dinner table.

  Dad

  Yes, dear.

  Despite the scolding, the game continued and grew more sophisticated over the years.

  Shake attended Jefferson High School where he starred in baseball and ended up getting a scholarship offer to Pepperdine. Even though Pepperdine was a well-known baseball factory, Shake was a bit disappointed that he did not receive similar offers from schools with better English Lit Departments. He had warned big league scouts not to try and sign him since he planned to play baseball in college and get a degree, but the lack of scholarship offers had made him second guess that decision.

  This is when his dad had stepped in. By this time, John was a tenured professor at Cal. After calling in a few favors, his son got a call from George Wolfman, Cal’s baseball coach, who offered Shake a scholarship, which Shake happily accepted. Cal had a solid baseball program and one of the most prestigious English Lit programs in the country. It was a match made in heaven. When Shake thanked his dad, he received only two words of advice: “Beat Stanford.”

  he played four years under Wolfman at second base, wearing number four, and in his junior and senior years, he led the AAWU in fielding percentage. He hit for average, didn’t make errors, and when graduation rolled around in June of ’61, Shake collected his Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and signed a major league contract with the San Francisco Giants.

  But before we follow Shake into the minor leagues, a little must be said about his love life, since it colors the rest of our story. Young men who are captivated by Romeo and Juliet are suckers for love and Shake was no exception. But a transformation took place that shook his foundation. Shake went from a youth believing that love is the star of every wandering bark to a jaded young man who became convinced that

  Love is merely a madness and, I tell you,

  Deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do

  Shake was a virgin until age eighteen when he was readily seduced by a neighbor of twenty-six. This in itself did not turn him against love. She was an attractive woman and “experienced” and he was horny and more than happy to learn from her. In a way, it was sort of like having Ted Williams as your personal hitting coach. But he went off to college and she quickly replaced him with one of his buddies, and he was left a little wiser for the wear. He didn’t think he’d been in love, or maybe he had been (he wasn’t sure), but he was left with a bittersweet feeling plus two other legacies: one, a budding belief that women were cunning past man’s thought, and two, a perennial attraction to older women.

  Cupid’s deathblow came a few years later when Shake fell madly in love with Mimi. She was a grad student two years older than him and their love was deep and fulfilling… for a time. They were practically living together without appearing so (this was 1960), and both talked of marriage and having a family. She loved baseball and came to all his games, wearing a floppy sun hat and keeping score, and afterwards they often double-dated with his good friend Pauly and his girlfriend. Herein lay the canker in the rose. Pauly, a childhood friend of Shake’s, broke up with his girlfriend but still hung out with the two lovers. He was heartbroken and they felt sorry for him, but after a while Shake became convinced that Pauly and Mimi were secretly in love with one another.

  Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, and in Shake’s seething brain the truth glared back at him—in the way they looked at each other, touched hands when they spoke, and giggled at their private jokes. He confronted them and they called him crazy, but when he saw her crying in Pauly’s arms on a bench in Sproul Plaza, he called her a whore and ended it. A couple months later, right before he was due to leave for spring training and feeling a bit remorseful, he had called her up but her roommate said she had quit school and moved away. That had sealed the deal for him as far as love was concerned.

  Shake left for spring training, got assigned to their Class-A Springfield team, and played professional baseball for the next twelve years. Over that span, he was called up, sent down, optioned, outrighted, put on waivers and picked up again in a recurring theme that would have discouraged most others. But unlike women, his passion for baseball was unconditional; he loved it and the fact that it didn’t return the feeling never disheartened him. Whether it was Class-A or Triple-A, he was playing baseball. He was still lacing them up, stealing bases and handling tricky hops. In his minor league career, he accrued a 287 batting average, a 322 OBP, and was always in the league’s top five in fielding percentage wherever he played.

