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The Taint on The Thomson Shot

August 18, 2010

Oct. 3, 1951: "The Giants Win The Pennant!"

Most of us have heard the call by Giants broadcaster Russ Hodges:

“Branca throws. There’s a long drive. It’s going to be — I believe! — The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! Bobby Thomson hits into the lower deck of the left-field stands. The Giants win the pennant! And they’re going crazy! They’re going crazy! Oohhh-oohhh!”

The date was October 3, 1951. It was 3:57 PM at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan, the hallowed ground of Coogan’s Bluff hovered nearby. The home team New York Giants had runners on first and third, with one out; right handed batter and third baseman Bobby Thomson was batting with the Brooklyn Dodgers leading 4-2 in the deciding Game Three of the special playoffs to decide which of the two tied National Leaguers would take the pennant and go on to the World Series to oppose the mighty New York Yankees.

The story of the year to this point had been the incredible comeback of the Giants from 13.5 games back of the Dodgers late in the season to tie for first on the last day. Now something was about to happen to put a cap on the experience that would practically be all that any of us saw for the next forty to fifty years. Bobby Thomson was about to hit a line drive homer into the left field stands off right handed Dodger relief pitcher Ralph Branca that would win the game and the pennant for the Giants, 5-4, in a walk off blast is still remembered and revered as “The Shot Heard Round the World!”

Bobby Thomson celebrates his famous "shot heard round the world."

The death of 86-year old Bobby Thomson yesterday, August 17, 2010, at his home in Savannah, Georgia came after years of declining health, but it now no longer brings about the pleasantly magical memory of his famous home run also, but also the more recent disclosures that came out in fact and evidence just prior to the fortieth anniversary celebration of “the shot heard ’round the world” back in 2001.

According to an Inside Baseball story from 2001, it is now known that the Giants had been stealing pitch signs by binoculars from their clubhouse in dead center field over what roughly appears to be the period of their great comeback in 1951 – and that includes the period of their playoff games with the Dodgers and one particular time at bat for Bobby Thomson. Of course, if it’s true, those shenanigans at the Polo Grounds would not explain nor help the Giant’s’ also improved play on the road, but it sure puts a taint upon the thrilling memory of Thomson’s shot.

Thomson’s home run has always been one of my most cherished baseball memories. The thought that he may have known what pitch was coming is a real spoiler. I still don’t like to think of it very often, but his death, and my dedication to the truth, won’t allow me to escape the conclusion that he most probably did know what was coming when he swung.  Bobby Thomson’s responses to the straightforward question in a 2001 interview by Joshua Prager cause him to come off more as an “artful dodger” than a “moral giant.”

Examine that segment of inquiry, read more; then decide for yourself. Here’s how writer Joshua Prager described that part of his 2001 interview with Bobby Thomson at age 77:

Mr. Thomson, now a widower, has never spoken publicly of sign-stealing and has never raised the subject with Mr. Branca. ‘” guess I’ve been a jerk in a way,” he says. ‘That I don’t want to face the music. Maybe I’ve felt too sensitive, embarrassed maybe.”

Mr. Thomson sits on his couch, wearing the tweed jacket and tie he wore to church that morning. Suddenly, he uncrosses his legs, squares his feet with his shoulders and puts his fists together, right over left, as if gripping a bat. He hunches his torso forward and turns his head toward his left shoulder. He looks out of unblinking eyes into his fireplace.

Did he take the sign?

From the batter’s box, “you could almost just do it with your eyes,” Mr. Thomson says.

His hands relax. He drops his arms to his sides.

Did he take the sign?

“I’d have to say more no than yes,” he says. “I don’t like to think of something taking away from it.”

Pressed further, Mr. Thomson later says, “I was just being too honest and too fair. I could easily have said, ‘No, I didn’t take the sign.’ “

He says, “It would take a little away from me in my mind if I felt I got help on the pitch.”

But did he take the sign?

“My answer is no,” Mr. Thomson says.

He adds: “I was always proud of that swing.”

For a much more detailed account what writer Joshua Prager says transpired on the sign-stealing set-up, check out the whole 2001 story at this link: http://joshuaprager.com/wsj/articles/baseball/

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My Top Ten Early Rock ‘n Roll Hits

August 17, 2010

This has to be said up front. There really is no way to come up with a Top Ten Early Rock ‘n Roll Hits list that doesn’t leave someone or something deserving totally out of the picture. When it come to all the early performing giants, people like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis, we could take almost any of their songs and justify its place on a legitimate list.

With that much in mind, what I’ve tried to do here is simply list the songs that came along and struck me hard, from 1954 through 1957, when I was 16 to 19 years old, when Jimmy Menutis’s club in Houston was about to start its reign, as the mind-set, music, and culture changing songs of that era. The songs I love from that era are ten times greater, at least, so that means that my final top tem bunch leaves out many great hits – and even some great artists – people like Buddy “Cricking” Holly, for gosh sakes. That being said, here’s my list:

Turner's work fore-ran the great radio crossover of "black music" to mainstream radio, but it all begin to happen in 1954.

(1) “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” (1954). Who among us from that era could ever forget the beat and the lyrics of the song – and the deep, happy voice of the man who performed them, Big Joe Turner? “I’m like a one-eyed cat, peepin’ in a seafood store! – I can look at you and tell you ain’t no child no more!”

“Shake, Rattle, and Roll” should be the unarguable first rock ‘n roll song on everyone’s list. If it’s not, you weren’t listening at the moment of the genre’s big bang experience, when the music you could only hear on all black radio stations suddenly got too big and too commercial to be passed over any longer by the all-white “Goodnight, Irene” – playing music stations. I may be wrong, but I think “Shake” was the first to make it all the way over to Houston’s two most popular white AM radio DJ’s, Paul Berlin of KNUZ and Bob Byron of KILT.

"Maybelline" was a real gas pedal pusher.

