Crash, Sonny, Clarkie, and Dr. J

 “I’ll play first, third, left.  I’ll play anywhere – except Philadelphia.”  Dick Allen

I loved watching Dick Allen play baseball with flair and authority.  Before joining the Philadelphia Phillies, he was the first Black player on Little Rock’s Arkansas Travelers; segregationists not only booed him but held protests demanding his ouster.  When Allen joined the parent club in 1964, sportswriters dubbed him Richie, like Whiz Kid Richie Ashburn despite his objections that Richie was a kid’s name and he’d always been Dick.  He enjoyed a stellar season, earning Rookie-of-the-Year honors for a half dozen slugging honors. I attended many home games before heading off to Virginia Law School.  With 12 games left, the Phils had a six and a half game lead in the National League, then dropped ten in a row despite Allen batting over .400 during that harrowing stretch.  Listening from Charlottesville on radio, I sensed doom when Chico Ruiz stole home in the ninth for a Reds 1-0 victory. The following year in the clubhouse, Allen stood up to Frank Thomas, known to be a racist and bully, and Thomas hit him with a bat.  Management released Thomas the following day but refused to allow anyone to divulge details.  Some fans blamed Allen and threw fruit, ice, and flashlight batteries at him when he took the field.  He began wearing a batting helmet both on offense and defense, acquiring the nickname “Crash,” short for “Crash Helmet.”  After Allen hit several 500-feet-plus HRs that left the ballpark, Willie Stargell joked that folks booed him because he hits the ball so far, there are no souvenirs. The situation got so dire that Allen began writing “Trade me” in the dirt.

 

Allen had a sweet tenor singing voice and recorded soul tunes with a group called the Ebonics.  Asked to perform at halftime of a Philadelphia 76ers game, Allen drew boos as he began but got a standing ovation after the Ebistonics completed their short set. Ah, The City of Brotherly Love, whose fans famously booed Santa but fell in love with Charles Barkley and Alan Iverson, and eventually came to appreciate Dick Allen.

In 1970 Philadelphia traded Allen to the Cardinals for Curt Flood, who refused to report and sued (unsuccessfully) to be a free agent.  Instead, the Phillies obtained Willie Montanez, who became a fan favorite nicknamed “Willie the Philly.” Two years later, Allen came to the White Sox in a trade for Tommy John and had an MVP season that probably saved the Chicago franchise from moving to Florida. I became an instant White Sox fan and attended several games.  Once, sitting in leftfield, I watched a line drive off Allen’s bat appear to be rising as it landed in the stands ten rows above me.  In one game in spacious Comiskey Park he had a record two inside-the-park home runs. It was a glorious year to be a Dick Allen fan.

 

In 1975, amazingly, Allen was back on the Phillies, thanks to lobbying by All-Stars Mike Schmidt and Larry Bowa. I began an evening practice of trying to pick up the Philadelphia radio station (WFIL, I believe) on the car radio dial while in phone contact with Philadelphian Fred Chary, doing the same thing. Once, in the ninth inning, Allen shocked everyone, including this listener, by laying down a bunt single to drive in the winning run. The Phils finished second that year and first in 1976 before bowing in the playoffs, the club’s first in a quarter-century, to Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” with Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Tony Perez. When incompetent Phillies manager Danny Ozark had left off the playoff roster Tony Taylor, who had been a Philly since 1961 through all the hard times and had a quite good .261 batting average as a pinch hitter, Allen had raised a ruckus.  Management decided he was expendable. 

 

In 1977, playing for the Angels, Allen opted to retire in midseason and return to his Pennsylvania horse race farm.  Hearing the news, I called Sox owner Bill Veeck to suggest bringing Allen back to the “Windy City,” where he was beloved. Veeck’s secretary put the call right through; Veeck told me he made Allen a generous offer; Allen thanked him and declined.

 

When Allen and Tim Whitaker put together Allen’s autobiography, he decided to title it “Crash,” a nickname that he embraced.  Regarding artificial turf, he quipped that “if a horse can’t eat it, I don’t want to play on it.”  Famously averse to batting practice and hitting pitches that in no way resembled game conditions, he noted: “Your body is just like a bar of soap.”  It gradually wears down from repeated use.” While some setbacks were self-inflicted, more often the pressures came from management, sportswriters and fans who, in his opinion, took the fun out of baseball.

