Tales from the Tree

The Little League, my Father and Doing-The-Right-Thing form the crux of “The Goy Boys,” a story painted upon New York City’s multi-hued canvas, a mix of ethnic groups, all bumping cheek-to-jowl, their clashes and compromises, and most importantly, their friendships.

A hard copy of this father-son tale, among other entertaining stories, is available within the pages of the PATCHWORK PATH: TREASURE BOX anthology.

~

Irving Meltzer, my Cousin Paul, and I clustered next to the bar at Dunne’s Pub, a half-block from Benson’s Funeral Home. Irv raised his shot glass, his deep voice carrying over the background murmur of the nearby crowd.

“To Heaven’s first six-foot leprechaun, Franky Keenan.”

The words of the toast confirmed Dad’s insistence an Irishman tiptoed quietly around the corner in his best friend’s Jewish soul. A smile lingered on my lips–if not in my heart, not then–at the thought of Irv’s hidden Hibernian.

Paul and I raised our pints. Facing toward the pub windows, I stared at the glow of daylight in the translucent amber brew, the workingman’s champagne, as we tapped the curved surfaces of our pint glasses. We downed a long swallow. Several in the nearby crowd, raised their glasses or bottles, as well.

“Hey, Bobby,” said Irv, “did I ever tell you when I fell in love with Franky?”

Few people used the diminutive of my childhood nickname–immediate family or the closest of Dad’s buddies.

Smoke curled from the cigar stub always jammed in the corner of his double-chinned grin; New York City’s “No Smoking” rules still lurked somewhere off in the future, some years distant.

“Uh, huh, when I was a kid,” I said. “The Little League, right?”

“Mostly right, wrong some, too.” A typical Irv reply. “You were a kid. Not just Little League. Remember, the awards night? You know, the Awards Night Surprise?”

“Surprise?” said my cousin, a slight grin brightening his curious expression.

Irv needed no further encouragement. “Oh, you betcha….”

As his tale unfolded, the moments with Dad reached across the decades.

~

Franky loved baseball. No surprise then, his nine-year old, father‑worshipping son loved baseball as equally. The local Little League, the only game in town, had been founded by the neighborhood’s Jewish dads. As yet, no CYO league team existed in the St. Nick’s parish. Once it did form, much due to Dad’s influence, the good Augustinian Fathers of St. Nick’s would be in for some interesting times.

Dad showed up at the twilight conclusion of the spring Little League tryouts in Kissena Park. He was the only father to appear from the newly finished Pomonok Housing Project, constructed with World War II vets in mind and a “living, breathing” precursor of what would later come to be called “Culture Shock.” Three-thousand or so working class families, mostly whites, but many Blacks and Latinos, too, had dropped from the clear blue sky to land among an upper middle-class neighborhood of Jewish small businessmen and professionals.

A shock, indeed, for residents of any ethnic persuasion in any middle-class neighborhood.

By the finish of that mid-spring baseball ritual, the coaches had plucked a bare few kids, the creamiest of the crop, from the housing project to integrate into the existing teams. Dad arrived after the league officials had already assigned coaches to various groups of eight-to-nine year-olds, scattered around four baseball diamonds.

The exception was my group, mostly Pomonokers, including two other kids from the neighborhood bordering the project, who fielded candy-hop grounders in the tryouts as if the baseballs were live hand grenades.

“Hey, buddy,” Frank called from a baseline to ask one of the coaches stooped over, as he packed equipment into a large, canvas duffel bag. “What’s with all the kids over there, the ones with no coach?”

We, the “kids over there,” watched the nearby discussion with great interest. Imagining the eyes of my fellow rejects boring holes into the back of my crew-cut head, I slouched, hoping to shrink low enough to disappear into the grass blades.

The coach straightened, glanced at us, next at my father.

“Didn’t make the cut, one of the other coaches is going to break the news–all in one bunch, better that way. No one gets singled out.”

“You got enough players over there for a team, more than enough. Why dump them? Makes no sense.”

The guy paused, stared a bit. “No coach for starters, and not enough….”

“I’ll coach,” Frank interrupted.

“Uh, well–not enough equipment to go around, either. Ten teams. Equipment money’s all spent.”

