Unforgiving — Part Two

A few articles ago, I cited the following question, originally posed by a prominent journalist: “Have you forgiven your mother yet?” It referred to people whose mothers have thrown out their baseball cards. People like me.

Mom a few years before she got rid of my baseball cards. You can see why I forgave her.

During my early teens, I amassed hundreds of cards, all of which were stuffed into shoeboxes which I kept in my bedroom closet. When I was 17, I left home for college.

When I returned home for Christmas, the cards were gone. They’d been tossed! To say I was upset doesn’t begin to describe it. Mom mumbled something about the cards “being in the way” when she was cleaning and how she didn’t think I wanted them anymore.

I was at a loss. All those cards, all my heroes, gone just like that. And then, one day, half a century later, some of them resurfaced. My brother Steve informed me that they’d been discovered behind an air vent in the wall of my bedroom by a workman cleaning dust and lint from one of the ducts.

How they got there was the result of a game a friend and I used to play flipping cards against the wall. The one whose card came closest got to keep the cards. Some, however, slipped into the vent and out of sight.

The vent in my bedroom (Steve Kladstrup photo)

But now, miracle of miracles, they were back. There were only 6 but it felt like a family reunion.

There was Cot Deal whom I watched pitch for the Rochester Red Wings in 1952. Rochester was my hometown and I was 9 years old at the time. I always thought that Cot had great poise and I would often try to copy his motion when I began playing in Little League. The St. Louis Cardinals liked what they saw, too and called him up for a brief stint in 1953.

Chet Nichols, who pitched for the Boston Braves and then for Milwaukee when the team moved, was also one of the cards I recovered.

According to the bio on the back, he was known as “Chet the Giant Killer” since his favorite victims were the Giants whom he beat 3 times in 1955.

And then there was Herb Score. I will never forget the night of May 7, 1957 when the Cleveland pitcher became a victim in one of baseball’s most frightening incidents: a line drive off the bat of Yankee shortstop Gil McDougald that struck him square in the eye.

As he lay there on the mound with blood pouring from his eye, nose and mouth, I thought of 1955 when Score, hailed as a sure Hall of Famer, was named Rookie of the Year after compiling a 16–10 record and recording 245 strikeouts, the latter being a record for a rookie that would hold for 29 years.

Herb Score after being hit (NYTimes photo)

“He would have been one of the greatest, if not the greatest left handed pitcher who ever lived,” said Bob Feller who did make the Hall of Fame. “His curve was as good as Sandy Koufax’s and he had a better fast ball.” Score, however, was never the same after the accident and would win only 17 games over the next 5 seasons before retiring.

I never saw Reno Bertoia play but his name was one that always stuck in my mind because I thought it sounded neat: RENO! He was Italian, lived in Canada, and was a shortstop, playing mostly with Detroit before joining the Washington Senators.

His baseball card noted that “Reno has a fine arm and can fire bullets across the diamond.”

I did see Jimmie Piersall play — and fight, especially the brawl he had with Billy Martin and few other folks.

Piersall charges and is restrained

But Piersall, who played with 5 clubs over 17 seasons, is best known for his battles with bipolar disorder, which was turned into a movie called “Fear Strikes Out.”

Bob Grim, who pitched for the Yankees before being traded to Kansas City, was one of my favorite players.

I remember listening to him on the car radio when my family and I were crossing the country. In 1954, he sported a 20–6 record that earned him Rookie of the Year honors.

What struck me most when those 6 cards were found and I saw them again for the first time in more than 50 years was how much they brought back a whole era. For a moment, I felt younger. More alive. But along with the thrill came an incredible sadness, for each and every one of these ballplayers had passed away.

Cot Deal died in 2013 at the age of 80.

Chet Nichols, shown here with his son, was 64 when he died.

Herb Score was 75. In May 1997 on the 40th anniversary of his injury, Score was asked to reflect on that moment. He chose not to dwell on hard luck. “I’ll be married 40 years in July,” he said. “That’s the only anniversary I think about.”

Reno Bertoia was 76, a year older than Score when he passed away in Canada in 2011.

Bob Grim was 66. The former Yankee pitcher died of a heart attack in 1996 after throwing snowballs with neighborhood kids.

Jimmy Piersall’s death was the most recent, taking place earlier this year at age 87. In his 1985 memoir, “The Truth Hurts,” Piersall, who was once institutionalized for mental illness, observed that “Probably the best thing that ever happened to me was going nuts. It brought people out to the park to watch me.”

Almost Home

Playing Baseball in France

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Don and Petie Kladstrup

Written by

American writers living in France, working on forthcoming book, “Almost Home: Playing Baseball in France.” Authors, “Wine & War,” and “Champagne.”

Almost Home

Playing Baseball in France

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