My dad died at Hartford Hospital on Tuesday, September 13, 2011. At the time he had been living in Connecticut for almost six years. That period has been described in some detail here. After his death it fell to me to make all of the arrangements for his funeral, disposition of his estate, and other such tasks.
My wife Sue definitely helped, and my dad made it easy for me by making a lot of preparations. He had written a carefully worded will, and he made me its executor. He had also added me as a signatory on his bank accounts and beneficiary of his investments.
The first thing that I did was to call my sister Jamie and notify her that he had died. I asked her to attend the funeral and told her that there was enough money in his accounts to pay for her and her five children to come to the funeral that I planned to schedule in Leawood, KS, where my dad had spent the bulk of his adult life. This was the first time that I had talked with Jamie for several years, as explained here. She thanked me for taking care of him, but she would not consider coming to the funeral. She said that he would have hated her being there, which I am quite certain was not true. None of her five children attended either. I don’t have any evidence that she had anything to do with their decisions, but …
Monsignor McGlinn.
My dad and mom had been active members of Curé of Ars church. I called the pastor, Monsignor Charles McGlinn1, to arrange the funeral mass. Somehow the subject of Boy Scouts came up. I told him that shortly after my family moved to Leawood back in 1962 I had joined Troop 395 and was the troop’s first Eagle Scout. I had spent most of my scouting days in Troop 295 at Queen of the Holy Rosary. He had also been the pastor there, but well after my time.
He remembered my dad and mom, and he scheduled the funeral mass for 10AM on Friday, September 23. I told him that my dad wished to be cremated. He said that that would be fine. In fact, it was the usual practice for deaths in distant locations. This surprised me quite a bit. I had been taught that the resurrection of the bodies would occur on Judgment Day. I supposed that if you believed that, you could imagine some way that the body could be reconstituted from ashes.
I had been composing dad’s obituary in my head while he had been in palliative care at the hospital. Since newspapers charged by the word for obituaries, dad would have appreciated that I kept it short and to the point. I sent this to the Kansas City Star.
James E. Wavada, 87, died on September 13, 2011, in Hartford, CT. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 23, at Curé of Ars Church, 9401 Mission Rd., Leawood. Jim grew up in Rosedale, matriculated at Maur Hill, and served in the Army in WWII. He worked at BMA for almost four decades, starting in the mail room and ending as a vice-president of public relations. He had a great love of words, except for “I,” which he almost never used. His astounding memory could produce an apt literary quote for any occasion. After he retired, he wrote Yup the Organization, a tongue-in-cheek guide to climbing the corporate ladder. The best day of Jim’s life was when he married Dolores Cernech. The worst was when she died more than 50 years later. Jim is survived by his son, Mike, daughter, Jamie, five grandchildren, and innumerable friends and admirers.
Four decades? Where did I get that? Well, as usual, nobody checked my work. I was very proud of this little essay at the time, but given another chance I would at least remove the commas after “son” and “daughter”.
I am sure that there was some sort of reception. I think that my dad’s friends had set up something in the vestibule, and there was a reception line there before mass. I don’t remember going to a funeral home there.
I don’t remember calling anyone else about the funeral. Sue might have called the Raffertys. They probably notified their friends and others who knew dad. Two of my cousins lived in KC. One of them probably saw the obituary and notified the others. Charlie, Vic, and Cathy were certainly there. I am not so sure about Margaret Anne.
Somehow dad’s old army buddy, Jake Jacobson2, heard about it and came down by himself from Milwaukee. I think that he might have called me to say that he was coming.
I was thrilled that he was able to make the trip. I knew that he was five years older than my dad, but he seemed to be quite vigorous. However, he confessed to me that whenever he changed locations, he made sure that he knew where the nearest bathroom was located.
The other surprise was Joan Dobel3, the mother of Pat Dobel, my friend and classmate at Rockhurst High School and my very first debate partner. I had never met her, but evidently she had been A friend of my parents.
Sue and I made arrangements with Leete-Stephens Funeral Home in Enfield. We decided not to hold any gatherings in Enfield. The people at L-S took care of the cremation privately. They gave me an urn containing the ashes. I was shocked to learn that I was required to carry them on the airplane as carry-on luggage.
Sue and I flew to KCI a day or two before the day of the funeral. We certainly rented a car from Avis.
I am pretty sure that we stayed at the Hampton Inn that was near I-435 in Overland Park. We may have made arrangements for Jake to stay there, too.
I have a vague recollection that Sue and I picked up Jake at the airport, but I am not positive. If I did not, I have trouble imagining how he got around. I don’t remember him taking taxis.
The funeral mass itself was well attended. My parents had a lot of friends in the area. One of the ladies that had worked closely with him at BMA was also there. Dad sometimes talked about her when I was still living in Leawood many years earlier, but I cannot remember her name.
I did not take an active roll in the ceremony. I don’t think that anyone spoke about my dad, but I could be wrong. This was a marked contrast with my mom’s funeral as posted here.
I remember that Sue and I rode in one of the funeral home’s cars out to the cemetery. It seemed like a long drive. We were in the same care as Monsignor McGlinn. I felt uncomfortable, but he did nothing to cause me to feel that way.
By far the highlight of the entire trip was supper at RC’s in the Martin City neighborhood of KC MO. My dad and I frequented this restaurant on my visits to KC (documented here). All my cousins and some of their kids joined Sue, me, and Jake. Cathy’s future husband, Patrick Wisor, was also there. My dad’s estate picked up the tab.
I don’t know what about the atmosphere at RC’s4 made this such an enjoyable evening for me. I don’t remember any of the details of the conversation, but I do recall that everyone seemed relaxed and having a good time. It helped to cement some relationships between me and my cousins. We had known each other for decades, but we had spent very little time together.
Disposition of the estate: This was a surprisingly easy job. My dad left his financial records in remarkably good condition. He had previously added my name to his accounts, and his will was straightforward. I was the executor. The will left everything to me, but in private conversations he told me that he also wanted to take care of Jamie’s children.
