Forever Grateful

I was watching the HBO miniseries, The Pacific. In the next to last chapter, the Marines are engaged in the battle for Okinawa. It was a horrific fight, and the US suffered the highest casualties of any battle in the Pacific. It got me thinking about one of the people responsible for me loving the Dodgers and the game as much as I do.

In June of 1958, about a week after school was over and also a week after my tenth birthday, my mother made the decision to put me in the care of the Los Angeles County welfare system. At ten, all you feel is unwanted. Years later, I would understand the real reasons, but I never forgot the feeling. I was sent to a home for children in Highland Park. Hathaway Home was on Ave 66, not far from the Pasadena freeway.

We could ride our bikes down the wash all the way to the Rose Bowl, which we did on several occasions during the summer. Hathaway had the kids separated by age and gender. When I got there, there were 32 kids in residence, only 7 of whom were girls. They had the boys separated into what they called cottages. The young ones, 5-7, then the middle, 8-11, and the older boys, 12-14. You could not stay there beyond your 14th birthday. The little boys were the cubs, the middle, the rangers, and the older boys were the pioneers.

Each cottage had house parents… usually, an older couple whose children were grown. I cannot remember who the ranger’s house parents were, but the house father of the pioneers was a man we called Mr. Howell. He loved baseball. Even more than that, he loved the Dodgers. Originally from Connecticut, he very often would travel to New York to watch baseball games. He was a fountain of baseball history. He had seen Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Reiser, Robinson, all of the great NY players, yeah, the Giants Mel Ott too.

We did not have a real field at the home; what we had was a very large open play space with a chicken wire fence for a backstop. But he would work for hours with us, hitting fungo’s and teaching most of us how to field and throw properly. He also had a huge collection of photos taken at Vero Beach. One particular photo had two rookies he had seen early in their careers. Pee Wee and Pete Reiser.

Mr. and Mrs. Howell did not talk much about their son. I did hear his name mentioned once or twice. I found out later that their son, Aubrey, had been killed on Okinawa about three weeks before the island fell. At my age, I had not a clue what that must have felt like. But one of the things that kept him going was baseball. And with the Dodgers moving to LA, he was in heaven. House parents, for the most part, did not go on the field trips the home had us take. They had counselors for that. So when we went to the Coliseum to see a game, the counselors were the chaperones.

We went to about five games in 1958 and sat in the knothole seats down the right field line. The players looked like ants, but it was still great. One time we even got seats behind the screen in left field. They eventually bulldozed the hills behind the home and built houses. This was about 1960. Larry and Norm Sherry moved in on our street. Before they went to Vero, they would have us kids shag balls for them.

Mr. Howell recognized how much I loved the game and the team, and he would take me aside when I was going to play 1st base for the first time and taught me the footwork needed to be proficient. I was the first kid that Hathaway had allowed to play organized little league baseball. One of the boys who had lived there previously was on the team, and his dad was allowed by the staff to pick me up and drop me off after the game was over.

I was always very grateful to Mr. Howell for the encouragement and pointers he gave. I moved into the pioneer’s cottage when I was 11. One reason was that I was not really a problem child. The other was that they felt I needed my own room. And the pioneers were the only cottage that had a single room. I stayed at Hathaway until I was almost 14. Then about four weeks before my 14th birthday, I was placed in a foster home in Redondo Beach. My foster father neither shared nor cared for my love of the game. He was abusive and just a tyrant at times. And he was not athletic at all. We never played catch or talked baseball. I had to get all of that from my schoolmates.

After I graduated from junior high, I went to Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach. I sang in the choir, and in my freshman year, I made the Jr. Varsity baseball team. I was pulled off of the team by my foster father for some perceived wrong I had done. I was basically embarrassed and shattered by that. In my junior year, he gave me a choice, baseball or choir. I chose baseball. During spring, we had a visitor and a special BP pitcher, former Mico High alum Joe Moeller. I could not see what I was swinging at, but I heard it.

I made the JV squad again as a sub-outfielder and 1st baseman. I had pitched some in my freshman year, but my arm was shot. I didn’t play much, nor was I very good. I believed then, and I believe to this day, the fact that I played only one year of organized youth baseball, that whatever skills I had, were not honed the way they should have been. But by then, I had no illusions that I was going to be a professional ballplayer.

Just before my senior year, I was moved out of the foster home I was in and placed in what they call a temp home in the LA strip. I had to transfer to Narbonne High. I was planning on trying out for the baseball team when the tryouts came in January. I played JV football that year as a left tackle. I did it just to show my former foster parent I could play if I wanted to. In November, circumstances arose, and the welfare department decided they were going to move me to a large home for boys in downtown LA.

In the middle of my senior year?? When I would be off of their hands in 7 months anyway? Seemed pretty dumb to me. So, on a day I was on my own and supposed to take a bus to the place for my second visit, I simply walked away. I went to my aunt’s house in Torrance. When the welfare department finally found out where I was, I enlisted in the Army, and that was that.

My love of the team and the game has never left me. Mr. Howell was a huge part of that. Over my close to 9 years in the service, I followed the Dodgers as best I could. And watched games whenever they were on. Finally, in 1981, I got to step onto a major league field. Those of you who have cannot know the elation of just being on the field. I got to go into the dugout and meet a couple of the 1981 team and coaches. I had some of them sign my ball, given to me by Wes Parker, who had helped me get the Anthem gig. Then, I walked out to center field where they placed the mic back in those days.

Hearing the public address announcer introduce you to the fans. Nancy playing the intro to the Anthem, and then the panic sets in, and you wonder if you can get through it! But I made it all the way through. They took me behind the pavilion and through the tunnel past the Dodger locker room, where Rick Sutcliffe signed my ball. And then it was back up the elevator and into my seat to watch the game. To me, the absolute high point of my love of the game. I was even asked for a few autographs while sitting in the seats. Heady stuff. I had my 2 minutes of fame. It is a memory that I have and always will cherish. Thank you, Mr. Howell. You helped me love a team and the game for well over 60 years.