April 17, 1994
Manresa
Dear Ballpark Frank:
Alas, how fleeting has been my glory! After the Manresa Manly Mens lost their first game 17-3, those in power decided my services might be dispensed with. Since then they have won three in a row and are tied for first place.
It sounds worse than it was. What happened is that Johnny Marconi and his fast ball unexpectedly showed up again. He's playing wingback for the Hospitalet American-football team, for which he's paid enough to live on, and he only has to work out with them one day a week. So in exchange for being able to live at Pilar the Scorekeeper's house rent-free, he coaches the team on a daily basis. I was only able to go to games once a week (for which they had to pay me $40), never attended workouts, know much less about baseball than Johnny, and couldn't even 'funguejar' (bat fungoes). We're still on completely friendly terms and in fact, speaking seriously, it couldn't have ended better. I'm chronically behind in other work and losing Saturday would have made things worse; best of all, I know ten or fifteen great guys whom I'd never have met otherwise. So, all in all...
As far as my coaching experience goes, perhaps the less said the better. It was against a team called 'Hercules'; the former Olympic baseball stadium is their home field (the Manly Mens don't have a field -- we play our home games on the other teams'); they field another team in the 'Division of Honor' (Majors) and were using some of those players against us. One good thing that happened was that around the middle of the sixth when we were down something like twelve to two, Pilar the Scorekeeper began to distract Hercules's scorekeeper with her charm and she assures me that thanks to her 'help' he made at least two errors, which means that the two official score sheets aren't going to match up and the game might not count leaving yours truly, Lou Zere, as the only undefeated coach in Spanish baseball history!
As far as our O's go, they've got a lot of power in a tiny park, which is good,but I sure wish they had a stronger closer than Smith. Oh well, maybe he'll surprise me. That's about it, Frank. Tell that musician friend of yours that I still haven't received the press he promised or Daneet's address. It probably got lost in the mail. Keep your bat straight and don't hang no curves.
Your baseball buddy in Catalonia,
Lou Zere
May 15, 1994
Manresa
Dear Ballpark Frank:
I think you'll remember that when I was last in Brooklyn and we were discussing the possibility of my managing the Manly Mens, my main reservation was that it would be too time-consuming. And I think it's fair to say that one of the reasons for my dismissal, other than our 16-3 loss to Hercules, was that Johnny Marconi can conduct daily workouts, whereas I was barely able to come on Saturdays.Well, pal, little did I imagine what my brief coaching stint would lead to.
In the previous three weeks, Manresa has beaten last year's champion, Viladecans, twice and taken revenge on Hercules 15-13; not what you'd call a defensive gem. We were up 15-11 in the bottom of the ninth when Max, our only pitcher, ran definitively out of gas. Johnny who has an eighty mile an hour fast ball that occasionally goes behind the batter had to finish up. He walked two, hit a guy, walked two more... it was looking bad for the Mens. Johnny was so wild that Hercules' batters stood in the box with their bats already in the bunting position, mainly for protection -- nobody even tried to hit. The miracle ending was this: With the bases loaded, Johnny, who was 0 and 3 on the batter, threw a blazer that looked like it was going to hit him in the head. He reflexively raised his bat and ducked, the ball nicked the bat and dribbled out in front of the plate, Ramon, our catcher, grabbed it, stepped on the plate and threw to third all this before the batter had even gotten back on his feet. For once Carles, our third baseman, didn't throw it over Titi, our firstbaseman's, head and the game was over.
Well, at any rate, I wasn't really planning on going into details.The main thing is that Manresa is now league leader, has only five games left against the weaker teams whom they've already beaten comfortably once (eight team league, fourteen game season, two games against each team), and it's therefore nearly certain that the Manly Mens are going to be league champions. But if they win the pennant, that means they ascend to the Spanish Majors, which means flying all over Spain, playing against Madrid, the Canary Islands, etc.... and they don't even have a home field! All our 'home' games are played on the opposing teams' fields. So,what does this all have to do with Lou Zere?
