Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408270031
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
I remember sitting with my late father at Salem Municipal Field on a Sunday afternoon in 1970 watching a Carolina League game.
I had just moved to Roanoke. Thanks to my father, I had developed what has been a lifelong love affair with baseball. My dad, a clothing salesman, was not a sports fan in general. He was a baseball fan, though. He appreciated a single up the middle, an office pool at World Series time, the Giants, both San Francisco and New York and a park like Municipal Field.
My father and I appreciated Salem Municipal Field because we had gone through the torture of losing minor league baseball in Nashville, Tenn., and this ballpark brought back memories.
When Nashville lost its team after the 1963 season, it also lost what was arguably the most unusual baseball field in the minors - Sulphur Dell.
Pitchers called that place ``Sulphur Hell'' because the right-field fence was only 262 feet from home plate. Consider that Jack Harshman hit 47 homers in Sulphur Dell in 1951, and then was changed to a pitcher because his batting average was in the .240s and that wasn't good enough to make the majors.
Harshman won 23 games in 1953 at Nashville and later was a pitcher with Chicago and Baltimore in the American League. The point was that if you hit a pop fly to right at Sulphur Dell, you often hit a homer.
Salem Municipal Field, built in 1927, is scheduled to close as a professional baseball field after tonight's game. A new stadium will be built near the Salem Civic Center before the Bucs open play next spring.
When I moved to Roanoke, I didn't realize I would become the Salem baseball beat writer the next year and cover the team for 18 years. I still attend games at Municipal Field, and about the only thing I missed was crazy Don Hoak managing the 1968 team, Salem's first in the Carolina League, to the playoffs as he browbeat the players by screaming at them and calling post-game practices when they didn't play as well as he wanted them to.
The thing about Municipal Field is that its dimensions create much of the same atmosphere I had at old Sulphur Dell. The distance to the right-field fence at Municipal Field is 40 feet farther - 302 feet. I covered more than my share of slugfests and reported more home runs than Detroit writers are treated to during the Cecil Fielder era.
I just didn't see many of them. The press box at Municipal Field sits in the back of the grandstand, behind several posts that hold up the roof, which is just above eye level.
Once a batted ball goes more than 15-20 feet off the ground, anyone in the press box loses view of it until gravity forces it back down. So how can you tell if a hitter has smashed a dinger, known as a home run, or a can of corn, really a fly out, to use two of baseball's better-known cliches?
Simple: Watch the fielder and forget the ball. Watch enough of them and you can tell how well the ball is hit. If the fielder turns and runs back to the wall, it's either a homer, double off the wall, or every now and then a great catch against the fence.
If the fielder doesn't move or comes in, it's a fly out. If two fielders race toward each other, it's in the gap and will take a great catch to get the hitter out.
This is a short primer on watching baseball from the Municipal Field's press box. As for infield grounders, if they go behind a post, it's likely you'll lose sight of them and the fielder. All of a sudden the ball is hurled toward first for a putout that is much the same as a magic act.
Fun, isn't it?
Humorous incidents haven't been rare at Municipal Field in the last 24 years. Take, for instance, one hot Sunday afternoon in 1973 when Kinston was bashing the Bucs and everyone wanted a quick finish.
A Kinston hitter homered to left down the line and Salem manager Steve Demeter argued, in vain, that it was a foul ball. Tossed out of the game after losing the argument, Demeter found a pitcher named Charlie Janes, who was dressed in street clothes because he was being sent to another club the next day, to hang a painted sign saying, ``foul pole'' on the left-field fence to help the umpire see if balls were fair or foul.
The umpire wasn't amused, and added Janes to list of those expunged. Demeter says Janes was gullible and proved it by believing it was true when his teammates told him he would get paid more money for working an extra-inning game.
``He started looking for it in his next paycheck,'' said Demeter a few days ago in discussing Janes and the foul pole.
Also, from that game, the late announcer Dickie Walthall shouted error on the p.a. after the call, much as an official scorer would do. The umpire turned him in to the league office, and Walthall got a nasty note telling him to cease and desist from further editorial comment.
When the team returned home a week later, the same umpire was assigned to work the game. This newspaper had a cartoon drawn and ran it: a caricature of the left-field foul pole highlighted by neon signs telling two umpires where it was while a smirking Demeter leaned on his bat.