(2) “Maybelline” (1955). This one blows past our earliest discovery of Elvis in “That’s All Right” and I don’t know how many other songs by Little Richard and Fats Domino, plus all those great group hits. like “Earth Angel” by The Penguins, but it was the great Chuck Berry at his “drivin’ fool” first best effort at singlehandedly taking over the new music that both accelerated and satisfied the angst of our testosterone-pumping, adolescent minds, bodies, and souls – and especially so when we climbed behind the wheels of our muscle machines and hit the Gulf Freeway for Galveston with our girls by our sides on those ever always practical bench car seats that used to be the app that made our driving world a happy place to be.

“As I was a motivatin’ over the hiil, I caught Maybelline in a Coupe DeVille; Cadillac rollin’ on a open road; nothing out-run my V-8 Ford.”

(3) “Long Tall Sally” (1955). Little Richard is one of the music artists with a legitimate claim on the “Father of Rock n’ Roll” title if it weren’t for the fact the presence of so many others in that category suggests that the change was a process movement in music and not a sudden birth in high C section from the rhythm and blues genre. If anything, rock n’ roll came together in a way that united early black and white music folk forms, taking a whole lot from black rhythm and blues, but also borrowing from white country and western too.

We could easily substitute “Tutti Frutti” or “Rip It Up’ here and lose nothing from the idea that Little Richard was a major first contributor to the earliest echoes of rock ‘n roll.

Bill Haley and The Comets hit us big time!

(4) “Rock Around The Clock” (1955). No rock and roll song ever landed harder upon my generation of the 1950s, not even “Blue Suede Shoes.” When a bunch of us first heard it, we had all gone together as a group to the Loews State Theater in downtown Houston to see the highly touted new movie of teenage rebellion called “Blackboard Jungle.” Unknown to us until that moment, the movie started with Bill Haley and the Comets performing this now iconic song for the first time that any of us had ever heard it.

“One! Two! Three O’Clock! Four O’Clock Rock! ~ Five! SIx! Seven O’Clock! EIght O’Clock Rock! ~ Nine! Ten! Eleven O’Clock! Twelve O’Clock Rock! ~ We’re Gonna Rock! Around! The Clock Tonight! …”

What happened next was both amazing and original to the situation. We were all on our feet cheering. And dancing in the aisles. We’ve been dancing and cheering ever since. And “Rock Around the Clock” remains today the same as it was from public birth – The International Anthem of Rock ‘n Roll Joy!

Fats Domino: "Baby, don't you let your dog bite me!"

(5) “I’m In Love Again” (1955). So many other great hits from the music genius of Fats Domino would fit here. This one just happened to hit my teenage ears over the car radio on a night I was driving home from another new venture into falling in love. Unfortunately, it was neither my first nor last trip over the falls of bittersweet pain, but good old Fats did his part that night in helping to write the soundtrack of my early times life.

“Yes, it’s me, and I’m in love again! – Had no lovin’ since you know when! OOH-WEE, BABY! – OOH-OOH-WEE! BABY DON’T YOU LET YOUR DOG BITE ME!”

It wasn’t her dog that bit me back in the day; nor was it the bittersweet music of good old Fats that tore into my heart and soul where women were concerned. I just had some growing up to do about love and what was really possible in a relationship between a man and a woman, including the big bopper lesson that learning about love is a lifetime school.

Carl Perkins

(6) Blue Suede Shoes (1956). Carl Perkins wrote it. Elvis Presley gave it immortality.  In the minds of many, it remains as the greatest rock ‘n roll hit of all time. – I remember going to see Carl Perkins perform at the old Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston around this time. The place was packed because of “Blue Suede Shoes” hit and we were literally swept away in the human crush of a packed house when Perkins finally got around to doing his famous number. It was also around this same time period tha Carl’s friend, ELvis, was making and releasing his own version of “Blue Suede Shoes” in a much faster and hipper tempo and style on a record that would carry the hit to other galaxies.

Perkins wrote the song one night after he came home from playing a high school prom and over-hearing a young man telling his date, “Listen, when we’re dancing, please try not to step on my blue suede shoes. OK?” Sometimes good things happen when we are paying attention.

Right Carl?

Jerry Lee Lewis

(7) Great Balls of Fire (1956). Substitute “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” or any other favorite Jerry Lee Lewis song here and I have no problem with the change as long as the man and his dawn-stormin’ music makes the list. Jerry Lee was the most insanely talented early contributor to “R&R” from the country/white Protestant gospel culture that produced him.

The life and music of Jerry Lee Lewis left everybody breathless and with a whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on.

(8) “Good Golly, Miss Molly” (1957). Little Richard returns to the list with a hit that was big enough to impress a 10-year old future President of the United States. Young Bil Clinton of Hope, Arkansas was busy picking up the saxophone and the music of Little Richard around the time this mega-hit came out. He loved it so much that he would one day prevail upon the “Father of Rock n’ Roll” to perform “Good Golly, Miss Molly at a party celebrating his 1993 presidential inauguration while he, the new American President, accompanied “LR” on the sax. (This act would have been big at Jimmy Menutis back in the day.)

(9) Johnny B. Goode (1957). “Go, Johnny, Go!”  The hard-driving lyrics of this classic rock ‘n roll number by Chuck Berry still pound the message of the genre out there at a rate faster than the culture of that time could absorb it. It was about freedom of artistic expression on a level that went way beyond the in-bred marriage of the majority white culture to the values of prudence and control of the arts, two qualities that eventually go beyond directing energy and start choking creativity.

“Long live rock ‘n roll! Deliver us from the days of old” – Chuck Berry.

"Thank you! - Thank you very much!"

(10) “Hound Dog” (1957). By this time in 1957, you could have picked a number of other Elvis Presley hits for this lace in the Top Ten List. I chose “Hound Dog” because I think it represents something of a final victory point in the culture war for rock ‘n roll’s right to survive. as an everyday part of our main culture life. Back in 1954-55, the airways were battling to play rock ‘n roll live over the air on pretty much of a case-by-case basis. Artists like Little Sylvia Vander pool were being banned for “suggestive” lyrics. Sylvia took the ban for a little song called “Fine Love,” in which she sang about “fine love…fine kisses…right here.”

