Baseball buffs respond

There’s nothing like baseball to get readers’ juices flowing. In response to my column about the many years that Boyes Springs was the site of spring training for the San Francisco Seals and then the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League, I heard from a bevy of Sonoma Valley baseball buffs.
First a reader reminded me that in my list of future Hall of Famers that could have been seen in action in local spring training, I had omitted Earl Averill, who played centerfield for the San Francisco Seals 1927-28, before being sold to the Cleveland Indians. On opening day in 1929 in his first major league at bat he hit a homerun. Standing under 5 feet 10 inches, he had a lifetime major league average of .318. The same fan raised the question as to whether Hall of Famer George “High Pockets” Kelly, long-time first baseman, primarily for the New York Giants, might have appeared here. It is possible Kelly played in spring training against the Seals, since in his final professional season in 1933, he played in 22 games for the Oakland Oaks.
Even more importantly I missed Lefty Gomez who pitched three years for the San Francisco Seals, before becoming the ace of the Yankees through the ‘30s, including six world series wins, and is in the Hall of Fame.
Next I heard from a relative of Jack MacDonald, who followed Ernie Smith for a decade as the sportscaster reporting the play-by-play of the Seals. MacDonald was an entertaining announcer who dubbed himself “The Old Walnut Farmer.” The “farm” consisted of a single tree in his San Mateo backyard. His colorful language included his signature call of a homerun as going “out Aunt Maggie’s window,” whoever Aunt Maggie was.
The grandson of star infielder “Babe” Pinelli, who capped his career as an umpire by calling the balls and strikes in Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series, reminded me that this was the fifth game of the World Series and not the sixth as I had reported. To understand the tension in the final inning, the Yankees went into the ninth leading only 2 to 0 over the defending world champion Dodgers.
There had never been a no-hitter in the World Series, let alone a perfect game with no batter ever reaching first base. The strain was on Pinelli just as much as Larsen (who had been blasted in only two innings in the second game) and catcher Yogi Berra. In the ninth a fly out and ground out brought up pinch hitter Dale Mitchell. A ball and two strikes. The 64,519 spectators in Yankee Stadium held their collective breath. Larsen, who used a no-windup delivery, glanced at Berra’s sign and threw a fast ball on the outside corner. Pinelli did not hesitate. Up went his right arm for strike three and Berra ran into Larsen’s arms at the mound. Babe umpired on the bases for the last two games and retired to Sonoma Valley where he was a popular resident until his death in 1984. Yeah, yeah, I know, fifth game. Brooklyn won the sixth, 1-0, and New York wrapped it up in the seventh.
Pinelli was also an ex-Seal who was in spring training here before going to the Majors.
Then from Ed Walsh I received a picture of his brother, 10-year-old Bill Walsh (not the football coach), taken in 1948 at the Oaks’ Training Camp sign during the time the Oaks were conducting spring training in Boyes Springs, next door to the old Boyes Hot Springs bath house which burned in 1969.
Finally I heard from local James Rebollini who sent me a copy of “My Heroes,” a remarkable little book which Rebollini researched, wrote and published in 2004 by Carneros Press, P. O. Box 2051, Sonoma, CA 95476. A copy can be ordered at $20 plus $2.50 shipping and $1.69 tax for a total of $24.19 payable to Carneros Press. Questions: 707.935.0326.
“My Heroes” is 210 pages of detailed records of ball players in the Pacific Coast League during the years 1930s through 1950s, with particular emphasis on the San Francisco Seals and Oakland Oaks. Many of the ball players also appeared in the major leagues, while others never reached the “Bigs” or just had a cup of coffee. Digging out the information from a variety of sources was a work of love of the game by Rebollini. His family owned a tavern near Seals Stadium and Jim was behind the bar absorbing the stories and lore of the old PCL. For those of us who grew up as schoolboys in the waning days of the league before the Giants, Dodgers and Athletics came west, it was an exercise in nostalgia to read through its pages and reminisce with Jim about some of the players who were my heroes also.
There was the Seals’ Roy Nicely, considered by many one of the most remarkable fielding shortstops of all time, but could not hit. I once saw Nicely field a hot shot back of second and throw it backhand blindly to the second baseman for the force out. The greatest catch I witnessed was a Willie Mays style-over the shoulder grab by Vince DiMaggio, playing for the Oaks after a decade in the majors, off the Seals’ Don White, who went to the Philadelphia Phillies for a couple of seasons. Then there was Al Lien, the Seals’ left-handed pitcher for a dozen years. A friend who was a weekend usherette at Seals Stadium snagged for me Lien’s old cap when he got a new one. I wore it in softball intramurals at Stanford and as centerfielder for The Tennessee Valley Outlaws in a Marin County softball league. I batted .571, and did not take steroids. I found the dusty cap in a box in the garage last week.
Suggestion: Why not get together for lunch all the old players, pro and amateur, their relatives and those addicted to nostalgia. If you like that idea give me a call at The Sun at 707.933.0101.