Last Sunday, after the second Viladecans game (14-7), when Pilar the scorekeeper and I were out celebrating a little (I've been going to the games as scorekeeper's assistant), this rather attractive girl, who I'd assumed was a friend of Pilar's, got me talking about the Manly Mens and what would happen if they turned out to be champions. Basically, without going into details, it happens that the Manresa government did promise the team a field two years ago (it was an election year), but probably figured that since the team was in the sub-minors, no one would notice if they didn't keep their promise. And in spite of their championship season last year, nobody thought the Mens would have a prayer against real minor league teams like Hercules and Viladecans. I mentioned all this, and made pertinent though unflattering comments about the mayor and his friends, and found my picture in 'World of Sports' next morning under a headline that read (roughly translated): "Manresa's ex-Manager Rails Against Local Officials". It turns out this girlfriend of Pilar's is a reporter and was doing a feature article on the (roughly translated) "Cinderella team of the year"!
One bad result is that this week I've had calls from three different lawyers who seem to think I'll soon be needing their services; but worst of all is that Pilar the scorekeeper swears to me she had no idea that woman was really a reporter but the picture of me in my manager's uniform that accompanied the article was one I'd given to her!
So, Frank, you may be seeing your baseball buddy in Catalonia,
Lou Zere,
sooner than you think!
June 14, 1994
Manresa
Dear Ballpark Frank:
As I think I told you at the end of my last letter, you may be seeing me sooner than either of us had planned. If I had any money, I'd be swatting mosquitos there with you in Brooklyn instead of swilling cervesa with Pilar the scorekeeper on the terraces in Manresa. It seems that every time the Manly Mens win a game a new complication arises; it would all be great fun if my big mouth hadn't put me right in the middle of it.
Since last I wrote, the Manly Mens have won two (one easily, but the other, against the second-worst team in the league, a real thriller) and have thus mathematically qualified to play the best-of-three championship series against Hercules July 2 (double-header) and 3 (if necessary). At first there was speculation that Hercules would bring down a couple of players from their major-league squad, which is legal, but which they'd have to do by June 13. Now it looks like they won't, because for one thing, the major league team is in a torrid battle for the pennant and can't afford to lose any depth, and for another, Maite (short for Maria Teresa) the reporter, the girl who got me personally involved in this mess, has done two more features on the Mens, both playing up the David-Goliath angle and implying that we've got Hercules running scared. Then, just two days ago, Friday, she did an interview with Hercules' manager in which she masterfully maneuvered him into making some blatantly condescending comments about Manresa and the Mens, so that now he'd look like an idiot asking for majors' help to beat a team with only "two decent players" (Johnny and Max, I guess).
As far as Lou Zere is concerned, I can assure you that a mayor has no trouble making life unpleasant for those he believes have gratuitously offended him. They're tearing up the street in front of my house, but only from eight to ten in the morning; the little alley where I've parked my bus for the last seven years has a brand new "No Parking: Fire Lane" sign, and yesterday I got a worried call from my landlady -- a wonderful old senyora whom I never see -- saying that I'd have to let some building inspectors in next week. You probably figure I'd love to strangle that Maite but, oddly enough, we've become pretty good friends. She called me a couple days after I mailed your last letter saying she was sorry if there had been any misunderstanding about the entrevista. I was pretty huffy at first and nearly hung up on her, but she really did sound sorry and apologized so nicely that I ended up letting her talk me into having dinner. She later admitted that she probably should have warned me that what I was saying was 'for the record', but she'd assumed that someone with my experience and professionalism (!) would have known anyway, and hadn't wanted to break the rythm of our conversation.
So, as things now stand, there's one more regular season game -- which I think Johnny's going to let the second string play, since it doesn't matter who wins it -- then a weekend's rest and the championship series July 2 and 3. So you might figure there'd be a little respite from all the controversy, right? Oh man, if it were only so!
