Posts Tagged ‘Bobby Bragan’

Rob Sangster: Chairman of the Bored No More

March 18, 2012

Rob Sangster: Gentleman. Scholar. Lawyer. Traveler. Adventurer. Activist. Writer. Admirer of Women. Good Friend. And Damn Good Citizen of the World.

It is October 1955, the autumn of my senior year at St. Thomas High School in Houston with the Class of 1956. I am sitting in Religion to the left of my left-handed buddy, Rob Sangster, and I can’t help noting that he is writing something down with apparent fervor. Thinking that Rob may have picked up on something from Father Allnoch’s lecture that I missed, I am compelled to look over at his paper and check what he has jotted down in such clearly distinctive cursive script:

“Chairman of the Bored” is Rob’s quiet and quick message. It makes me smile. I have to give nodding approval to Rob for seizing the thought into consciousness ahead of me and placing it in written form for a fairly immediate audience response, even if is just me, but that’s OK. Even if Rob and I do not cruise for girls or play ball together, we seem to have a friendship that isn’t necessarily measured by mutual tail-gunning experience in flights over Nazi Germany, but by the empathy chords and hunger yearnings for the “deeper meaning” of issues that are starting to crash into our adolescent encounters with life.

Rob is my seat mate on a CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) bus trip to Galveston just prior to our junior year. Rob helps me work through the disappointment I am feeling over the loss of my first girl friend. Rob helps me see the deeper meaning of my sorrow. “Bill,” Robs advises, “maybe this sort of thing wouldn’t happen to you if you simply stopped robbing the cradle for new girl friends. As a guy whose about start his junior year, you are way too old to be dating freshmen girls the next time.”

I take Rob’s advice, but continue to run into broken hearts for quite a while. Rob and I then graduate in 1956 and we lose complete track of each other until 2011, when, because of the Internet, we catch up with each other again through an electronic digital reunion.

Wow! What this man has done with the 56 years that have now passed since the STHS Class of 1956 graduated is phenomenal. In short, he seems to have fulfilled every adventure he ever dreamed of having as a kid – and others that only come into view for those who seek the open doors of new opportunity and then discover what rests beyond the walls and over the mountains and across the oceans without somewhere along the way selling out to the usual stopping points of conformity and complacency. Most people halt in the safety-first comfort zone before they ever get to see much of life at all. Not Rob Sangster. His life has been an odyssey.

I can’t pretend to relate all the details of Rob Sangster’s adventure. That’s his job and right to do so anyway. All I can do is tell you what I’ve learned for the sake of making my point. The guy is alive and healthy, and looking very much like that photo above today, because of both his genes and his life style commitment to making his life all that life can be. And, like me, he’s 72 years old, but swimming in a lifestyle that floats like the Fountain of Youth.

In 1956, when I was registering at UH and getting ready to work my way through college, Rob Sangster was off to Stanford in Palo Alto. After Stanford, Rob then graduated from law school at UCLA, I think. He practiced law for a while, but that wasn’t enough to stave off his need to avoid the “chairman of the bored” experience in our adult world’s real-time portion of life.

Rob married somewhere in there, but I know nothing of his marriage experience, nor does it matter to the point of this column. Today I know that he has a girl friend and that he now lives in Nova Scotia.

Sangster left the law field to see the world, moving his way literally over the tallest mountains and deepest oceans, traveling or living in over 100 countries at one time or another, writing a newspaper column and becoming a professional travel/adventure writer. Check out this website page for further information on this phase of his life:

http://www.transitionsabroad.com/information/media/rob_sangster_bio.shtml

Today Rob Sangster is working on his first novel. We understand that it will be a story in which the survival of the world hangs in the balance. And yep. I get it. – Doesn’t sound like “chairman of the bored” to me.

Rob Sangster is one of those rare people who understood early that his life experience would hinge on his ability to weigh the risks-rewards of adventure and proceed from there with a willingness to take responsibility for the consequences of his actions – and inactions. While some of his old buddies were still struggling with questions like “how old should my girl friend be?”, Rob already had taken a handle on the reality that none of us are entitled to anything we aren’t willing to work for.

Rob’s grasp of the lesson that life is not about entitlements, but about our willingness to take responsibility for what we do, and fail to do came through loud and clear in a private note he e-mailed me yesterday in response to my column, “The Ghost Rules of Eagle Field.” You will get it too – just as soon as you see it. Here’s what Rob Sangster wrote to me about his own first childhood baseball experience:

“On my first big-time at bat the first three pitches were called balls. Then I watched  three in a roll called strikes. I vowed never to let that happen again – in life as well.” – Rob Sangster.

Thanks for the great explanation of entitlements as balls taken while waiting on a pass to first base and personal responsibility as the act of not taking three strikes, but risking some cuts at the ball in the game of life. If I’ve got a kid on his way up, or a grown up kid who is still looking for the lesson, I want him or her to read the wisdom of Rob Sangster at least daily until he or she gets it too.

Nothing in life that’s worthwhile comes free. And it isn’t bad luck that gets us, or the absence of opportunity in America that holds us back. It’s our willingness to settle into a comfort zone with whatever is safe and familiar – and our refusal to take a swing with all it takes at something we feel passionately about. Fulfillment does not come knocking on the door like an entitlement check. Never happens.

Thank you, Rob Sangster, too, for reminding us of the words we also heard early and often from the late and wonderful Bobby Bragan:“You can’t hit the ball with the bat on your shoulder, you got to stand in there and swing!”