In recent years the Phillies have honored Allen and sportswriters once his nemesis have endorsed his enshrinement in Canton. Last year he fell one vote short of entering baseball’s Hall of Fame.  Let’s hope “Crash” lives to get in, he’s more than earned the honor.  Allen was popular with fellow players and had their respect.  White Sox teammate Rich “Goose” Gossage said, “I've been around the game a long time, and he's the greatest player I've ever seen play in my life.  He's the smartest baseball man I've ever been around in my life. He taught me how to pitch from a hitter's prospective, and taught me how to play the game right.”  Manager Chuck Tanner concurred: “Dick was the leader of our team, the captain, the manager on the field. He took care of the young kids, took them under his wing. And he played every game as if it was his last day on earth.”

 

My favorite football player, Hall of Famer Sonny Jurgensen, was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1934 and in high school starred in the three major sports as well as tennis.  At Duke he played defensive back as well as quarterback.  Drafted in the fourth round of the1957 draft by my Philadelphia Eagles, he backed up QB Norm Van Brocklin during the 1960 championship season.  I attended the final game since a friend’s uncle was athletic director at Penn, hosting the game Philadelphia’s Franklin Field when tickets weren’t hard to come by.  In 1961 with Van Brocklin retired Jurgensen set NFL records for passing yardage and touchdowns.  The Eagles finished 10-4 but lost the deciding game, 28-24, to the 10-3-1 Giants when punter Don Chandler faked being roughed, drawing a 15-yard penalty. 

 

By 1966 when I started grad school at Maryland, Sonny had been traded to Washington, and I got to watch his heroics and root for the team then known as the Redsskins. In 1969, legendary Packer coach Vince Lombardi became took over the team, and skeptics doubted they’d get along; but they were dead wrong.  Washington had its first winning season in years and Lombardi, forced to retire when stricken with cancer, called Jurgensen the best quarterback he’d ever seen, who “hangs in there under adverse conditions.”   When Jurgensen was injured the following year, new coach George Allen signed journeyman Billy Kilmer, who, much to my chagrin, remained the starter in 1972.  In the Superbowl against the undefeated Miami Dolphins, Allen stubbornly kept Kilmer in despite the offense producing zero points until less than a minute to go. In 1974, Sonny’s final year, he won the passing title despite spitting time with Kilmer. He then commenced a career as a color commentator until his retirement just last year. His gentle Carolina drawl, good sense of humor, and unchallenged expertise made him a natural.

Because Philadelphia did not have a professional ice hockey team until 1969, my first introduction to the sport came when my family moved to a Detroit suburb in the mid-1950s at a time when the Red Wings were dominant led by Gordie Howe, Alex Delvecchio, Glenn Hall, and Ted Lindsey.  Saturday evenings, the Canadian TV station broadcast a game featuring either the Maple Leafs or the mighty Canadians. Though I couldn’t ice skate very well, my brother and I would compete in our rec room with tennis balls. Moving to Northwest Indiana in 1970, I began watching Chicago Black Hawk games and cheered for Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, and goalie Tony Esposito. The 1971 Stanley Cup finals got my attention, as Chicago went up 3 games to 2 before bowing to the mighty Canadians due to the heroics of Montreal goalie Ken Dryden.

 

Before long, however, my loyalties belonged to the Philadelphia Flyers, thanks in large part to Bobby Clarke. Born in 1949 in Flin Flon, Manitoba, Clarke, despite growing up with diabetes and undersized compared to most teammates, played with the flair of an crafty veteran and the heart of a lion. Not yet 21, he was an NHL All-Star his rookie season.  In 1974 the Flyers reached the Stanley Cup finals against heavily-favored Bruins led by center Phil Espisito and Bobby Orr, perhaps the greatest defenseman of all time. After losing game one in Boston, Clarke scored an overtime goal in game 2 to even the series. In game 3, I was at a party and listened to the final minutes of the Flyers victory in the host’s bathroom. By game six the Flyers needed to clinch at home or play game 7 in hostile Boston Garden.  It happened that we were in New Jersey watching with brother-in-law Sonny, an ardent fan who had taught his youngest daughter to shout “Bernie-eee,” the first name of goalie Bernie Parent. Management brought singer Kate Smith in as a good luck charm to sing “God Bless America.”  The game was scoreless until Clarke and Orr got in a fight; while both were in the penalty box, Flyer Rick MacLeish scored the only goal of the game. With a minute left, Clarke stole the puck and was pulled down from behind by Orr, drawing a penalty and clinching the victory.  Philadelphia became the first NHL expansion team to win the Stanley Cup.  Clarke had won 48 of 66 face-offs from Esposito during the series and pretty much neutralized Orr. The following week, one of the largest crowds in history attended the victory parade.