I think I explained in my last letter how the Spanish baseball leagues work: At the end of the season the pennant winners go into the immediately superior division. The Manly Mens were champions of the Catalan B-league (what we might call the sub-minors) last year, and are thus playing in the Catalan A-league now. One reason we've been getting so much press despite baseball's relative insignificance here is that no team in any sport has ever ascended to a superior league and been in the finals (let alone been champions!) in its first year. And all this without even having a field to practice on. So, when the best team from a lower division goes up, it naturally follows that the worst team from the superior division has to go down. However, in the case of the Catalan A-league, only Hercules and Viladecans have ever been champions and they already have teams in the Division of Honor (Spanish Majors). Since the rules say that a club can't have two teams in the same division, no major league team has ever had to suffer the ignominy of descent. Now it happens that the current worst major league team is Deportivo de Madrid, which is run by a rabid "ex"-fascist and former Franco cohort, Manolo Martinez, who knows nothing about baseball but hates to lose. (In fact, the reason his team is doing so badly in spite of massive financial infusions is that he hires and fires players and coaches so often that the team's morale is sub-zero.) Ahhh, you begin to see, no? If lowly Manresa knocks off Hercules in the finals, Deportivo de Madrid will find itself replaced by (in the words of Sr. Martinez) 'a ridiculous little hick team with no field'. And, worst of all -- this being a country in which none of life's aspects are ever entirely free from politics -- a Catalan team! (If Manresa were to go up, there would be a shuffling of the regional A-leagues, but Deportivo still might have to play some of its games in Catalonia next season.)
And now, Frank, the latest and the worst! In yesterday's 'World of Sports', Mad Manolo offered the opinion that even if the Manly Mens were to win, they'd be ineligible for major league play because they have no field, which I think we'll have to admit sounds reasonable. Now all of Catalonia is up in arms because they see a wonderful opportunity to humiliate an "ex"-fascist from Madrid being lost because the Manly Mens don't have a field. Why don't they have a field? Well, according to former coach Lou Zere... you get the picture, I trust. Suddenly Manresa's not having a field has become a key issue, and I'm nearly hoarse from saying "No tinc res a dir". Maite's called three times today and, in spite of my assuring her it would be useless, is coming up to Manresa tonight. She swears she'll do anything for a follow-up interview... I know what you're thinking, but I have enough problems without that. Then again, it's hard to imagine how things could be worse... maybe, if she'll agree to print just what I tell her to...
I suppose it's indicative of the way things are going that I've filled nearly two pages and haven't written a thing about baseball. In the game we nearly lost, Johnny got a little cocky and started all the subs. Up till then, he'd only put them in once the game was in the bag. So Bonavista, the league's second-worst team whom we'd beaten 24-3 the first time out, scored four runs on five errors in the top of the first. Still, no one was really worried until we saw their new pitcher: a big lanky black guy throwing strikes in the eighties! It's a funny thing about Spanish baseball, but anyone can walk onto the field for any team at any time during the season just by paying a $200 registration fee. His name was Mark Saunders, and we found out later that he'd played triple-A ball for Tacoma. It turns out that his brother has a friend who is married to the sister of one of Bonavista's players, so the whole team chipped in to give him plane fare over. Johnny immediately made eight substitutions, probably the first time in baseball history that an entire team has ever been replaced in the bottom of the first. But 'twas to no avail: Saunders struck out the first eleven batters to face him! Then Johnny, who bats third, got lucky and tagged a fastball that cleared the left field fence (320) by a good fifty feet: 4-1. By the fifth Mark began to lose a little zip and we began to dribble grounders, which Vilanova's players obligingly threw all over the field. In the seventh we got four runs on two hits and six errors: 5-4. Mark nearly won his own game with a two-run double in the top of the ninth, but the Manly Mens rose to the occasion, with a little help from the Vilanova fielders, and took it going away 7-5.
That's all from your baseball buddy in Catalonia,
Lou Zere
July 2, 1994
Manresa
Dear Ballpark Frank:
It's two in the morning and since the temperature is still in the low eighties, I can't sleep, so I'm writing to you. I've just gotten home from a pre-celebratory get-together with Johnny and the Manly Mens. Tomorrow they play the first of a three-game chapionship series (by the way, I had it backwards in my last letter: it's one game on Saturday and two, if necessary, on Sunday) and I don't see how we can lose. I know what you're thinking, about over-confidence and fat ladies and all, and normally I'd say you were absolutely right. However, in this case... heh heh heh, you'll see. But first:
Win or lose today, the Manly Mens will have a field next year! And, what's just as important, a sponsor: the TDK people. My finding out about it is a little bit of a story in itself. Last you heard, I was waiting for Maite the reporter to come take me out to dinner so she could try to charm me into saying something reportable. Well, just as I was beginning to wonder what was holding her up, who should arrive but Pilar the scorekeeper with a huge pizza and a sack of cold beer!