The lyrics to “Hound DOg” were fairly innocuous, but they were being sung by Elvis Presley, and it was now 1957, and rock ‘n roll was here to stay.

Places like the Jimmy Menutis club in Houston helped seal the deal on “R&R” becoming a permanent part of our everyday American lives. Thank you, Jimmy!

Long live rock ‘n roll! And long live Jimmy Menutis and his contributions to American music history!

Also, please comment below. We’d love to hear your own top ten lists too.

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More Sandlot Summer Memories

August 16, 2010

Sooner or later, my mind always returns to the sandlot in Pecan Park, the one we called Eagle Field, the one that is today celebrated at the East End Houston corner where Japonica and Myrtle streets “Y” together as “Japonica Park.”. The site was dedicated as a small city park in 1942, even though it only takes up the space that developers could have used to squeeze in four to six more little box houses like the ones we all lived in. They just didn’t, thank God, they just didn’t.

Joy in the moment never got any better than it once did in that time and space around the year 1950. I was 12 years old and playing at the apex of my sandlot glory that summer, as were several of my Pecan Park Eagle buddies. We simply had no way of knowing, as kids in a relatively trouble-free world, that this moment, for many of us, was as good as it would ever get for the every summer day availability of joy.

Hit and run. Catch and throw. Laugh and shout. Sweat and slide. Bare feet and callouses. Tee shirts and no shirts. Cornflower blue skies and billowing cotton candy white clouds. Skinned up knees and strawberry rump stains. All these and more were both the actions and the theater of our life upon the sandlot. But all were part of our daily deal with what we knew as life back in the day.

The older I get, and the longer I consider the question, “what makes life good or bad,” the more I come to appreciate that it all seems to turn on whether or not we once had a period of joy in our childhood or not – and here’s where life can seem to deal a very unfair hand to some people.

A small decanter of magic dirt from the 1950 home plate area of Eagle Field, collected in May 2010.

In working with people over the years, I met a lot of folks who seemed to know little more than abuse or neglect as kids. They had no golden sandlot memories. Only emotional pain and deprivation of love and protection filled their childhoods. These folks have a hard time seeing life’s normal adult setbacks as anything more than more of the same pain that’s always been there. They can’t buy into “it’ll get better” because it never was good. First base on the road to hope for these people is finding some time of joy in the past, even if it were simply a solitary thing or a single day.

New joy feeds best on the memory of a previous experience. Failing that, new joy feeds on the hunger for it. It’s where we live in the moment at peace, or in full body and soul engagement, with life.

Some of us were lucky enough to have grown up with two loving parents. Others of us were even luckier to have also grown up also with the love and joy that flowed from sandlot baseball as it was widely played through the early 1950s.

The sandlot soul never dies.

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A Letter to Jimmie Menutis

August 15, 2010

This morning brought a pleasant surprise. It was an overnight e-mail letter to the readers of the Pecan Park Eagle from the one and only Jimmy Menutis. It’s already posted where Jimmy left it as a two-part comment on the PPE article headlined as “Jimmy Menutis: Houston Heart of Rock ‘n Roll,” but I wanted to repeat his two messages here to make sure that no one misses them:

(1) From Jimmie Menutis to Pecan Park Eagle Readers, 08/15/10, 5:06 AM ~

I am very happy to see all the reply and fond memory. I too have great memory of all my friends and customers. Guess what…..my wife of 50 years and I still dance the whip.
We are living in new orleans, also have a condo in the metropolis o w.gray in Houston. We have a business in Lafayette, la and spend time there.

We are considering having a reunion In new Orleans with one of the name artist if you wish to be invited send your name and address by mail to

Jimmie menutis
110 Travis street
Lafayette, la. 70503

Circulate this message to others you know would want to attend.

Regards
Jimmie

(2) From Jimmie Menutis to Pecan Park Eagle Readers, 08/15/10, 5:09 AM ~

Love to hear from all my friends.

Jimmie Menutis
110 Travis St.
Lafayette, La. 70503

Email
Rmenutis@brandedworksinc.com

Response Letter to Jimmie Menutis from Bill McCurdy, The Pecan Park Eagle ~

Dear Jimmie,

It is both an honor and a joy to hear from you. Although you have never met most or all of us who have written our happy recollections here lately of your once-great club on Telephone Road, we hope you will easily see from what has been written how big you still are in our hearts and memories of that wonderful period in our earlier lives.

I am also posting your contact information a second time here so that our readers will be able to contact you directly about their availability for a reunion party in New Orleans, Lafayette, or Houston somewhere down the line. My guess is that a Houston party might require the rental of a pretty large hall, sort of a “Jimmy Menutis II” site, if you please.

My wife and I would love to join you and Mrs. Menutis for such a party, if you decide to have one, and I also invite you to use this site to get out information to your many fans, as well, about a party, about the music of those good old days, or anything else you may be up to in these new good old days that you care to share with the general public. All you have to do is post it here as a comment following this article – or else, drop me an e-mail if it’s a whole new subject.

Thanks again for writing, Jimmie. And long live rock ‘n roll and the Menutis legacy.

Regards,

Bill McCurdy, Editor, The Pecan Park Eagle

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Time for an Astros Baseball Movie

August 14, 2010

The Hollywood summer movie list and the 2010 Houston Astros baseball season share this much in common: Neither has been very good – and both movies and the Astros have now reached the same point in which supporters of each spend more on concessions than they now do on tickets.

Maybe we were missing the boat by not suggesting this earlier, but its high time we had a good new baseball movie based upon the Astros. How about we use current movie titles with do-over scripts to make these film offerings more attractive. In this way, we shall also help the movie industry recover its own losses as we work hard to benefit our primary client, out hometown Astros.