 

The Flyers would repeat in 1974-1975 and reach the finals in 1976, during which time they became known as the Broad Street Bullies for their rough style of play personified by “enforcer Dave “Dutch” Schultz.  By then I had purchased an official Flyers jersey with Clarke’s number 16 on the back.  Though Black Hawks home games were inevitably sell-outs, Milan Andrejevich managed to obtain 2 standing-room-only tickets, and I naively showed up wearing the Flyers jersey. Less than a minute into the game, Keith Magnuson gave Clarke a hard check into the boards.  Coach Freddy Shero immediately sent Schultz into the game, who made a beeline for Magnuson and began pummeling him as someone near me yelled, “Get him, Schultzie.” Eyes turned to our section, and there I was, standing with my Flyers jersey in full view.  After someone almost spilled beer on my head, I spent the rest of the game wearing my trench coat.

Clarke in 2011

Clarke played his entire 15-year career with the Flyers and over 30 years as the franchise’s general manager and senior vice president.  In 1,144 games he scored a remarkable 1,210 points; and his grit and crowd-pleasing charisma, punctuated by a boyish, toothless grin and wink, made “Clarkie” by far my favorite hockey player ever.

 

Julius Erving, my favorite basketball player and a class act, revolutionized his sport by turning slam dunks into pure artistry and in addition was a consummate team player who brought Philadelphia its first and only NBA title since Wilt Chamberlain left town with the city’s Warriors franchise.  Born in 1950 in East Meadow, New York, he claimed a friend started calling him “the Doctor” after he nicknamed his buddy “the Professor.” When onlookers on a Harlem playground called him “Houdini” and the “Black Moses,” he told them his nickname was “the Doctor,” which morphed into Dr. J.  After two years starring a UMass, Erving turned pro and played for the Virginia Squires and New York Nets in the expansion ABA, whose teams adapted an exciting, offensive-minded style in contrast to the more traditional NBA.  Dr. J, though not the first player to slam dunk the ball, invented acrobatic moves, often starting 15 or 20 feet from the basket, that were unprecedented.

When the ABA and NBA merged in 1976, the Philadelphia 76ers acquired Erving from the Nets, and the franchise immediately went from cellar-dweller to title contender. Teamed with former ABA star George McGinnis, future Hall of Famer Lloyd Free, Doug Collins, and Darryl Dawkins, a colorful big man known as “Chocolate Thunder,” the 76ers reached the NBA finals against the Portland Trail Blazers coached by canny Jack Ramsey and featuring Bill Walton, Maurice Lucas, and Lionel Hollins. The Sixers took a two-game lead, but momentum swung after Dawkins and Maurice Lucas got in a brawl.  Portland won the next two at home and then stole game 5 in Philly despite Dr. J’s 37 points.  In game 6 at Portland Erving scored 40 and the game was tie, 107-107.  I was at Paul Kern’s Miller apartment on a warm June day.  With less than 20 seconds to go, Lloyd Free literally got mugged attempting a shot but no foul was called.  Portland scored at the buzzer to deny the Sixers the championship.

 

Dr. J in "The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979)

Starting in 1980, with Larry Bird joining Celtics, Boston and Philadelphia vied in the Eastern Division finals four out of five years. In 1980 and 1982 the Sixers prevailed only to lose to the talent-laden L.A. Lakers led by Magic Johnson and Kareen Abdul Jabbar. Then the Sixers acquired dominant big man Moses Malone and came within one game of fulfilling Malone’s prediction of “four-four-four” – winning every playoff game but one.  Erving showed his versatility by setting up teammates Maurice Cheeks, Anthony Toney, Bobby Jones, and Malone.