"Surprise! Are you hungry? My, aren't you dolled up" (I think I must have been wearing a clean 5 Chinese Brothers T-shirt); "Going somewhere?"
The fact was that I'd never exactly gotten around to mentioning the fact I was seeing Maite to Pilar, and so although the pizza was excellent, I was a little distracted thinking up and rejecting various explanations for when Maite should show up. Finally though, just as we were finishing the beer and I was kind of hoping Maite might not come after all, Pilar said, "Did you know Maite's in town tonight?"
Lou: "Mmm, oh yes?"
Pilar: "Yes, she's here to cover the mayor's announcement of the TDK deal."
Lou: "Huh? What TDK deal?"
It turns out that some reporter had written an article a few days previously, which I'd missed, implying that our mayor wouldn't be exactly heart-broken were the Manly Mens to lose -- at least then all his baseball headaches would be resolved. This, combined with the fact that the Mens have been getting all kinds of press, was probably responsible for the consummation of the long-overdue Manresa-TDK collaboration. Needless to say, the whole team's ecstatic: It means that Manresa will finally have a field where they can practice and play home games, that Johnny will be back next year with a contract he can actually live on, and that, once the Manly Mens dispose of Hercules, there will be money for plane fares to travel around Spain playing Major league games next year. The only drawback is that from now on they'll be known as 'TDK Manresa', for the Japanese refuse to have anything to do with a team calling itself the 'Manly Mens'. Which is understandable, I guess, though it perhaps betrays a certain lack of humor.
(Maite called the next day to apologize for standing me up, but was sure I'd understand that since any comments I might have had about why Manresa doesn't have a field were no longer pertinent, she had to do her job and interview the mayor even if it meant missing out on dinner with me. And didn't I have a good time anyway? I knew it! Those two have been in cahoots all along! Oh well, I suppose there are less agreeable ways of being taken for a ride.)
So. Why am I, Lou Zere, so sure the pennant's as good as on the pole? Ballpark Frank, it's my pleasure to present to you Mr. Alvin Biggs. Name ring a bell? Maybe not, since you're an eastcoasterner, but four years ago Mr. Biggs picked up 120 yards on a warm November night in Tempe, helping Arizona State beat a previously unbeaten Washington team and breaking many a Seattle heart -- my own among them -- in the process. Alvin's physical appearance causes him to stand out somewhat in this country: He's black, 5 foot 11, and weighs 232 pounds. When Johnny brought him over to my house to visit last week, he literally had to turn sideways to get through the door -- it was like having a tree come in. He doesn't need a catcher when batting fungoes: He puts on a glove, catches the ball from the fielders, tosses it in the air and whacks 250-foot fly balls one-handed. He was the quarterback on the Hospitalet American football team Johnny played wingback on and would have been league MVP had Hospitalet managed to beat Seville in the finals. At any rate, the Manly Mens paid his $200 registration fee and he played his first game for them against Siemens two weekends ago: He pitched a six-hitter, hit three home runs in three at bats, was henceforth walked intentionally twice, stole second twice and third once... etc. Manresa won, 12-2, using all subs except for Alvin. You probably suspect me of making all this up, since if he were that good he'd at least be in the minors somewhere. When I asked him about it he said first of all that he liked football best and would rather play European football than American baseball. Also, he says he's never been able to consistently hit good pitching low and inside so naturally, that was all he ever saw.
And so, Ballpark Frank, I think you'll have to agree that my assurance that the Manly Mens will win has nothing to do with overconfidence. Hercules has a strong team, no doubt about it, and even with Alvin pitching they're going to score some runs, but with Carles (.414) batting before him and Johnny (.540) (He bitches: "Geez, I go two for four and my average goes down! I've gotta' go three for five.") after him, they won't be able to walk him all the time. And of course, nobody in Catalonia knows he can't hit low inside stuff. What's more, he gives us that vital second pitcher and takes the pressure off Max. Still, I told Johnny he ought to start himself as pitcher just to see the expressions on the Hercules' players' faces.
"Right. And that's why I'm manager and you're scorekeeper's assistant, Lou." (Johnny can be a little peevish if you make fun of his pitching.)
That's it Frank. It's nearly four and Pilar's picking me up at ten tomorrow (lucky I don't have to play -- lucky for Manresa, I mean).