In the spirit of the new re-make philosophy on old popular movies, I would like to start with a re-make proposal for the 1949 baseball movie classic, “It Happens Every Spring.” In this version, former Astros manager Larry Dierker is puttering around in his “build-your-own-senior-citizen-prescription-drugs-home-lab” when he accidentally invents a fluid that is repellent to wood. By placing the precious fluid in a sponge that he fits into the pocket of his old pitching glove, Larry finds that he is again able to pitch in spite of the injury that ended his original pitching career early. He goes to the Astros with a plan for making a comeback, without divulging how he plans to accomplish the same. Once Owner Drayton McLane, Jr., President Tal Smith, and General Manager Ed Wade recover from a case of falling down hysterical laughter, Dierker proposes that he be allowed to tryout in full view of their entire group and Field Manager Brad Mills.

A hasty tryout is arranged for Minute Maid Park. Larry promptly goes through the eight starters on 24 pitches and 24 swinging strikes for 8 K’s and an immediate contract to return as staff ace for 2011. He more than fills the gap, going 50-1 in the regular season, 7-0 in the playoffs, and 4-0 in the World Series against the New York Yankees. Dierker’s only loss came at the hands of Pittsburgh on the only day he forgot to bring his magic elixir with him to the ballpark. Because it took the Astros so long to reach this moment of glory, the original title of the first movie was altered sufficiently to match the Astros’ reality. The Dierker version is called, “It Happens Not Quite Every Spring.”

The summer movie titles offer other possibilities. Here are a few that I see, but perhaps you see others. If so, please add your suggestions as comments to this idea:

“The Expendables” – It’s the story of just about every player who remains on the 2010 Astros roster, but the featured stars need to be Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman.

“Inception” – General Manager Ed Wade dreams that he can build a Word Series club in Houston purely from former players and prospects acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies. In the movie, Wade talks about the importance of building a strong farm system and he proceeds to draft and sign all of his 2011 choices at 50% of the expected market cost, but that part of the movie turns out to be only a dream within the dream and an accomplishment that never happened. When he awakens at his desk in the movie’s final scene, an aide is handing Wade a trade proposal that has just arrived by e-mail from the Seattle Mariners. Wade is staring seriously at the message as the camera slowly moves in for a tight shot of his face. An Ed Wade voice-over quietly whispers as a thought we all hear: “Seattle Mariners. Who in the heck are the Seattle Mariners?” (Movie fades to black. “The End” flashes on-screen.)

“The Other Guys” – This plot builds around the history of the World Series since 1962, Houston’s first season in the big leagues. The primary angle here is how it’s always “the other guys” who win the World Series – and how the Houston club hardly ever (once, so far) gets to even go to baseball’s big show. This movie is not recommended for any Houston adult who may already be suffering from a serious inferiority complex – nor for any Houston child needing to build healthy self-esteem.

Despicable Me – For the first time in history, Hollywood makes a movie about a major league bullpen and they decide to shoot the film in Houston and use members of the Astros relief pitching staff. No parts have been cast in bronze, so far, but Matt Lindstrom is said to be in line as the top candidate for the title role. We hear that only a confirmed back injury stands in his way.

Salt – When the sign “No Pepper Games” goes up on the field at Minute Maid Park, Geoff Blum rebels against the prohibition by changing the name of the “bunt and catch” exercise to that other favorite table seasoning and just encourages everybody to keep right on playing. The decision keeps the game alive and also scratches an ancient Blumian itch to resist new rules-making by faceless figures of authority.

Step Up – In the most improbable animated film since “Fantasia,” the Houston Astros respond to some magic dust that gets stuffed in the A/C system at Minute Maid Park by a small mystical child. They step up so often that they rally from sleeping with Pittsburgh to ripping the Reds and Cardinals – and then going on to bake the Yankees in the 2010 World Series. As i said, it’s an animated fantasy.

Toy Story – This one sort of embodies the best parts of many current summer hits. Brad Mills dreams that the Astros get rid of all players who are either expendable or despicable by dumping them on the other guys. He then dreams that GM Ed Wade steps up to the plate and opens a magic toy shop where twenty-five very compatible and virtually unbeatable players are assembled and made available with a five-year warranty on their competitiveness potential at the highest level. All but one of these players is kept on Wade’s new Astros roster when a space has to be made for the return of Larry Dierker and his wondrous new “whip-it-on-’em” out pitch.

“Eat, Pray, Love, Have a Sense of Humor” – Easiest movie plot of all: (1) Grab a great old ballpark hot dog! (2) Pray to God we all survive this down-time in Astros history; (3) Keep on loving the Astros and baseball in Houston in spite of the down times we are going through now; and, (4) Keep a sense of humor about this time and everything else that runs amuck every now and then. It’s the only way to survive – and the only known way that those first three items in this movie title make any real sense.

Have a dreamy weekend, everybody – and let us hear your own new Astros movie plots from any old or new movie title that comes to mind.

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Hughes News: Howard’s First Marriage

August 13, 2010

Howard Hughes, Jr.

Of all the famous figures to come out of Houston over the course of history,none was ever more mysterious, more talented, richer, or more powerful than the late Howard Hughes, Jr. The attention he drew to aviation design was only matched by the futility of ego he drafted into the motion picture industry and the women he helped make famous by very personal interest and investment in their acting careers. Actresses Jane Russell and Jean Peters leap immediately to mind as the two greatest beneficiaries of Howard’s “benevolence,” but starlet Terry Moore of “Mighty Joe Young” movie fame is quickly recalled as one of the solid others.

Ella Botts Rice Hughes

There are ample biographies on Howard Hughes out there – and quite a bit of information available even more easily over the Internet. That being said is being said here as simply my notation that any occasional column I write on the subject as “Hughes News” is simply anecdotal or sidebar to what we do not ordinarily see in the mainstream print about him. Today’s facts and questions are items  that you will not necessarily see without some serious or accidental search and find time in some library or personal collection somewhere.