Dad’s expression turned skeptical. “That’s what team sponsor’s are for, some local business. Parents can chip in too, time, money…whatever.”

“Yeah, well, the season starts really soon. Getting uniforms, equipment…everything takes time. Maybe next season.”

Another coach, a much skinnier figure than in later years, approached from short-left field, his trademark cigar stump protruding from the corner of his mouth.

“Hey, Art,” he called. “Need a hand?”

A pompadour still graced what was then a full head of hair. Eyeballing my father, he removed the cigar from his mouth.

Frank beat Art to the punch. “Need a coach? The kids standing over there do. My son’s in that bunch. A natural athlete, just needs some polishing, is all.”

Art protested, “I already told him, it’s too late this season. Maybe….”

Irv asked Dad, “Ever coach before?”

“A kid’s league, one we organized when I was in the service. Nothing too formal.”

“Service, huh?” Irv said. “What branch?”

“Marine Air Reserve now, out at Floyd Bennett Field. Marines during The War. PTO.”

Irv extended his hand. “Irving Meltzer. A Jarhead, huh?”

  A jarhead, I wondered. What’s a jarhead?

“Semper Fi.” Dad grinned, shook his hand. “Frank Keenan.”

“Navy, myself. A chief. Sailed through the PTO fun and games, too,” Irv said.

His reply seemed strange; he didn’t look like an American Indian.

“Gunny. TBF squadron, ball turret,” Dad said. “We always appreciated the Squid taxi service. All the comforts of home.”

Former Chief Irving Meltzer nodded and smiled, saying, “Well–we can always use another coach.”

He planted the cigar back in his mouth.

Somehow, somewhere, Irv dug-up equipment, battle scarred, teetering on the edge of retirement–a little from this team, some from the other. The gear, rejects like us, required just as much TLC and polishing. The uniforms arrived halfway through the season, compliments of Swain’s Radiator Service and Swain himself, another future buddy of Dad’s.

Frank went to work creating a TEAM, all caps; three practices a week, not just the one league scheduled practice on a reserved Kissena Park baseball diamond. Each additional practice required us to scour for an unused field, not always possible. Some days, we practiced grounders and pitching on a long strip of open grass.

No assistant coaches stepped forward; Dad organized the players strongest in one skill, taught them how to instruct and drill others. Each player had a strength. Each player had a shot at “DI,” Drill Instructor, which kept the domineering to a minimum–except initially against Ira Rosenstein. That said, the taunting did not discourage him from attending every practice.

Dad encouraged me to run interference for Ira against the bullying of a few less patient teammates. Ira’s  perseverance paid off. My task eased as his skills improved, step-by-determined-step. My father nicknamed him, “Chesty”, after Chesty Puller, a Marine Medal of Honor winner who never gave up. Ira’s reward? He played at the very least one inning every game, with a time at bat, much to the chagrin of a few teammates.

We practiced our hearts out, played with Dad’s same “gung-ho” spirit. By the last scheduled game, “The Bunch,” a.k.a., the “Goy Boys”, as Irv later admitted the other coaches labeled us, were tied for first place.

Frank expected a playoff game. The coaches decided otherwise, miffed at the upstarts from Pomonok. They declared the season “already too long,” and outvoted Irv and Dad. Instead, “The Bunch” was assigned to the oblivion of second place.

The hallowed auditorium of PS 201 held the awards night. Teammates clustered together with fellow teammates, away from the many parents sitting off to the sides. Every kid wore his team’s cap. Ours were Royal Blue, our official name the “Royals,” of course. We preferred the “Bunch,” or simply, the team.

Ira slumped in the seat next to me. I nudged him.

“Hey,” I said, “maybe they’ll give us gold medals, too, you know, ’cause we tied. You know, two piles of gold medals and a bronze, right?”

“Oh, sure–you’re funny, you know that?” Ira said, his expression dubious. “Your dad really didn’t tell you nothin’? Really? He’s a coach. Nothin’ at all?”

“Nope.” I noticed movement on the stage. “Hey look. Look, they’re startin’.”

The background hum of voices lessened. Young bodies straightened and peered over seat backs like a community of prairie dogs popping out of their burrows, all the brims of their baseball caps turned toward the coach gripping the silver stalk of a floor stand microphone. Behind him, two foldout tables, end-to-end, supported a dozen or so cardboard boxes; a “Kissena Little League” banner draped across the front of the tables.

