Andy Pafko, a small-town boy from up in Dunn County –
Boyceville, to be specific - went to his eternal reward earlier this week – but
in my imagination, Andy will always be alive, it will always be the summer of
1957, he will always wear uniform number 48 for the Milwaukee Braves, and he
will always be one of my idols. Andy was
92 years old, one of the last links to an era of baseball that’s long gone and
vastly different from today’s game. He
played with Jackie Robinson, for heaven’s sake! Andy Pafko is as alive in my
memories today as he was when I saw him play at County Stadium decades ago, at
the end of his career.
When I heard of Andy’s death, the floodgates of memory
opened wide. I love baseball, and have
ever since I can remember.
The young slugger with the unusual stance pictured above is
me – back in 1957, all of 8 years old – ready to launch an imaginary pitch from
my grandpa (the cameraman) over Roebeck’s hedge - the Roebecks lived next door
to my grandparents in Oshkosh - and run the bases to the cheers of the
imaginary crowd. Years later, legendary baseball coach Russ Tiedemann would
take care of that stance when he coached me at Hortonville High, and would
teach me to become a “singles machine”.
I can still hear his words echoing across the years – “stop tryin’ to
kill the ball, big fella – shoulders square, level swing, just meet the
ball”. I was always big for my age, and
thought every at-bat called for a home run.
When I’d learned the fundamentals, Coach Tiedemann taught me how to
swing for power. And he taught me another baseball fundamental which is in
short supply today: how to bunt.
Years later, Tiedemann would go on to coach at UW-Oshkosh
and establish a dynasty there, and send a whole bunch of his young ballplayers
– Jim Gantner and Gary Varsho are probably the most famous – off to the
pros. I would go on to become a
broadcaster and do play-by-play of baseball games, and play a lot of bar league
ball. And win a bunch of trophies for power-hitting. I was never a fast runner, so I compensated
by whacking the crap out of the ball and hoofing it as best I could. One year, I lead my bar league in
doubles. For anybody else, those doubles
would probably have been triples or inside-the-park homers.
Baseball was my passion growing up, shared with my dad and
my grandpa. I was a Braves fan from birth. Here’s a shot of me with my sister
Lynn – I’m 7 and she’s 3 – and if you strain, you can see that under that stylish sweater is
an official Milwaukee Braves t-shirt. I was glued to the radio whenever Earl
Gillespie came on to announce the Braves games over WTMJ radio. In 1959 I saved
my lawn-mowing money and bought a Raytheon 8-transistor radio so I could listen
to the games no matter what I was doing. I looked it up – the Raytheon 8TR-1 radio –
one of the earliest models – cost $80 in ’59 – and that would translate to
about $700 today. That’s a lot of lawns at roughly a buck apiece – and a lot of
birthday money, because mom and dad and grandma and grandpa and all my aunts
and uncles knew I was saving up for a transistor radio.
I knew the ’57 Braves lineup as well as I knew the names of
my friends and family members: Pafko was in right field, with Hank Aaron in
center and Wes Covington in left. Frank Torre played first base and so did Joe
Adcock; Red Schoendienst was on second; Eddie Matthews played third, and Johnny
Logan was the shortstop. The catcher was
Del Crandall and the pitchers were guys like Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette, Bob
Buhl, Juan Pizarro, Dave Jolly, Joey Jay, and Ernie Johnson. Topps Baseball
Cards were the coin of our realm, and we jealously guarded our favorites, and
traded them amongst ourselves to get the ones we coveted. I can still taste the slab of gum that came
packaged with the cards.
The guys I hung out with knew the Braves’ batting averages
and ERA’s; we pored over the sports section of the Appleton Post-Crescent,
studying the tiny print for all those fascinating statistics and box scores. We imagined what it would be like to be at a
game at County Stadium in Milwaukee. We
imagined it to be huge, the stands reaching to the sky, the scoreboard in center
field had to be at least as big as a house! We had an idea of what it looked like from
the pictures in the sports section, but to go there – well, for an 8 year old
kid in Hortonville whose dad worked all day and quite a few nights “establishing
his business” as mom said, going to see a Braves game was, well, just not
something that was going to happen.