 

Dr. J proved to be a gentleman on and off the court and paved the way for superstars such as Michael Jordon, who strove to emulate Erving’s demeanor as the face of his franchise. By the time he retired after the 1987 season, Dr. J had broken almost all team records and is considered one of the two dozen best players of all time.  I recall his final All-Star game appearance when he showed off all his moves and scored 22 points.  I teared up as he accepted the MVP trophy, knowing an era was ending. On my Glen Park Eagles softball team Terry Hunt nicknamed me Dr. J and had “Doc” inscribed on my jersey.

Clock Dance

“If Willa were to invent a clock dance, it would feature a woman racing across the stage from left to right, all the while madly whirling so that the audience saw only a spinning blur of color before she vanished into the wings, pouf!  Just like that.  Gone.” Anne Tyler, “Clock Dance” (2018)

In Anne Tyler’s most recent novel, again set in Baltimore, nine-year-old Cheryl and two friends invent a routine where they stand behind one another and move their arms to resemble the hour and minute hands of a clock. Flying from Arizona to care for Cheryl while her mother Denise (ex-girlfriend of son Sean) is hospitalized with a gunshot wound, Willa enters a world inhabited by characters much more appealing than found in her over 55 community, including her boorish husband.  Visiting Denise, she notices a nurse wearing a pajama-type uniform printed all over with teddy bears.  In the hospital commissary were tiny Saguara cacti on sale, looking forlorn and out of place compared to stately 15-foot ancestors back in Arizona. Surprised when Denise expresses hopes to marry, explaining that people are supposed to go through this world two by two, Willa thinks the sentiment resembles a line from Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” When Denise comes home, a neighbor named Sergio (Cheryl calls Sir Joe) carries her from the car to a couch, from which she watches “Space Junk” on TV and plays “I Doubt It,” only she and Cheryl say “Bullshit! to Willa’s feigned shock

Until age 61, Washington Post reviewer Ron Charles wrote:

  Willa always does what she’s told, always shifts the attention away from herself. Raised by a moody, histrionic mother, she coped by becoming exceedingly responsible at a young age. She takes after her father, a man “so mild-mannered that he thought it was impolite to pick up a telephone in mid-ring.” A peacekeeping jedi, Willa detects and soothes the first flutter of anyone’s irritation or disappointment.

Coming to prefer an eccentric new “family” to a lonely life in Arizona, Willa finds a true soulmate in precocious, ersatz granddaughter Cheryl.  She heeds the insight of an elderly Baltimore neighbor who tells her: “Figuring out what to live for.  That’s the great problem at my age.” Willa thinks to herself, "Or at any age."  Ron Charles concludes:

   The bond that develops between this lonely child and this obliging woman forms the emotional heart of “Clock Dance,” radiating what Tyler calls a “sweetly heavy, enjoyable kind of ache.”But there’s a steelier theme here, too, an existential sorrow cloaked by the embroidery of Willa’s grandmotherly demeanor.“Sometimes Willa felt she’d spent half her life apologizing,”Tyler writes. “More than half her life, actually.” She knows that the world, which has largely ignored her, expects her now to coast along that deferential rut into oblivion.

Charlie Halberstadt and I were runners-up in bridge at Chesterton Y to Rich and Sally Will.  My moment to shine came when Charlie overcalled I Diamond and bid a Heart. I only had 4 points but held 6 Spades to the King and a couple Hearts.  I passed, the person on my left bid 2 Diamonds, and after two passes, I bid 2 Spades. Charlie raised to 3 and I made the contract with a trick to spare despite him having only 10 high card points. Barbara Mort, who got married last week to 87-year-old Korean War veteran Ascher Yates, said that he is going on an Honor Flight to tour DC war memorials.  

Next day in Valpo Australian-born Naomi Goodman and I finished fourth (the Wills had 70.24 %) despite never having played together.  We meshed; when Charlie asked how things were going, she said, “I haven’t had a hissy fit yet.”   Once an exclusively American expression, now, thanks to films shown abroad, the saying is now more common elsewhere.  I called Chuck Tomes Mr. East when Naomi inquired whether it was he or his partner sitting west was playing a hand.  When I adding, “like the Merrillville basketball coach,” Chuck said, “He was a good one, his record speaks for itself.”  Chuck noted that Cardinals Hall of Famer Bob Gibson wanted to play basketball at IU but Coach Branch McCracken already had his quota of one, so Gibson went on to star for Creighton.