  Five times he was called up to the big leagues. Three of those times didn’t count for much. They were September call-ups where he got to pinch run or play second base late in blow-out games, but he never hit and was lost in the crowded dugout with all the other call-ups. He had two extended stays in his third and fourth years as a pro. In both those stints, Shake got to field and bat. He didn’t set the world on fire but he didn’t embarrass himself either and made two lasting memories by breaking up a Bob Gibson no-hitter with a swinging bunt and by getting a clutch, two-out hit late in the season to beat the Dodgers. But it wasn’t enough to get him to stick and he was soon thereafter labeled “NP” (No Prospect).

  Most ballplayers who toil in the minor leagues live in perpetual hope that they are just an injury away from the big leagues. Shake never held any such illusions. By his sixth year he realized he wasn’t going to be a big leaguer, but he was making money doing what he loved and was having fun doing it, so he stayed with it—stayed with the bus rides and cramped clubhouses and cheap motels—and over time became an “organizational ballplayer.” He had traits that were appreciated: he was a leader in the clubhouse, ingratiating, well-liked, but also hard-headed when he needed to be. He was also intelligent and baseball smart—someone who could quote the Bard but also appreciate the beauty of a bloop and a blast. The organization recognized these talents and kept him on so he could display good work habits and mentor rising stars, and all the while grooming Shake to become a minor league manager.

  He went straight from ballplayer to assistant coach in ’74 and in a couple years, at age thirty-seven, he was given the manager’s job in Single-A where he distinguished himself as a skipper who could both win and develop talent. It was there that he cemented his reputation as something more than just a baseball coach. In a close game, an umpire blew a call at third base and Shake flew out of the dugout to air his grievance. The ump ignored him and turned his back to Shake. When he did, something snapped and Shake, drawing from his extensive mental library, leaped in front of the umpire and called him “a whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-eared knave.” Everybody heard it—the fans, the players, the other umps—and laughter rippled through the small stadium. The umpire wasn’t sure what it all meant but he knew it wasn’t good and tossed Shake from the game. But a minor league legend was born and after that fans and players and even umps came to expect his poetic outbursts. Shake didn’t disappoint.

  In ’79 he became manager of the organization’s Class-AA ball club. As hoped, his success carried over and he continued to win and produce talent. If the big club thought him a bit eccentric with his odd language and seventeenth century slang, they let it go and considered
it part of Shake’s winning formula. He got results. Prospects who came out of his program into Triple-A and onto the big club knew how to play baseball “the right way.” They shaded lefties to pull, went the other way on an outside pitch, bunted down the third base line, and did one and a hundred little things that showed they knew the game. And if, on occasion, they called someone a “jackanape,” or answered “anon” when their manager called them, it was all considered a sign of their proper training and was given the stamp of approval.

  With coaching, Shake found his calling and the Bard and baseball found a harmony of purpose. Both came together into that savory vinaigrette of transcendent poetry blended with sublime action upon a diamond. The Bard might have wondered at it—was it fate or freewill that brought his namesake to this point? His parents certainly had their own view of it: The Bard or Lou—they had taken an oath, to get neither but a little of both.

  3

  CHAPTER

  This way, my lord, for this way lies the game.

  Henry VI Part 3

  We lay our scene in New Britain, at Beehive Stadium, right off Route 9 amidst the rolling hills and wooded green of Connecticut. It’s the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-six and it’s opening day in the Double-A Eastern League between the New Britain Kingsmen and Vermont Reds. A good house is expected.

  ***

  Manager Shake Glover of the New Britain Kingsmen sat at his desk going over his opening day’s line-up. He liked it. From top to bottom, he liked it. There was speed at the top, thunder in the middle, and grinders at the bottom. The pitching match-up felt good as well. Though he never took anything for granted, you had to like your chances with their big lefthander on mound—Steve Basset, 16 and 6 last year, leading the league in strikeouts—against their guy Platko who was thirty-four and coming back from Tommy John surgery. Yeah, he thought, we could do worse. And coming from a guy who was wary of jinxes, that was saying a lot.