Today’s contribution comes from a research colleague and new friend of mine named Randy Foltin. I’m not at liberty to talk abut it here, but Randy is currently working on one of the most exciting Houston history projects I’ve seen in a very long time. In the process, he sometimes uncovers peripheral information that he has no time to dally-dabble search these items because of his own research goals. As I’ve also learned over the years, the blessing/curse of historical research is that we find things of interest that we weren’t looking for, but, if we dabble into them too much for too long, we endanger the time and energy we need to spend on our particular research goals.

Sometimes, too, it’s not so easy yo know when a side junket in research is not a waste of time, but a new way of learning about the main research subject. That was not the case here. The case here was that Randy had turned up some long ago photos and information about Howard Hughes that he wanted it to pass on to me because of my general interest in Houston history. These photos had to do with young Howard’s early Houston education and his even earlier than we thought, or knew, connection with the woman who would become his first wife. The other recognition comes straight from Randy Foltin as a shrewd body language observation about young Howard Hughes from an early school class picture.

First of all, the individual photos of young Howard and his first bride are ancient. The one of Ella is the same photo used in the South End Junior High School “annual,” sometime between 1917-19, in which she also was proclaimed as the “Football Queen.” Howard Hughes also was a student at South End  back then, but it is unlikely that he and Ella were connected as a couple that early. For one big thing, she was two grades ahead of Howard at the time. For another, she was then the toast of the school jocks at the same time that the nerdier younger adolescent Hughes was busy developing both the first radio broadcasting tower and the first motorized bicycle in Houston.

By the way, South End Junior High School, south of downtown between Fannin and San Jacinto, later became better known as San Jacinto High School.

At any rate, Howard and Ella finally did get together, I understand, with the help of certain family connections, and they were married in Houston on June 1, 1925, about three months prior to Howard’s 20th birthday, but after the death of both parents and his assumption of control of the family business.

Howard and Ella moved to Los Angeles shortly after their 1925 marriage to help Howard fulfill his goal of producing movies. He succeeded as a filmmaker, but his Houston marriage didn’t work out. Ella moved back to Houston in 1929 and filed for a divorce. And Howard was already on his way. To other women. To more movies. To grand aviation projects. To great wealth. And to his final role as the most powerful and eccentric recluse in the history of the world.

And the words “different” … “powerful” … and “recluse” all lead us to Randy Foltin’s other photo find and the observations he also attached to the display, awaiting confirmation that young man in the lower left hand front row of this South End Junior High School photo is, indeed, Howard Hughes. (What you cannot see here because it makes the photo too small for publication value – is the list of names of all students in the photo and showing one in about that lower left side spot as “Howard Hughes.”)

My call, from the second sectional crop of the young man on the lower left is that I believe it is Howard Hughes as a very young boy. Now let’s look at the photos – and then conclude with Randy Foltin’s observations about the body language communication we see in this picture of Howard Hughes.

Is that Howard Hughes on the lower left side, front row?

I am 99.999% sure that Mr Dark Suit Left is Howard Hughes.

According to Foltin, Hughes sits apart from his classmates as he eventually sat apart from all people. I agree with Randy completely. That’s what the picture says. Notice his self-containment. His hands are planted firmly on his own knees, ready to pull himself up by his own boot straps, if need be.  There isn’t a hint of emotional outreach to others here – and that’s pretty much how Hughes both lived and died. All people were little more than props in the life of this genius narcissist.  – and that trait is what eventually helped him die of malnutrition as the world’s richest man.

Randy Foltin saw that distance in the class photo and I could not resist placing my own impression of it here as a lifelong student of Howard Hughes. The man was an almost autistic genius, with the rare skill for combining strong business principles and creative vision in one human package. He simply lacked empathy for others and the drudgery issues in the human condition bored him to tears.

A prime example of Hughes’s self-centeredness in the wake of human tragedy is the great earthquake that struck Nicaragua in December 1973. Hughes was “reclusing” in the capital city of Managua at the time. Once the mighty quake hit, Howard mobilized his whole crew to the goal of getting out as fast as they possibly could – and that’s exactly what they did, escaping to the safer environs of Las Vegas, Nevada. By contrast, that was the same disaster that cost baseball great Roberto Clemente his life. While Howard Hughes was “getting the hell out of Dodge,” Roberto Clemente was getting himself killed in a plane crash while trying to fly away from the safety of his own home in Puerto Rico. His plane was loaded beyond capacity with essential supplies and it crashed into the ocean after it tried taking off, killing all the crew, and Clemente, upon impact.

The contrast between Hughes and Clemente here is stark, but it best makes the point of explaining who we are are talking about when we discuss the missing parts of loner Howard Hughes. He simply lacked a capacity for really caring about what happened to others.

Because he had no truly selfless empathy for others, Hughes did not know how to hire people who might be capable of acting with “tough love” empathy for the self-destructiveness they might have seen in him, the world’s sickest rich man. As the result, Howard Hughes, the man who once sat alone in a class photo, also died alone. surrounded by a staff who would rather let him die than get fired for standing up and saying “no” to the death choices he was making by the way he lived.

Thanks for the input, Randy Foltin. I’ve been looking for a bully pulpit on Howard Hughes for a very long time.

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Bye, Bye, Bobby!

August 12, 2010

Do you suppose it was something Bobby Cox said?

Bye, Bye, Bobby! – Wednesday’s wrap-up game between the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park brought an end to an era. After 29 years at the helm as manager of a major league club, and with 25 of those years cemented into the history of the Atlanta Braves, Bobby Cox has said goodbye to Houston following his last trip here as the field general of a big league team.

Bobby leaves Houston on a winning note; his Braves took two out of three games from the Astros on this last trip to town in 2010 – and they also leave here in first place in the NL East. In spite of all who hate him, as many or more Braves and Bobby fans out there are alive and pulling for Cox to win one last NL flag and bag another elusive World Series title before he departs the Braves helm.