Best regards from your baseball buddy in Catalonia,
Lou Zere
4th of July, 1994
Manresa
Dear Ballpark Frank:
It's a funny thing, but the first intimation I had that anything might go wrong was on the way to the stadium yesterday: I kept hearing your voice saying "I told you so". Such is the power of imagination, though at the time I put it down to not having slept enough. It happened that the game had been moved up an hour, from twelve to eleven (9:00 sun time) on account of the heat -- something Pilar the scorekeeper had 'forgotten' to tell me about -- and so she had the, for her, great pleasure of rousting me out of bed an hour early and making caustic cracks about sluggish men while I rushed through my morning ablutions. So, what with no coffee and being miffed with Pilar, I wasn't very talkative on our drive to Montjuïc, and it was then I began to hear you whispering that things weren't going to go as planned. And how right you were!
First of all, security was way tighter than it had ever been for any regular season game, and my 'official' position as scorekeeper's assistant got me absolutely nowhere. Pilar was already late so there was no time to argue, and just when I thought I was going to have to go back out to the main gate and pay to get in, along comes Maite the reporter. Fortunately things were a little more lax at the press gate; what's more, I still had my official 'Spanish Beisbol' identification card from when I was manager, so with a little fast talk from Maite I was able to get in as reporter's assistant.
When we got up to the pressbox it was pandemonium. There must have been thirty people jammed into a space built for twelve or fourteen, the air-conditioning had broken down, the sun was blazing in, everybody was yelling and jockeying for a space to look down on the field... they were sure excited about something, but I couldn't make out what it was. Anyway, Maite asked me if I wouldn't mind being somewhere else, since space was obviously at a premium, so I borrowed a pen, wrote a desperation plea to Johnny, and headed down to the player's entrance.
Two big beefballs were there to greet me. I showed them my manager's card and explained in very correct Spanish that I had a message muy urgente for Johnny. They didn't budge. They wouldn't let me by, nor would either of them leave his post to take the note to the lockerroom. I began to get excited and babbled in ever-deteriorating Spanish that my message was importantíssimo, that the game couldn't start without me, that if they didn't let me by they'd lose their jobs... Nothing. Then, just as one of them was reaching for his walkie-talkie, I saw Quim the center fielder, the man with the best English on the team, coming out of the men's room down the hall. I yelled, "Quim! Get Johnny and get him to tell these bozos to let me in!"
He called back "OK" and ran back in the other direction. The beefball with the walkie-talkie hesitated; after all, as far as he was concerned, he'd just heard me shout at a player in English and be obeyed. There was a brief moment of tense silence. Then we heard the crash of the lockerroom door slamming against the wall and Johnny, red in the face, comes storming up the hall bellowing:
"LOU! You worthless piece of desiccated horseshit! Where the f--- have you been? What the f--- do you think this is? Goddammit! Who the hell do you think you are, anyway? You're bush, Lou, BUSH!" ('Bush' is Johnny's ultimate pejorative.) By this time he'd gotten up to where the beefballs and I were. He passes between them as if they weren't there, clamps a heavy hand around my neck, and yanks me back down the hall, giving me a kick in the pants, that was probably harder than it need have been, for good measure.
"If you ever pull another goddam lame-brained stunt like this again, I'm gonna' kick your m------f---ing ass all the way back to Seattle! You goddam worthless piece of..." He was pulling his foot back for another kick, and you can believe Lou Zere wasn't acting when he took to his heels for the safety of the lockerroom.
Well, once through the doors, of course, it was all laughter and smiles and slaps on the back, though I still couldn't help keeping my distance from Johnny. The Manly Mens were all in uniform and just about to take the field, and the atmosphere was crackling: nerves, yes, but under control. Looking back from the present, I think the best way to describe it would be 'reserved euphoria'. You have to remember that only last year these guys were playing in a league where most catchers couldn't throw to second without arching the ball, that at the beginning of this year, our finishing in the top four seemed wildly optimistic, and that this same Hercules team that we were now going out to play for the pennant completely humiliated us in the first game of the season. What's more, with the important exception of Johnny and, lately, Alvin, the Manly Mens are a home-grown team: all the players are Manresans. Hercules and Viladecans are organizations: their players are no more from Hospitalet or Viladecans than Dodgers players are from LA. It's as if Eugene, Oregon put together a local team that won the Pacific Coast League.