Phil picked up our 2004 Corolla from Dave because Tori’s old Saturn died.  Toni made a seafood feast, and my sons and I got in a game of Acquire, first time in months.  At a party in Grand Valley Phil and Delia ran into IUN public relations staff member Terry Ann Defenser, who told them she sees me almost every day.  At the time we both parked in the same lot and arrived around the same time, but since then I’ve moved to the A and S Building due to library renovation so park elsewhere.

 Paul and Jean at Miller beach

At Paul and Jean Kaczocha’s Fourth of July picnic were huge pans of grilled chicken, ribs, beef tips, hot dogs, and hamburger patties even though Paul and Jean are now vegetarians.  I gave him Steel Shavings, volume 48, which contains his moving eulogy to rank-and-file steelworker Eddie Sadlowski.  Sue O’Leary, whose delicious mac and cheese was from a Queen Latifah recipe, recalled Toni and Alissa eating orange day lilies at a previous July 4 party.

Kaczocha and brother Tim are big White Sox fans. Paul has a framed Carlton Fisk No. 72 jersey on his garage wall along with union posters.  At a table with Sue and Mike Olszanski, Tim recalled one of Oz’s relatives telling about working for Sox owner Bill Veeck and getting dressed down (but not fired) in 1979 for having endorsed what became known as Disco Demolition night, which ended in a riot and forfeiture of game 2 of the scheduled doubleheader.  I became a Sox fan in 1972 when my favorite player, former Philly Dick Allen, joined the team and had an MVP season, batting .308 with 37 home runs.  Five years later, after Allen was released by Oakland, I phoned Veeck to suggest he bring him back to Chicago.  His secretary put me right through, and Veeck told me he’d spoken to Dick, but he preferred to retire to his Pennsylvania farm and breed race horses.

Famed drummer Henry E. “Riggs” Guidotti, who moved to Highland, Indiana 70 years ago with wife Ella, is dead at age 96.  According to an obit, Riggs’s career spanned 60 years and that after touring with several famous big bands, “he spent 17 years with WGN Radio, playing for Orion Samuelson's Country Fair and on a few occasions filling in with the Bozo Show's Big Top Band. In the mid-1960s he was invited to play the Calgary Stampede and returned every year for the next 29, performing for Queen Elizabeth II when she opened the Stampede in 1973.”

In Chesterton Strack & Van Til’s parking lot was the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile but without Little Oscar. A 1952 model came to Fort Washington when I was a kid with Gary native George Molchan the likely “Little Oscar,” passing out the hot dogs – at least that’s my memory. One came to Toni’s north Philadelphia neighborhood, and kids only received little whistles shaped like hot dogs.   Molchan enjoyed a 36-year career until retiring in 1987, his last 16 at the company’s Disney World restaurant.  When Molchan hung up his Chef’s Hat, Oscar Meyer retired the character.  Molchan died in 2005 at age 82 while living in Hobart. According to Timesreporter Myrna Oliver, a Wienermobile appeared at the Merrillville burial site, and mourners sang the enigmatic jingle, “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener.”

Inside Stracks, a man was wearing an East Chicago Washington t-shirt.  I told him my son Dave taught at EC Central, and he said that he knew him. When I brought up Pete Trgovich, who led the Senators to a state title and coached the 2007 state champions, he said he was a friend of the family.  A 1964 graduate named Jerry Craven, he played for legendary coach Johnny Baratto. Dave recently had a memorable student whose last name was craven, so Jerry was likely his grandfather.

                                         Senators Foote and Sunmer

Virtually all students of American history are familiar with South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks’s brutal 1856 caning of Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the Senate floor. Joanne Freeman’s “The Field of Blood” reveals that at least 70 other violent outbursts occurred in the chambers of Congress in the 30 years leading up to the Civil War.  The Congressional Globemade no mention of such pushing, shoving, knife-wielding and pistol-waving incidents.  During debate on the Compromise of 1850, for instance, according to a New York Review of Books essay by James Oakes, when Mississippi Senator Henry Foote pulled a pistol on Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, “Benton defiantly bared his chest and dared the would-be ‘assassin’ to shoot.”

Gary ruins photographer Cindy C. Bean posted a shot taken from inside the to Emerson School, captioned “Grand entrance to one of my favorite buildings.  Lyn Pellett replied: “We had to stop on the stairs with one foot on each step, if necessary, and stand perfectly still when the bugle played each morning. Emerson was the grandest of schools in her prime.”