  He took a sip from his thermal coffee mug—the same one he’d been sipping on since four this morning—and leaned back in his squeaky chair. He lifted his cap and ran his palm over his thinning hair and gazed up at the ceiling with his hazel eyes. At forty-six going on forty-seven, Shake was still in pretty good shape. He weighed one-eighty-six, six pounds over his playing weight, and he had a bit of a boiler, but at 5’11” with broad shoulders and a jump in his step he still looked like he could turn a double play if he had to. His trimmed beard, like his hair, was auburn (a gift from his red-headed mother), with no hints of gray yet, and if it was said he looked like anybody famous it was probably the guy who played Rambo’s colonel in the movie First Blood (Richard Crenna). But that guy had all his hair. Shake’s hair had not so much thinned as it had receded, leaving him with a high forehead which he covered up most of the time with his ball cap.

  His gaze left the ceiling and settled back on his line-up card. Yeah, he thought, not bad—and for a tiny, infinitesimal moment he indulged a feeling of satisfaction. It was spring, opening day, and there was not another place in the world he’d rather be. Normally he’d squelch such a feeling and give it an intentional pass but today, at this moment, he felt like pitching to it despite the danger. Part of it was fed by the calm before the storm. Game days were always hectic but opening days were especially so. On top of running his team, there were city dignitaries to meet, owners and league officers to schmooze, heightened clubhouse commotion, ceremonies, touchy weather, and finally a game to manage. Any minute his office door would open to a problem, but for an exquisite moment he looked at his line-up card—the symbol of his goodwill towards men—and let a smile crease his lips.

  Shake can be forgiven the smile. The New Britain Kingsmen were an excellent team with top prospects. They had finished first last year and the year before that and Baseball America picked them to finish first again this year. Going into his eighth year as manager, Shake had been named “Manager of the Year” in the Eastern League four of those eight years and nobody would be surprised if he won it again this year. They were not a bunch of sad sacks being led by a foul-mouthed, tobacco-chewing reprobate nor (like some Disney fantasy) a ragtag team of misfits led by an outcast who, despite the mighty odds against them, find a way to win the big one. Nope, the Kingsmen were well-coached and full of talent and did one thing consistently—win.

  There was a quick knock and the door opened. His assistant coach Rick Burton stuck his head in and said, “Forty minute delay, but we’re good to go.”

  Shake nodded. He already knew about the rain delay. They had cancelled batting practice because of rain, but it was supposed to clear out and be a nice day. “Ask Prince to come in here. Thanks,” he replied.

  Hank Prince was a late add to the roster, coming down from Triple-A just two days ago, and Shake had not had a chance to really talk to him at length. The kid was leading off and starting in centerfield. Normally Shake would wait until after the game for such a talk but the rain delay gave him a window to dig into his new problem child. Hank signed a fat contract out of high school and in two years was playing for the big club, but after a year of missed curfews, missed signs, and lackadaisical play he was sent down to Triple-A to shape up. Now he had been sent down to Double-A. This kid was a “can’t miss,” a rising star who had stopped rising, and when a rising star stopped rising it was considered a coaching problem. Shake was expected to turn the kid around.

  It was a ten second walk from the player’s lockers to his office and after a few minutes of waiting Shake got up out of his chair. Hank appeared just then and he sat back down. “Hank, have a seat,” he said.

  The angular youth nodded without smiling and eased into the chair across from Shake. He was just twenty-two and his smooth, coffee-colored cheeks didn’t look like they needed to be shaved very often. At 6’2” he wasn’t particularly tall but his raw-boned physique, long arms, and chin-up look of defiance (born of the inner city) made him seem taller than he really was. His afro was shaped into a kind of flat-top like Ricky Henderson and Shake made a mental note of that.

  “Heard you found an apartment… in the City Center,” said Shake.

  “Yeah.”