I made one or two visits to the office of Richard Tatoian, a probate attorney in Enfield. I told him that I was worried that my sister might give me some trouble about the will. He advised me that my dad made his intentions very clear, and he did not think that anyone could contest it. The total estate was worth about $180,000. I sent checks for $9,000 each to Cadie and Kelly Mapes and Gina, Anne, and Joey Lisella. After the first of the year I sent a second check for the same amount to each of them.
After Sue and I had taken the few things that we wanted (electronic equipment and mementos) from dad’s apartment Sue contacted Golden Gavel Auctions in East Windsor to pick up all of the rest of dad’s stuff at Bigelow Commons. They were able to sell some of it, but it barely covered the cost of carting away the rest of it.
Dealing with Bigelow Commons was a pleasure. They waived the right to the rent for the rest of the term of dad’s lease. They also told me how much they enjoyed having my dad as a tenant.
They didn’t even call it the Super Bow!
Many years later I discovered in my dad’s papers two very interesting tickets: one for Super Bowl III (the Joe Namath game) and one for the 1970 Rose Bowl, Bo Schembechler’s first.
1. Monsignor McGlinn was the pastor of Curé of Ars from 1986 until his retirement in 2015. Before that he had been the pastor at Queen of the Holy Rosary, our parish for eight years. He died in 2020 at the age of 78. His very revealing obituary has been posted here.
2. Jake died in 2023 at the age of 103 and a half! His truly fabulous obituary is posted here. It is by far the best that I have ever seen. The obituary contains a story written by his son Paul (introduced here). It mentioned, among many other things, that Jake was in counter-intelligence in Europe in WW II. This surprised me greatly. My dad was in the infantry in the Pacific. I wondered how the two of them met and managed to develop a relationship that lasted for so long. I could not figure out a way to contact Paul to see if he knew the answer.
3. Joan died in 2013. Her obituary has been posted here.
4. RC’s changed hands in 2023. Its history is documented here.
My dad was born on August 25, 1924. His seventieth birthday was therefore in 1994. It was a Thursday. 1994 was a pivotal year for TSI and for my relationship with Sue, as explained here. I was up to my armpits in alligators. By then Jamie had five children. By my calculation Cadie was 16, Kelly was 14, Gina was 6, Anne was 5, and Joey was 3. I could be off by a year for any of them.
Although it was torn down decades earlier, the company that designed this building still featured it on its webpage in 2023.
A decision was made that my parents would come to New England to celebrate my dad’s epic birthday with his grandchildren. Jamie probably negotiated this with our mother. Her conversations with my dad seldom ended pleasantly, and I am pretty sure that neither Sue nor I had any input. The plan was for them to stay at a hotel that was near the Lisella’s house in West Springfield. I think that they stayed at Howard Johnson’s, but they might have chosen the Hampton Inn if it was open yet. I don’t think that they rented a car.
The party: Jamie reserved a large room at the Simsbury 1820 House for the gathering. My recollection is that on the big day Sue and I picked up mom and dad at HoJo’s and met the Lisellas at the restaurant. A total of eleven of us attended—three couples and Jamie’s five children.
The party did not get off to a great start. The chair reserved for the guest of honor, who certainly weighed less than 170 pounds, collapsed beneath him and left him on the floor. Fortunately, he was not seriously injured, and the event proceeded more or less as planned.1 I had prepared an interactive presentation. I think that I took the floor for it after the meal. I hoped to involve Gina and Anne by asking each of them a question that I was pretty sure they could answer. They both let me down. Gina remonstrated me, “Uncle Mike, we are only children.”
I struggled through the rest of my little talk as well as I could. I think that I rescued the evening, however, by leading everyone in a non-traditional rendition of what all of us called the family song, “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” It was my dad’s favorite song of all time. So, we sang it all together, each of us singing the same words but using different melodies, keys, and tempos. My dad, who was completely tone-deaf2, thought that it was great. That was all that I can recall about the evening.
The name was changed to Baystate Noble Hospital.
The basketball game:I am not positive that the following event occurred on this same trip. I did not keep track of when my parents came to New England for visits. They only did so on a few occasions.
Every meal that we consumed at the Lisella’s was a cook-out. Joe fired up the Weber and cooked hamburgers and/or hot dogs. The grill was placed near the garage, which was at the end of the driveway. On the side of the driveway was a basketball goal set at precisely the regulation height of ten feet.
Before and after every meal there was a basketball game of some sort. On the occasion in question some of Joe’s brothers competed. I had played with them a couple of times in the eighties, but by 1994 I was not in nearly good enough condition to compete. Instead I kicked a soccer ball around with the kids.
At that point I had known my dad for seven and a half decades. For a few of those years we had a basketball goal at the end of our driveway. I used it extensively. I have no recollection of him ever taking a basketball shot, much less playing one-on-one with me. On this occasion, however, some demonic spirit overcame his reason, and my dad decided to play.
I did not see how it happened, but my dad fell down and broke his arm. Joe had to drive him to the emergency room at Noble Hospital. He was admitted and stayed for a few days.
I am unfamiliar with the details concerning the next few days. I may have had to take a business trip. By 1994 my mom’s mental condition was not good, and she depended greatly on my dad. She was almost certainly under a great deal of stress.
Other memories: I am pretty sure that it was on this trip that the following exclamation burst forth from Gina, “Uncle Mike, you have the same hair as Grandma!” She was right. Our hair matched in color (both before and after aging), texture, and waviness. I don’t think that she previously had put two and two together to realize that her grandmother was her uncle’s mother.
One time my mom mentioned that the Lisella house did not have many books. I had noticed that myself. Joe’s reading was mostly confined to World War II. I don’t know what Jamie read. She might not have had time.
1. Jamie talked with me later about this incident. I understood her to say that she had refused to pay the bill provided to her by the Simsbury 1820 House. I may be wrong about this. I have remembered quite a few events incorrectly.
2. His favorite musical genre was Gregorian Chant. That was also the only kind of music that met the approval of Pope Pius X, who was also tone-deaf.
Until I was almost forty years old I did not have much of a relationship with my sister Jamie1. I remember being quite disappointed when I learned that the sibling that I knew was coming turned out to be a girl. I was in second grade at the time. The girls whom I knew there were all hopelessly stupid. THEY PLAYED HOP-SCOTCH AND PAT-A-CAKE AT RECESS!! I had no use for them at all.
