The Local Kid

I believe it was the summer of …it was August ’57…that’s right…Durocher was driving us crazy. The Dodgers were right down Hoover at The Coliseum, so of course I’d take the bus right down, or go over to Vermont or Western. I still remember the Red Car. I’m a young guy, footloose and fancy-free…Maybe take in El Cholo on the way down and have a Margarita or two. Maybe the third one, and sure, a real senorita would take me home and jump my bones. To hell with the pennant race that night.

Judging by my deplorable shape at the time, I was due for some righteous “you-know-what”. And I didn’t resent a one-night charity one bit. We all use what’s readily available. Our flaws become our assets because that’s all that’s left...after a time we blur the line.

Dodgers didn’t get here ‘til 58. That’s your flaw.

You sure about that? What’s my flaw?

You’re stupid and in “woise” shape you ever been in.

Scully was calling the game. It was damn hot for an evening game. Creeping up into the nineties, Vinnie would say. It was that hot. Creeepin’ up inta the 90’s – Downtown! Hotter, still, in the Valleys.

“People are passing out in Pasadena even.!”

“Can you imagine?”

Hell in twenty minutes I could have a beer in my hand and sittin’ next to a babe…a starlet…right behind the screen in left.

So you went.

Every chance I got. I’d climb to the top of the stairs…take a beer…all the way up… and look out over the rim. Used to make my knees buckle, looking down, so I looked North toward the city and the hills. Downtown the sky hung brown. A Lid on the city…smog just stewing in the heat… makes for beautiful sunsets and Wally Moon was coming to bat.

Musta been somethin’ in those days.

You bet.

How’d they do.

They won.

How’d you do?…don’t tell me…struck out three times.”

“Two. I mean it was so hot women were taking off their clothes!”

“You living a fantasy existence or what?”

“Hey, I saw tops comin’ off. Brassieres out in the open.”

In your dreams. What was the score?…on the field.

Now I don’t know. I’m confused about the date…I thought it was 57…you say 58. So maybe I got games confused. I remember a Moon shot, and Hodges had two doubles….I think it was 7-5, Dodgers.

Against who?

“I knew you would ask that…don't recall.

Let it go.

I was just reminiscin’….Meeger! Vince Meeger pitched. Big strapping kid, throw a ball through that brick wall…

From out in the Valley.

No kiddin’.

“Van Nuys,” says the guy in the booth behind them. We’d forgotten about him. Seemed to know his business.
"..signed a local kid. A 'comer'. I played ball with him.”

“No kiddin.”

“High school?”

“High school, Jr high, little league…growin’ up…”

“Nice guy? Seems like…”

“He was mean. Always was. Schoolyard bully. You wanted him to fail…”

“Maybe that was his flaw.”

“Meaness.”
"Murder on hitters..."

“Oh I hear he grew remorseful as he got older. Married that nice girl.”

“Heard that too…”

“His Dad used to be a plumber. Tough old bastard. Made the kid work-his-way. They put my Dad’s water heater in....still got it...”

”Makes him quite the celebrity, your Dad.”

“Ha! Don’t think he don’t know it! He’d always brag about it when he gets drunk. Which was daily. Vince Meeger's old man put in my hot water heater when we first moved to the Valley!”

You ever go to the Old Coliseum games.”

Yeah, the old man would take me to a few. Then they moved up on the hill. The old man did not agree with the Elysian Park debacle. A political payoff, he’d say. Politicians in O’Malley’s back pocket. Ex- Marine tossed out on his ass. Working people. Poor people. After that we stopped going.”

“He disowned the Dodgers.”

“I'd say 'distanced himself'...Except for radio & Vinnie. And the boys on the field…We’d sit in the backyard. That was the house over on Third, before we moved to the Valley.’

“Everybody moved to the Valley at some point.”

“Pretty much.”

V