Tuesday Night at MMP: How many times over the years have we seen "Ole #6" out there, pulling one more string on a pitcher he hopes can get somebody out?

Bobby Cox doesn’t need another division title, league pennant, or World Series victory to assure his near certain future induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. His 2,479 managerial wins through and including that 8-2 extra inning slammer the Braves put on the Astros Wednesday, August 11th, already places him in fourth place in managerial wins for all time, trailing only the uncatchable (1) Connie Mack (3,731), followed by (2) John McGraw (2.763), and (3) the also still active Tony LaRussa (2,6i6 through all games of 8/11/2010).

It’s conceivable, if not highly probable, that the other Hall of fame for sure guy, La Russa, will hang around long enough to surpass McGraw, but that also unnecessary extra validation of Tony does nothing to either make him more worthy – or Bobby Cox any lesser so. Both LaRussa and Cox have reached points in their careers in which numbers are little more than forgettable add-on features. Greatness already has been established by each of them in far many other ways.

How many times did Bobby Cox make this trip in 29 years? I don't know, but he did it afew more times on the night of Tuesday, August 10th.

Success is stamped all over Bobby Cox’s managerial career. At Atlanta alone, his Braves established themselves as the perennial division champion in the NL East throughout most of 1990s. In 15 seasons (1991-2005), Atlanta finished in first place in the NL East on 14 of those occasions, also taking 5 NL pennants (1991-2, 1995-96, 1999) and one World Series title (1995) over that extended halcyon period. The Braves also took some criticism for not winning it all more often because of their constant presence at the top of the heap during the regular season, but that critique in itself became a compliment to Cox over time. Not many other wildly successful managers and teams have been criticized so hard and so often for not being more perfect than Cox and the Braves.

Bobby Cox managed the National League All Star Team on five separate occasions (1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, and 2000). While managing the Toronto Blue Jays, he also was named Manager of the Year in the American League for the 1985 season and then another three times with the Atlanta Braves, the writers picked Cox as Manager of the year in the National League (2001, 2003, 2005).

The Astros honored Bobby Cox prior to Tuesday night’s game and well they should have. Good for the Astros! And good for Bobby Cox! What a worthy and often frustrating opponent he was to our Houston aspirations over the years. Will we ever forget the eighteen inning marathon victory over the Braves in the 2005 playoff game at Minute Maid Park? More painfully, will we ever be allowed to dis-remember that play at the plate in the Dome in 1999 that allowed the Braves to knock us out of the playoffs because Cox’s drawn in infield with the bases loaded did what they had to do, via a 6-2 Walt Weiss miraculous force out stop and throw, to kill our playoff chances?

Like him or hate him, Houston fans simply have to respect Bobby Cox for the worthy opponent he has always been. Now the guy walks away from baseball action on the field at age 68 with nothing more to prove.

Bobby Cox also leaves as the most ejected manager in baseball history. His 143 career ejections is a total far beyond anyone else, and these totals do not even include the two additional ejections he received in World Series play.

Why did Bobby Cox get tossed so much? Who knows?. Maybe it was just something he said that the umpires didn’t like. Maybe it was the way he said things. Maybe it was for just showing up in the face of the umpire on the heels of a tough call and being Bobby Cox. All I know is – baseball is losing a good man on the field after 2010 and I, as one fan, will miss him – even if he always was the guy on the other side in the wrong dugout,

Bye, Bye, Bobbie! We're going to miss you in Houston too!

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An Astros-Cranky Morning

August 11, 2010

"Some" Nights at Minute Maid Park Aren't Picture Perfect!

I woke up this morning with some good news and some bad news affecting my experience at the Braves@Astros game that my grown son Neal and I attended Tuesday night at Minute Maid Park.

The bad news is that several things on the field , especially losing as we did, affected our enjoyment of the game and one thing at the concession stands struck both Neal and me as an abomination to the memory of an iconic Houston business reputation. Speaking only for me now, the good news is that I still care about the fates and fortunes of our hometown Astros and the way we handle the good things in our history when it comes down to putting them into commercial service to any private group.

Let’s deal with the game stuff first. It isn’t all bad.

J.A. Happ pitched another great game Tuesday night!

J.A, Happ and Brett Wallace – two of the three young players we got in the Roy Oswalt trade – are already paying dividends on the future. Wallace is hitting .333 and swinging with fluid authority from the port side against right and left-handed pitching – and Happ is two for three in great starts as an Astro. In a physically remindful appearance to Andy Pettittee, Happ worked 111 pitches for 6 1/3 innings last night, giving up only one run on two hits, while walking four and striking out six. The Astros simply could not get him any runs off Atlanta pitching until sloppy defense by the Braves opened the door for a two-spot in the bottom of the eighth.

The Astro stuff that bothered me happened in the eighth and ninth innings.

The Astros had just tied the lead at 2-1 on a Braves throwing error and had Pence at second and Lee at first with only one out – and with our hottest hitter, Chris Johnson, at the plate. That’s when somebody (Pence, third base coach Dave Clark, or manager Brad Mills) decided to just run us out of next scoring opportunity. Pence took off and was retired at third for the second out on a questionable call, but that was not my problem, My problem was that Pence went at all from scoring position with Johnson batting.

As soon as Pence was called out, you knew what was coming next for sure. Johnson rammed the single to right that would have scored Pence from second and increased the lead to 3-1. All it did was advance Carlos Lee to third with two outs and bring rookie Brett Wallace to the plate with a scoring opportunity.

UhOh! Now it’s managerial genius time!

Are the Astros inadvertently training Wallace to think he cannot hit lefties when the game is on the line? Operant behavioral modification is a technique I've studied for a thousand years in my primary field. Don't think it cannot happen.