I was nearly seven and a half years older than Jamie, and that half year was significant. I was a freshman in high school when Jamie was in first grade. I had graduated from college before she started high school. During her high school years I was in the Army and then working halfway across the country. We went to different kindergartens (both public), different grade schools (both parochial), different high schools (hers parochial, mine Jesuit), and different colleges (hers a small Benedictine near home, mine a huge state university over seven hundred miles away.
The Kinks on Shindig in 1965. Jamie was 9; I was 16.
So, the only times that we were together were before and after school and during the summers. I remember watching bits of Captain Kangaroo with Jamie before school and some TV shows in the evenings. Batman and Shindig in the evenings. We sat on the floor of the family room watching the tube while mom worked and dad lay on the couch reading a magazine or newspaper punctuated by an occasional “Mmm hmm”. However, I often withdrew to my bedroom to read or work on a project or to the basement to shoot pool and listen to records.
The time between returning from school and supper time was precious to me. I spent very little of it in the house. I either stayed after school to take part in some activity or came home, set down my books somewhere, and dashed back outside to play with my friends. I felt the same way about the summer. If I wasn’t earning money mowing lawns, I was probably out of the house.
So, I never really developed a close relationship with Jamie. We had no great family crises to create bonds of shared suffering. We also did not do that much together as a family. The whole immediate family went on summer vacations (as described here) together, but my only clear recollection of any interaction with Jamie on these trips was when I became very upset that our parents “could not find” the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. She tried to calm me down, which was nice (but ineffective).
SSG Barry Sadler would not have approved of our dance.
We did have a few moments. Perhaps the best was when we invented a dance to perform during the hit song “The Ballad of the Green Berets”. There were not many games that we could play together. War was no fun; Jamie always won Inspired by Sheepshead, I invented a gambling game called “Sevens and fives” and revealed the rules to her one at a time as they came up. I enjoyed that. Of course, I gave her back the money that she lost. Well, most of it.
I also remember spending an afternoon or two helping to teach Jamie how to drive my brand new Datsun in an empty parking lot. This must have been in 1972 after my own stint of heroically defending New Mexico against peace-crazed Ghandiists. Barry was two ranks higher than I was, but I never went to prison.
It was not anything about Jamie’s personality that made me limit our time together. I just enjoyed being with my friends and being by myself a lot more than being with family.
Maybe I was not a very good big brother. Decades later Jamie told me that she had been bullied (or worse) when she was on the way to kindergarten at a public school. I would have been in the eighth grade. If I had known about this, I would probably have tried to enforce the Law of the Jungle (“If you so much as touch my sister, I will …”). I would have, too. I was at least two years older than anyone at her school, and kids who attended public schools were presumably heathens. Also, I knew some moves. I watched a lot of wrestling in the eighth grade.
I don’t know how I missed this. Maybe I was just oblivious; I often am.
Jamie and I had similar senses of humor, and we were both rather tall and quite thin, but those were almost the only things that we had in common. She was always the cute one. When she was little, she had blonde hair that she evidently got from a relative that I had never met and her mother’s dark eyes. She was also a much better athlete and was tremendously more sociable than I was. I did better in school, and I was almost never in trouble.
This is Jamie on her prom night. I was long gone by then.
From 1966, when Jamie was ten and I had left for college, through 1985 I had minimal contact with Jamie. She made a mysterious visit to our apartment in Plymouth (described here), and Sue and I visited her and her husband, Mark Mapes2, once in Iowa (described here).
Other than that, we might have talked on the telephone a few times, but that was it. Why didn’t I call her? It did not occur to me. I didn’t call anyone. I have always hated talking on the telephone, and in those days long-distance calls were expensive.
In late 1985 Jamie was living in the Chicago area with her two daughters, Cadie3 and Kelly4. How they got there is a long story, and I am ignorant of most of the details. Cadie was, by my calculation, eight years old, and Kelly was a couple of years younger. Jamie was working at O’Hare airport for American Airlines. There she met Joe Lisella Jr.5, a fellow employee. I think that they got married in 1985. Jamie has told me a few stories about the travails of working in baggage claim. She may have had other responsibilities there, too.
In 1985 the newlyweds moved to an apartment in Simsbury, CT. For a time both Joe and Jamie worked for American Airlines at Bradley Field in Windsor Locks, CT. Their family grew rather rapidly. Gina6 was born in 1988, Anne7 in 1989, and Joey8 (Joseph III) in 1991.
During the fourteen years that Jamie lived in New England I worked at least seventy hours per week. Sue and I found time to visit Jamie and Joe a few times in Simsbury. I remember that we ate supper with them at least once at Antonio’s Restaurant near their apartment.
Joe and I played golf together quite a few times, first at a course in Southwick, MA, called Edgewood and then, after they had moved to a house in West Springfield, at East Mountain Country Club in Westfield, MA.
I had a good time, but I still took golf too seriously to have many enjoyable conversations with Joe. Another problem was that we both sliced the ball. He was, however, left-handed. His ball was therefore usually in the rough to the left. Mine was usually pretty far to the right. Talking is, of course, discouraged on the greens and tees.
East Mountain Country Club.
Joe’s brother played with us a few times. I have forgotten his name. Jamie was a very good golfer when she was a teenager, but she never played with Joe and me. It never occurred to ask her why not.
We always played very early in the morning. I sometimes stopped at McDonald’s on the way to the Lisellas’ house and bought Sausage Biscuit with Egg sandwiches for them. Once I evidently messed up about whether we were scheduled to play. They were sleeping in. Someone with bleary eyes came to the door. I apologized when the situation was explained to me, left the McDonald’s bag for them, and drove back home.
At left is a satellite view of the Lisellas’ house on Lancaster Ave. in West Springfield. In the nineties a basketball goal occupied the space where the big white truck in the photo is.
When we visited the Lisellas’ house, there was often a half-court basketball game there. I declined to participate. My skills at basketball were limited to running, jumping, disabling opponents with my sharp joints, and drawing fouls. My jumping days were behind me, running was of no value in a half-court game, and my other abilities were under-appreciated.