  Shake waited for a little more but when he didn’t get it he added, “Not the best neighborhood.”

  “Why? Cause it’s black?”

  “Don’t know about that,” replied Shake, not taking the bait. “It’s got a high crime rate. Drug and gang problems.”

  “Dunno ’bout all that. Seems fine. Like where I grew up.”

  “Fair enough… I got you leading off. I know they had you batting sixth or seventh last year but I like you at the top of the order. Okay with that?”

  “Sure.”

  “With your eye and your speed—and you got some pop—you’re a natural born lead-off hitter and table-setter. When you get on look for the green light. I like putting the pressure on. You could easily have forty stolen bases this year.”

  “Or more.”

  “Or more,” repeated Shake with a grin. That was his cue and he looked into Hank’s eyes. “You’re capable of more. But right now you’re in the dog house. I didn’t put you there but you’re in the dog house and you need to show me you want out. Three years ago you were the youngest rookie in the majors. The next Ricky Henderson. Now you’re in Double-A and going the wrong way. I don’t know what the deal is—you’re too young, the money went to your head, too much pressure—don’t know and don’t care. You need to show me you want to play. I already know you can play. But I want to see that other thing. That fire. Are you ready to do that?”

  Shake half expected an answer filled with excuses and finger-pointing but what he got back was a pleasant surprise.

  “I know, man… I know, coach. I’m gonna turn it round. I want outta that dog house. I’m here to turn it ‘round. You can believe it.”

  “Good to hear,” said Shake. He waited a moment and added, “Be not afraid of greatne
ss.”

  “Is that some of that Shakespeare shit I’ve been hearing ’bout?” asked Hank, smiling for the first time.

  “Well, not exactly ‘shit’ but yeah. The actual quote goes something like this:

  Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great; some achieve greatness,

  and some have greatness thrust upon them.

  “Cool, bro. Love it,” replied Hank, bouncing his head to show his approval.

  “I’ll have you quoting Hamlet back in the big leagues,” said Shake. They talked for another couple minutes until Shake was satisfied that the young man was sincere about turning things around and not conning him. He let Hank go and followed him out the door where he found the owner Rex Lyon in the hallway. The old man stood next to a much younger man in levis and a sport coat, who Shake recognized as Orson Kent. He was the son of one of the big club’s owners and had been sent down to the farm system to learn the business.

  “Rex,” greeted Shake.

  “Glover,” replied Rex with a nod. The old man called everyone by their last name. It was a quirk of his.

  “Hot links on the grill?

  “Yea, and all the lumber’s nailed down.”

  Shake smiled at the private joke. He didn’t expect Orson to get it—he’d fill him in later—but it referred to four years ago when the ball club was in Bristol. Back then, Rex wanted to move the club ten miles over to New Britain where a newer and bigger stadium beckoned, but he was locked into a lease and the landowner—a tightwad named Allen—wouldn’t let him go even though the park was sub-par and they weren’t drawing. But Rex Lyon, owner and CEO of Lyon Bolt Manufactory, a multi-million dollar business he built up from scratch, was not a man to be deterred. He knew that Allen owned the land but he—Rex Lyon—owned the stadium that sat on the land, every nail and two by four. And given the stadium was built in the thirties, that was a lot of nails and two by fours.

  Rex concocted a plan and enlisted a number of co-conspirators including Shake. First he created the New Britain Professional Baseball Inc, made himself president, and signed up shareholders (of which Shake was one) with the promise of fortune once they moved into the bigger stadium. Next, in the dead of winter 1983, after Allen the snowbird had left for his winter home in Florida, Rex hired contractors to dismantle the park. Even Shake helped out. Muffled by the snow, they removed every board and plank, loaded it on trucks, and left nothing but the plumbing. When Allen returned he went ballistic and filed an injunction. Rex filed a counter injunction, and after legal threats and haggling back and forth, Allen admitted defeat and the New Britain Kingsmen opened their ’83 season in their new stadium.