And finally, Frank, all modesty aside, I was their coach for two months. 'Big deal,' you say, 'more harm than good,' but I don't think that's the case. I told them from the start that they already knew more about batting than I did and that the only thing I could really help them with was fielding strategy. So for two months that's what we concentrated on (we're ahead by one, men on first and third, one out and the batter hits a slow grounder to second. What do you, the pitcher --or catcher, shortstop, etc.-- do?) and I like to think it did some good. Manresa is a very 'heads up' team and Lou Zere played his part.
So, picture it, Frank: an official knocks on the door and tells us we can take the field; silence falls and the players crowd together and reach their hands into the center of a circle; Johnny says a few solemn words about kicking ass; there's a deafening cheer and they go crashing out; I grab a few odds and ends, just to seem useful, follow the team out onto the field... and find them all clumped in a bunch with sick looks on their faces, staring at the other side of the field. I follow their glances and suddenly I hear it, the golden gloating voice of Ballpark Frank resounding in my mind: "I TOLD YOU SO!"
All right, all right, you're right and I'm wrong. But have you figured out what was causing our consternation? Of course you have: you wouldn't be Ballpark Frank if you hadn't! There in the Hercules bullpen, throwing his warm-up pitches with that unmistakable lanky power, was Mark Saunders. As we found out later, Hercules had hired him away from Bonavista ten days earlier and somehow managed to keep it secret. If I hadn't had to leave the pressbox in such a hurry, I'd have realized what all the excitement up there was about and I really would have had an urgent message for Johnny.
Now, I said that the whole team had sick looks on their faces, but there was an exception: Alvin was beaming.
"Hey, ain't that Mark Saunders out there?" He turns to Johnny. "I thought you said they didn't have any pitching." He shakes his head in mock bewilderment. "Man, and I thought you knew baseball!"
Looking back on it now, I think it may actually have been a good thing they had Mark pitching. For one thing, there were 6000 people in the stands, a couple dozen sports writers from all over Spain, live radio coverage... and all this for a team that had never seen more than 350 people watching them; there could definitely have been a nerves problem. But any effect the crowd might have had on the players was nothing compared to the shock of seeing Mark out there. What's more, Johnny really rose to the occasion: He reminded the Mens that this was a three-game series, that Mark was going to have to be thinking about the possibility of having to pitch another game tomorrow -- in 90-degree heat, no less, since the third game would be the second of a double-header and would begin just as the day was getting hottest -- so there was no way he was going to come out blazing as he did for the Bonavista game; that, after all, we'd already beaten him once, though we couldn't count on the league's best defensive team giving us the help Bonavista's fielders had; and that, finally, they had Mark but we had Alvin, so as far as that went we were just as even up as when we'd beaten them 15-13 seven weeks ago.
This little speech worked wonders and the Manly Mens went out to go through their warm-ups in even higher spirits than when they'd come out of the lockerroom. Fifteen minutes later, when they were back in the dugout getting ready to take the field for the top of the first, Johnny called Alvin aside.
Johnny: "You and Mark old friends?"
Alvin: "Yeah man, we played Sun Devil ball at Arizona State."
Johnny: "He knows how much you love low inside stuff?"
This was the only time I've ever seen Alvin, who normally has the easy-going self-assurance of a ninety-pound German shepherd, looking a little disconcerted.
Frank, I've got to break off here. Pilar and Maite just arrived and we're due at Las Vegas restaurant for the celebratory feast. That's right, the Manresa Manly Mens are league champions! Saturday's game was an absolute jewel, the most thrilling game I've ever seen in all my baseball days. It deserves a blow-by-blow, so later this week I'll sit down with the scoresheet and write it up right. We won it 7-6 with two runs in the bottom of the tenth. The only bad thing was that we scored the winning run on an error; our elation couldn't help but be affected by the sight of Hercules' second baseman on his knees crying behind the pitcher's mound. But, hey, that's baseball, right? Sunday's game was OK, but a let-down after Saturday's: Manresa, 10-4. Everybody happy the third wasn't necessary. Hey, they're threatening to leave without me! That's all,
from your baseball buddy in Catalonia,
Lou Zere
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