The most memorable of these game was the one in which my dad, who at the time was at least pushing seventy, tried to play. He lost his balance, fell down, and broke his arm. He had to be rushed to the emergency room.
The only photo that I could find of Joe Lisella is this one from 1973 on Gina’s sixth birthday.
The menu at the Lisella house was usually hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill. Joe had a Weber “kettle” grill, and he used a lot of charcoal. I never asked him about this, but I have never understood how anyone could control the temperature of one of these grills. I have always strongly preferred the ones that allow either the fire pit or the grill to be raised and lowered.
Joe watched a lot of sports on television. In fact the TV always seemed to be on in their house, and it was always set to a sports broadcast. His favorite teams were the Red Sox, the Green Bay Packers, and Notre Dame. I am not sure which team he rooted for in basketball.
When I was at their house I spent most of my time playing with the kids. Jamie always seemed to be cooking, cleaning, or collapsed from exhaustion. Occasionally she took a break for a cigarette.
I did not talk much with Jamie. On the sidelines at the kids’ soccer games she would sometimes keep me apprised of the their progress. I seldom had much to contribute to these conversations. In those days TSI was definitely the focus of my life. Unless I could think of an amusing story, I did not say much.
I clearly remember doing one thing with Jamie. She had somehow scored some tickets for a WWE wrestling card at the Hartford Civic Center, and she invited me. This must have been in 1990. I think that Gina and Anne were there. I am not sure whether the other girls or Sue attended. The girls were really into it. They cheered and booed at all the right places.
The only match that I remember at all was between André the Giant9 and Jake the Snake Roberts10. Although André was way past his prime, he was still enormous and powerful. He could probably have defeated Jake from his hospital bed. However, every move he made seemed to cause him pain, and his back was bent over at a 45° angle when he lumbered from one place to another.He even had difficulty entering the ring. I found the performance rather sad, but I enjoyed the experience of being with the kids.
I marveled at how different this experience was from the other match that the high-school version of me had seen in person. It is described here. In the match in Hartford there was a lot of flash, but very little in the way of wrestling. Vince McMahon had not yet admitted that his events were scripted, but 90 percent of the people over five in the arena could predict the outcome (barring disqualification) of every match. It was kind of like a circus with trained over-developed humans.
In the fall of (I think) 1986 or 1987 Sue and I drove Cadie and Kelly to the Catskill Game Farm11, a private zoo in New York state. This had always been one of our favorite day trips, and it was more fun with the kids. Fall was the best time to go there. The weather was ideal. The deer were in rut, and the cries of the stags could be heard all over the park.
We spent a fair amount of time in the petting area of the park, which was loaded with immature animals that had been handled by humans since birth. That did not in any way mean that they were tame. I had never noticed this in previous visits, but they formed a herd of six or seven species and walked around the petting area as a group.
An priceless trading card from her soccer days autographed by Kelly.
Kelly had been petting one of the fawns, and she did not notice a baby donkey behind her pitching forward on its front legs and aiming a two-legged kick at her back side. Fortunately, the hooves missed by an inch or two.
I also remember feeding the giraffes. The girls got a figurative kick out of that.
Cadie’s glamor shot.
I attended at least one of Cadie’s softball games. I don’t remember too much about it. She was not a star. She was more of an intellectual than an athlete. More than anything else she has always been very artistic. I seem to recall that she studied art at Hampshire College for one year. I don’t know what happened after that.
For my mom’s seventieth birthday in October of 1995 Cadie flew with me to Kansas City. I gave a little speech to a gathering of my parents’ friends about my relationship with my mom. I am sure that my mom, who was already experiencing some dementia, appreciated that we both came. However, it was obvious that Cadie was uncomfortable throughout the entire trip.
My dad took Cadie with him on his trip to Ireland. They both enjoyed the trip, but my impression was that their personalities did not blend too well. No blood was spilled.
My most vivid memory of Kelly is from the day that she helped plant flowers around a tiny pine tree in our yard on Hamilton Court. The tree, which is now more than thirty feet high, was only a little taller than Kelly at the time.
Kelly was a good soccer player. I remember watching her in at least one game. She was a defender. I don’t know too much about soccer, but the other team never came close to scoring. Her team’s goalie need not have attended.
Kelly had trouble with math in high school. Jamie once asked me if I would be available to help her with it. I said that I would, but I never heard about this again.
Sue and I were invited to attend Kelly’s graduation at the horse show building at the Big E in Agawam. We went, but I don’t remember any details except that I was surprised that the students were mostly wearing casual garments (even shorts) under their graduation gowns. I also recall at the subsequent get-together at the Lisellas’ house. Gina and her classmates humiliated me on the basketball court.
Kelly left West Springfield shortly after finishing high school. I knew that she moved to a western state, but I did not know what she was doing there. I haven’t had any contact with her since then.
This is the oldest photo that I could find of Anne and Gina. If I had waited much longer to ask them to pose with me, I would not have been able to lift them.
I tried to see Gina and Anne as often as I could. One weekend day they stayed with us for a few hours in Enfield. They were delighted to discover that we lived right behind a school that had monkey bars and other athletic equipment.
I usually bought the kids some kind of board game at Christmas. When I was at the Lisellas’ house in West Springfield, I spent most of my time on the floor. In retrospect I wonder if the games were a good idea. Some of them had a lot of pieces.
I bought a Foosball table for them one Christmas. I probably should have asked if it was OK to do so. They seemed to enjoy playing it that day, but I noticed the next time that we went to their house that it was on the front porch and positioned so that it could not possibly be used. If I had been considerate enough to ask ahead of time, Joe or Jamie might have mentioned that there was no possible place to keep it.
This is the West Side girls’ soccer team for 1997. Anne is on the far right in the front row. Gina is second from the right in the back row. In the team photo for 1998 Anne is second from the right in the front row. Gina is in the middle of the back row.
Sue took this excellent photo of Gina, Anne, Joey, and snow.
I watched Gina and Anne play soccer several times. Anne was a fast runner, but Gina made up for lack of speed with determination and grit. No one ever called Anne gritty. In fact, no one ever called her Anne either. It was always Annie, Princess, or Prinnie.