Bobby Bragan and Rob Sangster are both icons of passion-fulfilled in their own unique ways. Neither expected reward to come their way as a free pass to first base. Both reached for everything possible from the parts of life they each felt passionately about. And both are exemplars of how to live life to the fullest.

Thanks for rolling out that batting metaphor, Rob. As you can see here, it made my day.

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Baseball’s Bobby Bragan Passes Away at 92.

January 23, 2010

Nobody Did More for Kids Than Bobby Bragan!

Sometimes the end comes quietly and mercifully to the lions of this world. It seems to have happened that way for Bobby Bragan this week. He had been suffering a cold for about week and had simply retired early from watching television for a shave and shower before going to bed at his home in Fort Worth around 6:30 PM on Thursday, January 21, 2010.  When he did not return in a normal amount of time, his wife Betty went to the bathroom to check on him. She found him sitting on the dressing bench, leaning against the wall as though he were asleep.

In this final quiet exit from the dugout of Home Team Earth, the brassy 92-year old Bobby Bragan was gone from the game of life forever and those of us who knew him and were touched directly by his kindness will miss him greatly.

Bragan was truly a Renaissance Man. He was an athlete, a baseball player, a manager, an innovator, an artist, a comedian, an entertainer, a musician, an actor, a good friend, a loyal husband and family man, and one of the most generous humanitarians and philanthropists who ever came down the pike.

"You Can't Hit the Ball with the Bat on Your Shoulder!" - Bobby Bragan.

From its 1992 inception forward, the Bobby Bragan Foundation in Fort Worth raised around one million dollars in scholarship money for deserving students. It was the thing that Bobby put the full weight of his personal influence and friends energies into and it paid off handsomely for the kids he supported. Now it’s up the foundation and Bobby’s friends to make sure that the good work continues. The effort takes a great hit with the loss of Bobby.

Bobby Bragan was born In Birmingham, Alabama on October 30, 1917. As a kid who grew up loving baseball, he had a seven-year playing record as a shortstop/catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies (1940-42) and Brooklyn Dodgers (1943-44, 1947-48). Bobby had five brothers who also played professional baseball, but none of them made it to the major leagues.

Bragan only hit .240 with 15 homers over his MLB career, but his real talent was leadership. After four seasons as manager of the Fort Worth Cats (1948-52) and three seasons as manager of the Hollywood Stars (1953-55) Bobby Bragan moved up to the big leagues for stints as field manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates (1956-57), the Cleveland Indians (1958), and the Milwaukee Braves (1964-65) / Atlanta Braves (1966). Bobby also served time as a coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers and was a member of the original club developmental staff for the 1962 Houston Colt .45s.

Bobby Bragan managed five Hall of Famers: Roberto Clemente, Bob Lemon, Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, and Warren Spahn.

In his later years, he served as President of the Texas League when the designated hitter rule was put on trial for later use by the American League. Bobby never defended the “DH” rule in his discussions with me, but he did feel strongly that MLB should either apply the rule across the board, or else, get rid of it.

Bobby Bragan was a member of several halls of fame, including the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, and the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame. He had a reputation as a manager for being thrown out of games for arguing with umpires that later spilled over into his later years. When the independent league Fort Worth Cats decided to honor Bobby by making their official manager for one game at age 87, Bragan not only established a record as the oldest official manager in baseball history, he also managed to get thrown out of that game early for arguing with an umpire.

Some spots never go away.

My favorite Bragan story concerns the exciting role he played in the 1947 Word Series for the Brooklyn Dodgers against the New York Yankees. It almost didn’t happen. Bragan seemed destined for bullpen catching as the great Roy Campanella, another Hall of Famer, took charge in the starting lineup as expected.

In spite of his remote chances for game action, Bobby persuaded his parents, George and Corinne Bragan, to take the train up to New York from Birmingham in the hope of seeing him play. By Game Six, it was beginning to look as though that wasn’t going to happen, but suddenly, Bobby’s luck changed.

The Dodgers were down 3 games to 2 in the Series and 5 to 4 in the 6th inning of Game Six and facing elimination when, suddenly, they got two runners on base.

Dodger manager Burt Shotton sent a call to the bullpen. He wanted Bragan to come in and hit for pitcher Ralph Branca against Yankee relief ace Joe Page. Bobby’s heart ascended to his throat, but he heeded the word and trotted out of the shadows and into the limelight.

On a 1-2 count, Bragan put the wood on a double down the left field line, tying the game. The Dodgers went on to win the game, 8-6, forcing the decisive Game Seen that would unfortunately lose, but Bragan had known his moment in the sun.

Here’s the kicker. After the game, Bobby couldn’t wait to hear his parents’ reaction to seeing his heroic moment. It wasn’t there. George and Corinne had chosen the moment immediately prior to the announcement of Bobby’s entry into the game to leave their seats for a quick bathroom trip. They missed the whole thing. And that turned out to be Bobby’s only World Series appearance.

Bobby's Pinch Hit Double Saved Game 6 of the '47 world Series.

Bobby Bragan played the piano, sang and wrote songs, and even recorded his own CD album in later years to help boost contributions to his foundation. My favorite Bragan number will always be the one that best typifies his character and attitude about baseball and life. Its title and second line in the verse says everything you need to know about how Bobby Bragan felt about facing life’s challenges: “You can’t hit the ball with the bat on your shoulder. You got step up there and swing.”

We’ll keep swinging down here, Bobby, but we’ll miss seeing you in that third base coaching box, from here to eternity. Keep us in mind even now, old friend. We shall continue to thrive upon precious memory and contact with your indomitable spirit.

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