But then it did.
As pennant fever turned into an actual World Series berth for
the Braves in ’57 (and it was SO hard to have to miss those Braves afternoon
games when we had to go back to school in September), news came that my dad’s
younger brother – Uncle Jack – actually had TICKETS to World Series game #4, at
County Stadium! FOUR glorious tickets! Third base line, halfway up the lower
grandstand! And who was going? Grandpa, my dad, Uncle Jack, AND ME!!!!! My very
first trip to see a pro ball game was going to be a WORLD SERIES GAME!
Uncle Jack was a spy during the cold war (it was called OSS –
Office of Strategic Services back then, before it became known as the Central
Intelligence Agency); he came back home, finished his college degree, and then
took his first job as a route salesman for the Liggett and Meyers Tobacco
Company, selling L+M Cigarettes to stores and bars. And because he was such a good salesman, he
won four World Series tickets in some L+M contest, and we were GOING TO THE
WORLD SERIES on Sunday, October 10th, 1957 in Uncle Jack’s brand new
“company car” – a big, black Buick Roadmaster.
I think we found out about the tickets on Wednesday and I
don’t think I slept until very late Sunday night after we got back from the
game. We left from Oshkosh early that
morning so we could watch batting practice and drink in all the atmosphere of
the game. I was so excited I don’t even
remember what it was like seeing the actual diamond at County Stadium for the
first time…I was sort of in a trance. We
sat down during the Yankees’ batting practice.
Oh my God, there was Mickey Mantle. Yogi Berra was playing catch with
Tony Kubek, warming up his arm. These were the guys I knew so well from
baseball cards, the box scores in the paper, and hearing their names on the
radio….and I was now seeing them in person!
Then my guys came out to warm up. Spahnnie was pitching the game. As it turned
out, it was a ten-inning complete game win for Spahn. Relief pitcher? You kiddin’ me? Spahnnie went
ten full innings, giving up a run to the Yankees in the first, and then 3 more
in the 9th, including a homer from Yankees first baseman Elston
Howard with Berra and Gil McDougald on base.
My Braves had scored 4 runs in the 4th on the strength of
homers from Hank Aaron and Joe Torre. So
the Yankees had tied it up in the 9th and the Braves couldn’t get a
run across in the bottom half of the inning. The Braves went down 1-2-3 in the
bottom of the 9th, Adcock pinch-hitting for Frank Torre and
grounding out; Pafko grounding out, and then Del Crandall flied out to deep
center. Spahnnie held the Yanks in the
tenth. I’ll never forget how much my grandpa enjoyed seeing Spahnnie “shake off”
signs from Del Crandall in the tenth – grandpa kept saying “Spahnnie knows what
to do here”. Grandpa also had me watch
Augie Donatelli, the home plate ump, saying “he’s just as famous as some of
those ball-players. (I had to look it up
to see if I remembered right, and sure enough, I did….and I also noted that
Jocko Conlon was umping third base for that game.)
Kubek scored on a Hank Bauer triple in the top of the tenth
and Mantle flew out to end the half-inning with the Yankees up 5-4. In the
Braves’ tenth, Schoendienst bunted Felix Mantilla to second, and then Johnny
Logan smashed a double to left field to score Mantilla – tied at 5! Eddie
Mathews came up with Logan on second base and clobbered a fly ball to right
field – OVER THE FENCE – and the Braves won, 7-5! What a game – my first ever,
never to be forgotten!
It really was a different era, and, someday when my kids
stumble onto my blog and read it – probably long after I’ve played my final
inning – the names will probably mean nothing to them. They grew up watching games in hi-def and to
them, going to Miller Park is something that happens regularly.
But to me – the ’57 Braves are just as vivid in my mind’s
eye as the ’13 Brewers. Those ancient Topps
baseball cards are as clear to me as hi-def TV, and Pafko, Spahnnie, Aaron,
Schoendienst, Covington, Crandall, and all those guys are still very much alive
in my head.
Rest in peace, Andy. Too bad your wish - for the Cubs to win a World Series before you died - didn't come true.
Maybe next year.