I also watched Gina play basketball once. The opposing team had one player who was much better that everyone else. Gina’s coach assigned her to guard her even though Gina gave up several inches to her. Gina hung tough with her throughout the game. Unfortunately, it was not enough. The West Siders came up short.
I bought three tickets for the Connecticut Opera’s production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at the Bushnell Auditorium in Hartford. I made plans for them to attend with me. I was convinced that they had agreed to go, but somehow the plans got messed up. I ended up sitting between two empty seats for the evening. I should have called to confirm, but …
Anne (on the phone) and Gina.
I have one memory of Gina as a teenager. She was on the computer with three or four chat windows open with her friends. She could move among them very rapidly. I was impressed.
My parents came up to visit the Lisellas occasionally. They stayed at the Howard Johnson’s on Route 5. I remember that the first time that Anne saw me beside my mom, she blurted out, “You two have the same hair!” I don’t think that she realized until I told her that her grandma was my mother.
From the time that Joey was old enough to walk, or maybe even before that, he was consumed with sports. He liked all sports, and he was quite good at them. Some of his peers caught up with him later, but I doubt that there was a more athletic four-year-old in all of New England than Joey Lisella.
Joey and I played one-on-one tackle football in the living and dining room when he was a toddler. As soon as I entered the house, he grabbed onto one of my legs and tried to bring me down. Then he picked up the football and tried to burst past me. He could not have known that that his opponent starred in 1961 as the wingback/defensive back of the Queen of the Holy Rosary Rockets, as documented here.
On August 6, 1995, Jamie brought Joey to a party at Betty Slanetz’s house in Enfield. He carried a Whiffle ball and a plastic bat around with him all afternoon. I volunteered to pitch to him. He was batting right handed. I stood about ten or fifteen feet away and threw the ball underhand to him. Rather than swing, he took his left hand off the bat, caught the pitch one-handed, threw it back, and announced, “Overhand!” My recollection, which may be faulty, is that he hit every pitch that he swung at. I was duly impressed. He was four years and zero days old.
I saw Joey play soccer several times. The first time he was on a mixed team. He was too young to play legally, or at least that was what Jamie told me. He was certainly the shortest participant on either team, but he was positioned as the striker on his team. After he scored his fourth goal in just a few minutes, the umpires (!) overruled the coach’s assignment and made him play defense for the rest of the game. The final score was 4-0.
I don’t remember this game. It is hard to believe that Anne is only two years older than Joey.
The last soccer game that I recall involved Joey’s high school team. Joey was still one of the smallest players, but he was still quite good. He did not dominate this game the way that he dominated as a youngster, but he was a force to be reckoned with.
I had the same impression the only time that I watched him play high school basketball game. His lack of size was a serious detriment in this game, but he was a good ball-handler and shooter, and he played tight, aggressive defense.
During these years Joey (and just about everyone else his age) was obsessed with sneakers. I am not sure how many he pairs he had, just for basketball.
Joey and I shared one great adventure. In the summer of 1998 (I think that it was) I drive him in my Saturn to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Sue and I also made this trip during most summers to attend operas at the Glimmerglass Festival.
The Doubleday Cafe.
Joey and Babe Ruth.
It was a long drive. By the time that we reached our destination it was time for lunch. We stopped at the Doubleday Cafe because I knew from experience that it would be a waste of time to try to find a better place. Cooperstown is not known for its cuisine.
I had never been to the Hall, and I was a little bit disappointed. I think that Joey enjoyed it, however, and I definitely enjoyed the time with him.
On the way home I think that we stopped at Friendly’s near Albany. I have a vague recollection of a misadventure in the process, but I cannot recall the details.
Jamie arranged for a party in August of 1994 for our dad’s 70th birthday at Simsbury 1820 House. The celebration got off to a terrible start. When my dad went to sit down by the table, his chair collapsed beneath him, and he fell onto the floor. He wasn’t badly hurt, but Jamie was infuriated. She later told me that she had refused to pay the bill.
I tried something that was too clever by half. I asked a question of Anne that I thought that she could answer and a slightly more difficult one of Gina that I thought that she could answer. After the second failure, Anne rebuked me, “Uncle Mike, we’re just kids!”
So, I set that aside and instead led everyone in a rendition of my dad’s favorite song, “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”12 I am sure that that buoyed everyone’s spirits.
In 2000 Joe drove Gina, Anne, and Joey to Kansas City for my dad’s seventy-sixth birthday. Sue and I were already there.Here is what I wrote in my notes about the occasion:
We had a good time on my dad’s birthday. I brought a wrestling card game that Sue gave me for my birthday. I played it twice with Gina, Annie, and Joey. They all enjoyed it. When Gina beat Joey in the first game, he got angry, accused her of cheating, made a mad dash at her and started pulling her hair. She just laughed, and Joe broke it up.
We went to an Italian restaurant for supper. It wasn’t very good, but Annie lit up as I have never seen her do. She was animated and talkative.
I continued to drive to Massachusetts to watch the kid’s play on sports teams after Jamie left (described here). Sue and I even went to Joe’s wedding with Jenna. It was a rather strange event, held on a boat, as I recall. Joe’s father was wearing shorts and buying everyone drinks. The highlight for me was when Jenna, Gina, and Anne sang along with “Who Let the Dogs Out?”
When my dad died in 2011 he left $18,000 to each of Jamie’s five kids. I administered the will and sent the checks to them.
In 2012, give or take a year or two, Sue and I drove up to have supper with Gina in a town north of Springfield. We tried to arrange a second get-together a few times, but it never seemed to work out.
1. I think that in 2021 Jamie still resides in Birmingham, AL. I am not sure what she is doing there. Her Facebook page is here. I am embarrassed to say that I could locate only one photo of Jamie in all of our junk.
2. All indications are that Mark Mapes lives in Davenport, IA.
3. Cadie Mapes still seems to live in Massachusetts, but I am not sure where. Her business website is here.
4. Kelly Mapes went off on her own at an early age. If I had to guess, I would say that she probably lives in Tucson in 2021.