Atlanta’s Bobby Cox brought in a lefty, Venters, to face Wallace, so naturally, Brad Mills felt as through he had to bring in the right-handed Jason Michaels to pinch hit for the lefty rookie. I know all about the righty-lefty percentages. I didn’t just wake up yesterday – nor am I unaware that “JayMike” has played a hot hand lately. – And, no, I don’t know what special game circumstances with Wallace may have made a contribution to Mills’s decision.

I just wouldn’t have lifted Wallace – and for a couple of good reasons: (1) Wallace is hitting .333 in the early go and is already showing signs that he can hit lefties as well as righties; (2) as a manager, I want to show Wallace that I have confidence in his ability to hit lefties in a game-pressured situation. I do not want to train him to expect the hook whenever this situation comes up again.

On the surface of things, I felt Mills let his rookie down when he pulled him for Michaels. Of course, as you might also expect, Michaels completed the cycle of disappointment by taking strike three for the third out with the bat on his shoulder.

The final disappointment was s hugely shared one. Closer Lindstrom came in to pitch the ninth for the Astros and then  surrendered three runs on two homers to blow the game into a 4-2 Atlanta win. How can Mills showing confidence in Lindstrom as a pitcher be more important than showing confidence in Wallace as a hitter? There seemed to be an air of that difference involved in the way last night’s game played out.

Lindstrom has good stuff, but he’s slightly off track now, and that diversion has grown quickly into the difference between victory and defeat. We don’t want young Wallace to lose his confidence as a hitter against lefties in tight situations – and we do want Lindstrom to get his confidence back as a closer. It’s not there at the present time.

Prince's Burgers "Fit for a King?" - Not at Minute Maid Park!

We finally got around to trying the Prince’s hamburgers at Minute Maid Park for the first time. It will also be our last. What they are serving there as the iconic Prince’s hamburger from 1934 is both a culinary disaster and an embarrassing insult to the Prince family name. The current licensees to the use of the Prince family name should be ashamed of themselves for placing  this piece of food garbage out there at Minute Maid Park. To put in mildly, the Prince’s hamburger at Minute Maid is one horrendous misrepresentation of the original great Prince’s recipe for burgers. They don’t even have the famous original sauce available at MMP.

The whole purchase and attempted consumption experience was ridiculous  to the extreme of becoming almost laughable. First of all, the counter help has no idea what the original Prince’s burgers were all about to Houstonians for generations. When you ask for “original recipe sauce,” they simply tell you “we ain’t got nothing like that. What we got is a burger, with or without cheese. You have to put your own stuff on it from one of those carts out there.”

The burger comes fried to a bone dry crisp with no salt. American processed cheese is your only choice, if you want it, and it comes laid out on a toasted bun that could be from anywhere. The basic burger is $8.75 because you have no choice but to buy it with fries. The fries are pretty good – and you can order them separately for $4.25. When we asked about buying a burger separately, the guy told us, “You may as well take the fries, ’cause we going to charge you for them anyway. If you don’t want ’em, just throw ’em in that trash can over there.”

"Ain't That a Shame" - by Fats Domino (It's a good fit.)

A Better Look at the MMP Prince's Prices

As things turned out, it was most of both the burger and the unwanted fries that Neal and I each tossed, We figured: “Better to toss it this way now than another way later.”

Look! I have no problem with the price of concessions at the ballpark. If people want an economic meal, they need to dine elsewhere, either before or after the game. My problem is with paying high prices for poor quality – and in this case, paying for something that is basically a desecration of what always stood out as THE burger standard in Houston, Texas since 1934.

The Prince family is simply shamed by this egregious abuse of their family name at Minute Maid Park. Shame on the vendors who sold this idea to the Astros!

As someone who always has supported the Houston Astros, it is my hope that the Prince’s vendor plan is either totally corrected or eliminated by the time we get to the 2011 season. It’s just plain awful as it is.

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Eddie Dyer: A Man for All Seasons

August 10, 2010

Eddie Dyer: The Man Who Could Do It All

Eddie Dyer. He could pitch, hit, manage, balance the books, make out payroll checks, and then go into business after baseball and became wildly successful in oil, real estate, and insurance. Oh yeah. One more thing. He knew how to win a World Series too, as he and his 1946 St. Louis Cardinals proved to all against Ted Williams and the Boston Red Sox in the seven-game thriller that was the 1946 title contest that will always be remembered for Enos Slaughter’s “mad dash” from first to home.

Born in the heart of Cajun Country in Morgan City, Louisiana on October 11, 1899, the Irishman Dyer made his way to Rice Institute (now University) as both a bright student and highly touted ballplayer. He signed with the St. louis Cardinals in 1922 as a (BL/TL) pitcher-outfielder. The future looked as bright as dawn upon the dark swamps of his birthplace.

Over parts of six seasons, 1922-27, Dyer then appeared in 129 games for the Cardinals. As a big league pitcher, he split 30 decisions and posted an ERA of 4.78. Dyer also marked a 3 win-5 loss record in a  partial season with the 1923 Houston Buffs during this same period. It was his only season as an actual player for the Buffs, but his impact as a manager was coming down the line. In 157 times at bat as a major league outfielder in the 1920s, Eddie batted only .223 and seemed well on his way to mediocrity or total oblivion.

1927 proved to be Eddie Dyer’s pivotal year. Optioned by the parent Cardinals to the Syracuse Stars of the then AA International League as a pitcher, Dyer won his first six games before an arm injury ended his pitching career for all time. His now proven intellect and leadership qualities next led the Cardinals to shift Dyer into gear as a playing manager-outfielder in their minor league system.

From 1928 through 1933, Dyer continued as a playing manager, also establishing himself along the way as a superb minor league hitter. Upon retirement from active play, Dyer hung up a career minor league BA of .311 for ten seasons. He also began to compile a list of great players who came up through the Cardinal system under his tutelage. The first of these was future Hall of Famer Joe Medwick, who played for Eddie as an outfielder for the Scottdale Scotties of the Class C Western Association in 1930. All Joe  Medwick did that year was hit .419 to lead the league.