Then there was the 1972 team with John Morlan, a pitcher who eventually made it to the majors. I was talking to him before a Sunday afternoon game one hot July day, and Morlan complained, ``I just can't get up for this game.'' How right he was, for he suffered a 17-1 pounding.
Morlan was also the player who was terrorized by rubber snakes and spiders put in his locker by teammates.
On that same team, big Dave Parker, all 6 feet, 6 inches of him, was a terror in the league. The Bucs had been blown away in a road game in which a rival pitcher not only beat Salem, but he even boasted about it. That aroused the ire of the Pirates.
The night before Salem was to face this same pitcher at Municipal Field, Parker said that the Pirates, as they were known in those days, didn't appreciate this pitcher and would show him a thing or two. Parker, though, said this anonymously, and in those days reporters could use quotes from an unnamed source.
The next afternoon, this pitcher, standing on the porch of the clubhouse where both teams dressed, demanded to know who had made the statement. The Salem players, sitting on the porch, just snickered. Finally I told him, ``You really don't want to know.'' He got the message, for he wasn't about to take on Parker. He also got blown out of the game.
Lynchburg got a feeling for Parker when fisticuffs started between Salem and the Twins, as they were then known. Players milled around at second base ready to fight following a collision when Parker strolled casually by the group. Immediately the two sides parted like the Red Sea in front of Moses.
Then there was the time Salem infielder Steve McFarland took a direct hit from an umpire. McFarland, who was built like Lenny Dykstra and just as obnoxious, had a big chaw of tobacco. He started arguing a ball-strike call with umpire Craig Emerson. Tired of having tobacco splattered in his face, Emerson decked McFarland with one punch.
There might have been a riot except that Calvin Bailey, a big pitcher who was really a teddy bear in personality, came and sat on McFarland's rump so he couldn't get up to hit the umpire back.
You want funny, that came with 1986 manager Mike Bucci.
He announced that he was playing Bucci Ball - aggressive with a lot of bunts and stolen bases. The team was so horrible that Bucci Ball became a bad dream.
Bucci camped out in a tent up by the batting-practice cage that was on top of the hill behind what is now the third-base concession stand.
Bucci also became enraged at an umpire's call one night, but stopped in the middle of the argument. He went over and told his wife to leave with their two small children. Then he went back to continue the argument, letting forth a torrent of expletives at the umpire. At least his wife and children didn't hear the outburst.
Bucci also got the idea to bring Robley Stearnes, Salem's answer to the Christmas grinch because he's always riding hometown players, to the field to coach first base. There was Stearnes, who wasn't popular with the players, down in their midst, shaking their hands and coaching first base. It may be the only time a fan coached the bases in the Carolina League.
Of course, the wrath of Stearnes manifested itself much earlier than in Bucci Ball. In 1975, Jerry ``Gomer'' Thomas, a flaky pitcher, was completely shaken by Stearnes. When the newspaper printed his comment about the hometown fans affecting his pitching, Salem manager John Lipon vowed he wouldn't pitch Thomas anymore at home. That edict lasted only one turn in the rotation.
Thomas, called Gomer because he looked like Gomer Pyle of the then-popular television show, had a habit of standing on the mound and pointing his fingers to hex opposing hitters. Obviously, witchcraft didn't work because he was out of baseball shortly after the 1975 season.
The most colorful general manager was Pat Mooney, who ruled the roost in 1972-73. Mooney wore white shoes whenever it rained. He walked on the infield and if his shoes showed a trace of mud, he deemed the field too wet to play ball.
One Sunday, Mooney worked on the field for hours to get it ready for a game against Burlington. The Bucs started fast, and pitcher Doug Bair even hit a homer. The players, though, were slipping and sliding so that the umpires called the game before it was official. Mooney was enraged and beat on the door to the umpires' dressing quarters long after the game ended.
Mooney wasn't the only general manager to pull a daring stunt.
Until the mid-1980s, the Bucs' office was housed in the first-base ticket booth during the summer. There was enough space only for one general manager. One enterprising young GM, though, decided that watching the game was too boring. So he and his girlfriend usually retreated to the Salem baseball office after the first couple of innings and caught up on their lovemaking.
They would have gotten away with it had a near-riot not broken out on the field one night, and no one could find the GM to call the police.