5. Joe Lisella still lives in West Springfield. He works for McDonald’s. His LinkedIn page is here.
6. In 2021 Gina Lisella lives in the Westfield, MA, area. Her LinkedIn page is here. I think that she recently bought a new house.
7. Anne Lisella lives in San Antonio, TX. She is a nurse. Her LinkedIn page is here.
8. Joey Lisella lives somewhere in the Boston area. His LinkedIn page is here. I follow him on Twitter. He posts about nothing but sports.
9. André René Roussimoff died in January of 1991.
10. In 2021 Aurelian Smith, Jr., is retired from playing Jake the Snake Roberts, but I bet that he would listen to offers.
11. The Catskill Game Farm closed in 2006. It is now reopened as a historic tourist attraction in which one can camp or stay in a Bed and Breakfast inside the compound of the old zoo. The website is here.
12. My dad was tone-deaf. He was—bar none—the worst singer that I have ever heard. He agreed with Pope Pius X that Gregorian Chant was the best music ever produced by man. He could remember some of the words of songs, but the melody he produced bore no resemblance to the original.
TSI’s fourth major crisis involved my sister Jamie1. In 1985 Jamie married Joseph Lisella Jr. in Chicago, and they moved to Simsbury, CT. Jamie already had two daughters, Cadie (eight years old) and Kelly (a couple of years younger) from her first marriage. The Lisellas had three children: Gina was born in 1988, Anne in 1989, and Joey (Joseph III) in 1991. My relationship with the Lisella family is described here.
This is the only photo I could find of Jamie from the nineties.
Jamie’s LinkedIn page indicates that she worked at TSI from 1993 to 1999. My recollection of those years is spotty2, and TSI’s records from those days are not at hand. So, I have tried to construct a timeline to goad my memory. In 1993 Joey was only two years old. I seriously doubt that Jamie spent many hours per week working for us before September of 1996, when Joey entered the first grade. I honestly do not remember too much about what her role was before that time, and Sue could not remember either.
To tell the truth, this is rather embarrassing. I have never tried to spend time envisioning what other people’s lives were like. Before I started researching this entry it never occurred to me that it was awfully strange for Jamie to be working while she had three children who were that young. I don’t remember her ever talking about baby sitters, but we did not actually communicate much.
In fact, neither Sue nor I could even remember hiring Jamie. There was no interview or anything like that. I seem to remember that she started by coming in to the office to help with the cleaning3.I had little or no interaction with Jamie at work for those first few years.
Doug, Harry, Denise, and a little bit of Sandy.
The three year period of 1996-1999 was the busiest that TSI ever experienced. Denise Bessette, whom I had made a principal and named Vice President of Product Development (as described here), and Harry Burt did the bulk of the programming. Steve Shaw was also working with us for part of that time as a programmer. Sandy Sant’Angelo’s role was to answer the support line, document problems or questions, and direct them to the best person to handle them. She also did a little programming. All of these people are described here.
I spent a great deal of time working on the Y2K issue. I also flew around the country doing demos for prospects and gathering information for specifications from them. I also wrote up the very detailed proposals that we presented to prospects, installed all the new systems, and did almost all the training.
Denise also handled the payroll. I think that we had already started using Paychex during this period.
Doug Pease was in charge of marketing, which, in that period mostly entailed making sure that warm prospects stayed warm, and, once they committed, assuring that all the correct hardware was ordered and installed. He also accompanied me on the sales trips that culminated in demos.
Linda Fieldhouse had been hired to do the books and to help with sales and marketing. I am not sure when she left TSI, but it must have been at that point that Jamie assumed some or all of Linda’s responsibilities. As I mentioned, I am not sure what Jamie had previously been doing. She might have been “helping Sue get organized”. A lot of people auditioned for that difficult role over the years.
In 1999 Jamie was definitely handling accounts payable, billing (including breaking down the long-distance phone charges), posting cash, and closing the books at the end of the month. Most of these had been automated for years, and none was difficult or time-consuming. She also booked the travel arrangements either directly or through our travel agent. We were looking for new office space in 1999, and she spent time on that as well. Her other responsibility was to answer the main phone line, which was used by vendors and prospects as well as the people from the marketing group at Saks Inc.
I often felt like this guy, but I never wore a red tie.
A remarkable thing happened in early 1999. TSI was getting overwhelmed with programming requests. This problem could not be solved by simply hiring more people.4 I had ample experience with trying to address the problem of too much work. For the first six months (at least) each new programmer was counterproductive. More time was spent in training, checking, and correcting. There was no pool of “plug and play” workers who could be inserted into to a project. At least I did not know of one. We could not raid our competitors. We were the only company designing and selling administrative systems for large retail advertising departments.
We took two steps to address the problem.
I had to tell Doug not to try to sell any more systems. He could market hardware and the like, but the programmers could not take on any more tasks for at least the rest of the year. He took the imminently sensible step of resigning to seek another position. Much more about Doug’s career at TSI can be found here.
Despite the risk, we also decided to try to hire another programmer. We approached Josh Hill5 from Saks Inc. He was an intelligent guy. Josh did not know how to program in BASIC, but he did know as much about how our customers used the AdDept system as anyone did. I have always thought that it was easier to teach someone programming than to teach the intricacies of administering retail advertising.
Josh Hill.
We arranged for Josh to fly up to Connecticut one weekend in July. He spent a day or two with Denise, who previously did not know him very well. Denise had him take a programming aptitude test. He did not do very well. Denise took the test herself and scored more than twice as high as Josh did. Denise decided to make him an offer, but he turned it down.
At about this same time Jamie approached me with the suggestion that I move out of my house in Enfield and share an apartment with her in East Windsor. I scoffed at this idea. I wasn’t even considering moving out. Even if I did, my first consideration would be my two beloved cats, Rocky and Woodrow. I would also never again live with a smoker. Evidently Jamie was serious about this, and she was insulted that I had dismissed it out of hand. She told me, “I would be a good roommate.”
When Doug resigned from TSI, I told Jamie that she could have his job if she wanted it. I also informed her that he resigned because I told him not to sell any more software systems for the rest of the year, at least. I am not sure that she absolutely rejected the idea of replacing Doug, but she did not accept it either. I got the impression that this did not fit in with her plans. We proceeded with the status quo ante.