The speakers blasted, “Ladies and gentlemen….” The squeal of feedback drove the eight and nine-year-olds into peals of laughter and hoots. One of the coaches disappeared stage-left, and reappeared with a thumbs up.

“Sorry about that–Ladies and gentlemen, coaches and players, parents and all our terrific supporters and sponsors who attended tonight’s award–Welcome to the Kissena Little League Awards Night.”

The coaches sat in a semi-circle of folding chairs behind the tables. I tuned out, troubled Dad was nowhere on the stage. The Head of the Little League droned-on awhile, thanking this person, thanking another person and still another. The twitching of the younger audience members, the commotion of their higher pitched voices increased with each of the speaker’s passing words.

At the rear of the auditorium, a metallic clatter announced the opening of an auditorium entrance door. I turned, saw Dad with Mr. Rosenstein; each carried a large cardboard box.

I nudged Ira again. “Hey, look. Look.”

The men walked past us, down the aisle and up the steps at stage-right. They plopped their burdens onto the floor at one end of a table. Dad joined the coaches; Ira’s father returned to sit in the audience. He winked at us when he passed.

I gawked at Ira. “You said your father wasn’t coming.”

He shrugged. “Hey, I don’t know–that’s what he told me. What do I know?”

I tuned back into the announcement, “…from the first place team in the Minor Division for eight-to-nine year olds, would Art Taback, their coach, please step the mike”

Coach Taback held the mike, gazed upon the squirming Little Leaguers, and wisely proceeded to the business of distributing the medals ASAP. The players, their caps colored Navy, their team name, of course, stampeded from their seats to mass at stage-right after Mr. Taback’s call. The steps filtered them into a single line; they filed by their coach to receive a medal and a handshake. Goal accomplished, they crossed to the stage-left steps and returned to their seats. Several players wiggled their flat, six-by-four inch, transparent plastic boxes with gold medals at The Bunch. Despite my best effort to look nonchalant, my jaw line tensed.

Dad’s turn at the microphone arrived; he waited in silence for a semblance of calm. The sight of his lone figure, the missing amplified voice, caught the crowd’s attention, quieted them.

“And now the awards for…,” he paused, a long drawn out moment, and continued, “the second place team. Will The Bunch please come up to the stage?” He lifted the boxes from the floor, placed them onto the tabletop.

Their curiosity aroused, the crowd in the auditorium stirred. The Bunch hardly noticed in our excitement to get onto the stage. As we approached Dad one-by-one, the official silver medals handed to us paled in comparison to the second award, a trophy; a gold batter, ever ready for the next pitch, graced the top of the plastic pedestal.

At Ira’s turn, Dad stopped the line, and leaned toward the mike.

“Ladies and gentleman, I would like to present the Lewis ‘Chesty’ Puller trophy for the player on our team who has shown the most perseverance, heart and improvement. He called out the name, “Ira ‘Chesty’ Rosenstein.”

Forget about walking, we floated, trophies in hand, back to our seats, the flat containers with their measly, silver medals stuffed in our back pockets. Ira drifted one rung higher, somewhere up on Cloud-10. He joined his father, both of them all smiles.

~

Amid the vale of images Irv resurrected with his Award’s Night Surprise, Dunne’s Pub slowly re-emerged. I had brushed aside all of reality’s intrusions, the murmurs of conversations around us, the cheers from the spring baseball broadcast on the overhead TVs.

“He was a hell of a guy, Franky, your father,” Irv said. “A hell of….” Dad’s best friend turned from us, dabbed at his eyes and leaned against the bar to tap the embers of his cigar into an ashtray. “Damned smoke.”

~

Today, Dad’s gift occupies a place of honor on the shelf in the office/library of my home, a spot next to the collected poems of W. B. Yeats, his favorite Irish poet. Sixty-plus-years have taken a toll on the six-inch figurine of the trophy. Some “gold” plating has flaked off here and there from the batter, ever ready for the next pitch.

The metal plaque on the pedestal has tarnished, but the engraved inscription still remains legible:

“The Bunch: The Other First Place Team”

Semper Fi, Dad.

The Goy Boys

Available in the anthology: Patchwork Path: Treasure Box