Lou Valentic, the Bucs' GM in the early 1980s, wasn't a dominant personality. That changed one cold night when the p.a. announcer played the charge in the ninth inning of a game in which Salem was behind by double-digit totals with about 30 fans left in the park. Valentic was on the poor announcer like a cougar seeking out its prey.
Valentic arrived here when Larry Schmittou, a minor-league baseball entrepreneur from Nashville, Tenn., purchased the team in 1980 from the old Salem Athletic Club.
Schmittou will be best-remembered for finally bringing beer into the ballpark even though neighborhood churches were sure that the new owner was Satan himself. Nothing dire that was predicted by the naysayers of beer ever came about, and many people over the years have declared Salem Municipal Field to be the best outdoor beer garden in this part of the state.
Few people will remember first baseman Edgar Castro, a good field, no-hit player. At the completion of one season, Castro's fan club showed their appreciation for his defensive play by riding Castro around the field in a convertible as they gave him his very own day. Never has a more ordinary player been given a day such as the one awarded Castro.
No one wanted to give pitcher Mitch Williams a day, though. That's the same Mitch Williams, a Philadelphia reliever, who blew the 1993 World Series against Toronto and then was forced out of baseball this spring because of his wildness.
Williams was wilder at Salem Municipal Field in 1985 when he pitched for the Salem Redbirds, as the team was then known. On a rainy Sunday when Hall of Famer Willie Mays was on hand to sign autographs, Williams was the Bucs' pitcher.
Mays was supposed to wait until after the game to sign autographs, but rain and Williams' pitching forced a change in plans so the famous ballplayer could make a plane.
After waiting nearly two hours because of rain, Williams gave up eight runs in the first inning on two hits and five walks. It was vintage Williams, who became known as the ``Wild Thing.'' In order to accommodate fans, Mays set up on the porch of the dressing room and started signing autographs before Williams left the game after two-thirds of an inning.
Mays wasn't the only Hall of Fame player to make a Salem Municipal Field appearance. My memory comes up with Hank Aaron, Willie Stargell, Bob Feller several times, Dizzy Dean, Catfish Hunter, Gaylord Perry and Brooks Robinson.
Most Hall of Fame players visited Municipal Field as part of promotions. Some crazy things have gone on at the old ballpark. In the early 1970s, it was tradition to give away an old clunker of a car at the end of the season. Richie Epperly, the longtime scoreboard operator, won it one year, though he didn't remember it until I reminded him of it recently.
Most of those clunkers barely had enough life to be driven home by the eventual winners. You'd have thought Epperly had won a new car the way he acted.
One promotion had fans and players busying themselves in an ice cream-eating contest from a long table in front of the Bucs' dressing room. It was a mess. The ice cream was put in Bucs' batting helmets, with contestants eating as much as they could without a spoon. Salem trainer Rick Shaw, who looked as if he didn't pass up many meals, easily won the contest.
When Bill Brill retired as the longtime executive sports editor of this newspaper, he was given a party at, of all places, Salem Municipal Field. The only thing strange about that was that Brill, who was not a baseball fan, hardly ever set foot in Salem Municipal Field to cover a game.
Ken McManus, who worked as a copy editor for this paper, was a frustrated umpire who had actually gone to school with the idea of becoming an arbiter.
One Sunday afternoon, McManus filled in for two missing umpires whose car betrayed them on the way to Salem Municipal Field. McManus worked the first three innings, calling both balls and strikes and the bases. No one argued with him, but then McManus, a rather hefty individual, didn't appear to be someone you should get into a dispute with over a call.
A couple of final impressions, if you please. The best fan group in the 1980s sat on Rowdy Ridge, and was headed by former radio disc jockey Rob O'Brady. They sat in the right-field bleachers in front of the concession stand and drank more than their share of beer.
The best group now might be the ones who show up to yell, ``It's one-two-three strikes you're out at the old ball game,'' every time a visiting player fans.
Finally, there is Brian Hoffman, the official scorer for Salem since 1975. Hoffman is best-remembered for burning a San Diego Padres' pennant at the final home game of the 1983 season. Salem had lost 190 games in two years, and no one was unhappy to see the Padres go away. If they had only known that Mitch Williams was coming here with the Rangers.
by CNB