TSI’s space was on the 2nd floor.
By this time Jamie had found a new office for TSI in East Windsor. We all liked it. I had signed the lease, and we were in the process of designing the interior.
Meanwhile, Steve VeZain, Josh’s boss at Saks Inc., had concocted a huge project that he wanted to discuss with us in person. He and Josh flew up to Connecticut to present it. Denise and I met with them and then took them to dinner. The project was a monstrosity. It involved combining the data from all the divisions—without them knowing about it—onto a separate computer in Birmingham so that Steve’s group could do more analysis. We tried to discourage him, but he was adamant that he want us to spec it out and quote it. We agreed to do that much. Steve and Josh must have stayed the night at a hotel and departed at some point the next day.
My view.
Shortly thereafter Jamie came into the office on a Saturday. She accosted me at my desk and let me have it with both barrels for fifteen or twenty minutes. I have been yelled at a few times, but this outburst was unexpected and extremely intense.
I did not interrupt her much, and I listened very carefully. I went into debate mode5. When she had departed, I immediately made a list of all of the points that she had made. I was quite confident that I had produced a comprehensive list of the items, one of which was that I should tell Denise how she felt.
I don’t claim to remember everything twenty-two years later, but here are the most critical things:
The only positive thing that Jamie had to say was that I had correctly handled the situation with Sue (described here).
Although her complaints touched on everyone except Harry, the main focus was on Denise.
Jamie did not like Denise’s attitude, which was all-business whenever she was at the office. I could understand how Jamie might think that Denise considered herself superior.
Jamie did not understand why I had reacted in the way that I did to Denise’s acceptance of a job offer from another company (details here). I must admit that I surprised myself by the intensity of my reaction.
Jamie was especially upset that she had not been invited to the dine with Steve and Josh. To be honest, it had never occurred to me to invite her. The four of us had worked all day on this project. It seemed natural to continue the talk. I was the president of the company, and Denise would be in charge of marshaling the forces to complete the project, if it came to that. If Jamie had taken over Doug’s job, I might have thought of her. As it was, she was an administrative person with a few other responsibilities. Who invites administrative employees to dine with clients?
I sent an email to Denise telling her that we needed to meet about Jamie before office hours on Monday. Denise came in an hour early. She mostly just listened while I told her all the details. I emphasized that if I had to choose between Jamie and her, I did not consider it a close decision. However, my objective in talking to Jamie was to try to keep her from quitting. Denise and I made a list of things that might make Jamie’s job more palatable. The plan was for me to ask her out to lunch on Monday to talk about it. Denise would not be there, but I assured her that I would never double-cross her.
In those days I did not have an office. My desk was in the computer room. The door to the other section of the office was always open. The doors to Denise’s office were glass. It was not possible to have a really private conversation there.
No to all of them.
When Jamie came in for work on Monday, I asked her in private to go to lunch with me to discuss the issues that she had raised. She said, “Lunch? I don’t eat lunch.”
My suggestion was, at least at the time, the way that people in business arranged for a discussion out of the office. I thought that everyone in business knew this. I interpreted her rejection as unwillingness to talk about this with me. Maybe Jamie did not mean that; maybe she had a religious objection to having lunch in a restaurant. If so, should she not have proposed an alternative?
Jamie was also let me know that she was very upset to learn that I had discussed the situation with Denise. When I reminded her that she had told me to tell Denise what she had said, she just gave me the stink eye.
From that moment on the atmosphere in the office was intolerably toxic. Denise avoided dealing with Jamie altogether. A little while later Jamie gave me a letter that said that the circumstances had forced her and Cadie to resign.
That action left us with four programmers, no administrative people, and no marketing people. I could handle the administrative tasks, but I definitely did not want to do them for any longer than necessary. There were many other things that needed my attention. It took us a while to find a good fit for our administrative area, but we eventually did, as is explained here.
I was already prepared for TSI to do no marketing for the next year or so. So, once Eileen took the job, I figured that we were all set for a while.
Within a few weeks two events took me by surprise:
Jamie came over to our house in Enfield and talked to me in the yard. She told me that her husband Joe was “a monster”. She intended to leave him. She was especially furious about something that I did not understand concerning stock in McDonald’s, Joe’s employer at the time. Of course, I asked about the kids. Specifically, I inquired what I could do to help. She said that she wanted her old job back. This shocked me. I told her that that was no longer possible. She did not yell at me; maybe she realized that it was a lost cause.
I learned from Steve VeZain that Jamie had made plans to go to Birmingham, AL, to work for Saks Inc. as the liaison with TSI. He wanted to know if I was OK with that. I told him that we would try to work with anyone.
He doesn’t look Sicilian.
Many things about the situation made no sense to me. To begin with, I knew Joe Lisella pretty well. He was a Sicilian, and I supposed that some cultural baggage was evident there. He was certainly devoted to his family, and he had a consuming interest in sports. In no way did he seem like a monster to me. Jamie may have seen another side, but how could it take fourteen years and three kids to appear?
Furthermore, if he was a monster, how could she leave him alone with five kids, only three of whom were his relatives? She told me that she hoped to send for them “eventually”. I said that I would pay for air fare for them, and I definitely meant it.
One Saturday or Sunday I was, as usual, alone in the office; I don’t recall what I was working on. Suddenly a thought popped into my head and broke my concentration: “This must have all been about Josh!”
That idea seemed to make everything fit. I knew that Jamie had spent a lot of time on the phone with Josh. We billed Saks Inc. for all of our telephone charges to Birmingham. So, this did not raise a red flag at the time.
Josh had come up to Connecticut to interview with Denise for the programming job. It did not work out. I felt certain that Plan A for Jamie was for Josh to move to New England. In her mind Denise had scuttled this plan by making an insufficient offer. Given Josh’s performance on the aptitude test, I was surprised that Denise had made an offer at all.
Jamie probably thought that Denise also prevented her from attending the meal with Steve and Josh. In fact, she had nothing to do with it. I invited the other three people; I never considered inviting Jamie, and I am almost positive that no one objected.