Dyer was a triple duty money-saver for the Cardinals while he still played and then fell only to a double duty bargain after his active playing retirement in the lower minors. In each of those early stops, the Cardinals also installed Dyer as either the general manager or club president too. He may have even driven the team road-trip bus under this Branch Rickey-inspired, money-saving  mindset. I’m not sure about that bus driving extra job, but it wouldn’t surprise.

If we look closely here at the order of these next few facts, we may be able to see one of the big reasons that Eddie Dyer was headed toward dynastic minor league success in the later 1930s and early 1940s. In 1938, the Cardinals placed Dyer in charge of supervising all of their minor league operations in the southern and southwestern parts of the United States. The following season, the Cardinals made Eddie Dyer their choice for service as manager of the Houston Buffs.

Uh Oh! Going into the 1939 season, guess who has a major say and the most performance information at his fingertips and under his control for assigning players to the Houston Buffs roster?  I’m not saying we can know it worked out this way, but so what, if it did? Eddie Dyer would have been foolish not to load up at Houston, if he had the inside chance.

The results speak pretty loudly for the talent, leadership, and performance of the Buffs during Eddie Dyer’s three seasons at the helm from 1939 through 1941. The Buffs finished in first place all three of those seasons, averaging 102 wins per year and winning the playoffs for the league championship in 1940. Sadly, the 1940 Buffs then lost the Dixie Series title to the Nashville Vols in five games.

The Texas League then shut down from 1942 through 1945 due to World War II, but Eddie Dyer stayed connected to the Cardinals as he also pursued his business interests in Houston. He became manager of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1946 and then quickly led the club that contained many of his former Houston players, pitchers like Howie Pollet, Red Munger, and Ted Wilks, to a playoff pennant victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers and a seven-game World series title over the Boston Red Sox.

The Cardinals remained fiercely competitive for the last four years of Eddie Dyer’s managerial service to the Cardinals (1947-50), but the Dodgers, Braves, Dodgers again, and Phillies got in the way of any further Dyer-Cardinal pennants.

After a fall to fifth place in 1950, Eddie Dyer resigned as manager of the Cardinals and returned to his business interests in Houston. He left a major league managerial record on the books that spoke well for his accomplishments. 446 wins. 325 losses, and a .578 winning percentage is plenty to write home about.

Eddie Dyer passed away in Houston at age 64 on April 11, 1964. His death was both a big loss to baseball and to our community because he was one of those people with the ability to infect others with his plans for success and happiness. You never want to run out of the Eddie Dyer types in this world. The loss is always felt hard and sharp.

I’ve written about Eddie Dyer in the past. I’ll no doubt write about him again in the future. I only wish his players were still around to write his whole story. I’ll bet you that most of them would also say they were helped to becoming better performers because of Eddie Dyer. All I know is – the more you read about the guy and study his record – and the more you examine the names of the players he managed – the more you may find yourself pulled to the same conclusion I also reached.

Eddie Dyer was a builder of better worlds – in baseball, in business, in life.

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Hello, Detroit! Is Anybody Home?

August 9, 2010

Pleas take a look at these two car body styles. The first is the popular 2010 Honda Accord, all decked out in the coveted colorless blend-in silver tone shading that, along with the often chosen gray-colored version, is the quiet rage among folks who are looking for the most aerodynamically efficient and anonymous-looking carrier forms they can climb into for their five-day weekly trip into the land of 9 to 5.

2010 Honda Accord

Now take a long look at our second body style offering, an American-made, all-steel and chrome  1936 Studebaker Roadster, resplendent in pay-attention-to-me red and just aching for a moving violation ticket on the joy-breeze drive you make on your own terms to a job or career you really want to do, on those days you truly feel like doing anything at all. This car is also available in Emerald City Green or Sunrise Orange, but we will go with Looka-Here Red today as your other choice.

1936 Studebaker Roadster

All things being equal on the inside, let’s next assume that either of these body models is available to you with all of the modern engineering we now possess in 2010 for computerized power, cooling, steering, fueling, transmission,  suspension, braking, wheels, and tires.

Which body type would you choose for your personal car? Remember: One of them is basically made of plastic, making it lighter on fuel, but more fragile on impact, and the other is made of steel and chrome, American-made steel and chrome.

OK, I’ll admit it. I’m pulling your leg a little bit. I do realize that some people, perhaps, more than I think, are more concerned with aerodynamic performance over looks, and many others today associate the face of classic cars with out-of-fashion looks and the outdated technology that once drove them.

Yet, I still think that Detroit is missing a bet by not reviving the classic look as the wrapper on modern technology for all those car buyers who do prefer the differential character face of classic cars over the one-look-fits-all design that goes into most cars today, American or foreign.

Wouldn’t some of you today like to go out and buy a car that ran like a new one, but looked like a 1950 Ford, a 1951 Oldsmobile, or a 1957 Chevrolet?  We could have it, but we don’t because of fears among the automakers that we will see it as “old-fashioned” or less efficient on the fuel usage side.

Neither of those factors would hold me back, but then, maybe I’m all alone in that view – or maybe, I’m just too old to realize that style and class no longer matter for much of anything, even in cars.

Chrysler tried to wake up to this idea, but then stumbled over their own lack of fortitude for going all the way. Their PT Cruiser sort of started out as a classic echo design, but then they got caught up in making sure it retained the anonymous oval shape. When they ran totally out of imagination, Chrysler designers simply chopped it off in the back and made it too small to be noticed for long by the buying public.

C’mon, Detroit, wake up! You have the chance now to rock ‘n roll your new car sales way, way past the Asian companies who didn’t grow up here, but you have to first wake up the American echoes to see the technicolor sunrise of a brand new day in classic car design.

Rise and shine, Detroit! It’s back to the future time!

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