Later, Joe Lisella informed me that he had discovered a trove of conspiratorial emails between Josh and Jamie. He wanted me to read them. I refused; I told him that I had already figured that angle out. He wanted me to testify in the divorce hearing (or whatever it is called). I said that I couldn’t. I did offer to write a letter listing the facts as I knew them. He was satisfied with that.
In 2001 I received a phone call from a guy at Computer Sciences Corporation. Jamie had applied for a job there and given me as a reference. The man on the phone said that the job involved software support. He wanted to know if I thought that she could do it. I began with a disclaimer that she was my sister. He knew that. I then said that I was not really in a position to make a judgment because that was not what Jamie did at TSI. He tried to get more out of me, but that was my final statement. According to her LinkedIn page, she worked at CSC for two years as a “Technical Analyst II”.
After she left Connecticut for Birmingham, I talked on the phone with Jamie at work a few times. I saw her at the Saks Inc. office at least once. She said hello, but not much else. I sent her birthday presents for a couple of years. I called her when their dad died in 2011, and I tried to convince her to come to the funeral. I even said that I would pay the air fare for her and any or all of her kids. She wouldn’t do it because “it would be hypocritical because he hated me so much.”
We haven’t communicated directly since then.
1. I think that in 2021 Jamie still resides in Birmingham, AL. I am not sure what she is doing there. Her Facebook page is here.
2. I have located most of my emails and other documents from 1999 on.
3. One of my emails from 1999 indicates that Jamie was originally hired by Sue to help clean up the office. The motivation for this was to help her pay off money that Sue loaned her. At the time TSI was a partnership, not a corporation. So, Sue and I were responsible for all financial transactions.
4. A pretty good analogy is that you can’t produce a baby in one month by hiring eight additional women.
5. Josh Hill was still in Birmingham in 2021. His LinkedIn page is here.
6. I don’t mean that I argued with her. On the contrary, I did not argue with her at all. I listened to her as carefully as I did to speeches during my eight years of debating and six years of judging debates. I was very good at this.
Kansas City officially became a big-league town in 1955, when the laughingstock of the American League, the Philadelphia A’s, moved to Kansas City. Arnold Johnson, the owner of Yankee Stadium, had been allowed to purchase the club from the long-time owner of the A’s, Connie Mack. If this seems bizarre, remember that major league baseball is not subject to any antitrust laws. Johnson intended to move the franchise west. He chose the town in which he already owned the stadium, Kansas City.
Arnold Johnson.
The people in KC were definitely ready. In the first year the team drew an impressive 1,393,054 fans, more than they ever had in Philadelphia. The team was very bad when it arrived, and over the years it got even worse as Johnson made one deplorable trade after another, mostly with the Yankees. The 1961 world champion Yankees, considered by many to be the most dominant team ever, boasted ten former A’s, including two-time MVP Roger Maris.
The A’s played in Municipal Stadium, the same stadium that had hosted the top Yankee minor-league team, the Blues. My dad had seen Mickey Mantle play there. The parking situation was bad, but no worse than at Fenway. By the time that the team left, the neighborhood was not too good.
This was the very card that I got in trade for my 1954 Mickey Mantle. My dad was aghast.
My dad took me to games every year, or at least nearly every year. When the team arrived, my favorite player was a Puerto Rican named Victor Pellot, who played under the name of Vic Power. He was the A’s first All-Star, unquestionably the best fielder in the league, and a decent hitter as well. I loved the way that he passed the bat from one hand to the other while waiting for the pitch. The A’s ended up trading him to Cleveland to acquire Maris.
When we went to the games, I always bought a program and kept score for both teams. We really got our money’s worth at my very first games, April 23, 1955. The Chicago White Sox edged out the home team 29-6. The gory details are here. At least I got to see Vic Power hit a dinger.
In later years I liked to follow Norm Siebern, Bob Cerv, and Harry “Suitcase” Simpson until they too were traded away.
My dad listened to the A’s games on his transistor radio while he was watering the front lawn on summer evenings. He really despised the team’s announcer Monte Moore, who would never say anything bad about the management. As year after year of frustration mounted, all of Moore’s optimistic talk became almost unbearable for dad. Everybody in KC thought that Arnold Johnson was crooked. If you don’t think so, you should read this list of his transactions with the Yankees.
For the last fifteen games of the disastrous 1964 season Charlie Finley, who had putchased the club after Arnold Johnson died in 1960, hired Betty Caywood to attempt to attract ladies to Moore’s broadcasts. It is definitely wrong to think of her as a dumb blonde. She had a masters degree from Northwestern. However, she had one big problem, which she admitted to her boss, “Charlie, I don’t know the first thing about baseball.”
The A’s stayed in KC for thirteen seasons. They never had a winning record. The worst year was 1964, when they were an appalling 57-105. Their best effort was just two years later, when they finished only twelve games under .500. In their last year in KC, 1967, however, they finished last in the American League. By then Finley was sponsoring all kinds of stupid enticements to try to get people to come to the games—absolutely anything to distract from the team’s abysmal performance.
Worst mascot ever.
Over the course of thirteen seasons the A’s tried nine different managers. I don’t think that their primary roblem was the manager.
The most frustrating thing for the long-suffering fans of Kansas City was that by the time that the A’s departed for Oakland in their Kelly green and Finley gold clown suits, the team had amassed a very impressive stable of young players. How could a team that had Reggie Jackson, Rick Munday, Sal Bando, Vida Blue, Bluemoon Odom, Rollie Fingers, Campy Campaneris, and Catfish Hunter have been so awful?
3&2: When I was growing up in suburban Johnson County, KS, there was no Little League. Is that surprising? Well guess what, we did not have McDonald’s either, and no one cared. Just as the local chain Smaks provided people in the KC area with low-priced hamburgers, 3&2 baseball in Johnson County took the place of Little League. The kids in my neck of the woods were (and still are) more than satisfied with 3&2.
This is PART of the current Johnson County 3&2 complex that includes 27 baseball fields!
The organization, which is now called the 3&2 Baseball Club of Johnson County1, provided an opportunity for young people at all levels to play hardball (with bats made of wood!) in a well-organized and supervised situation. They now even have teams for pre-kindergaten youngsters! My precocious nephew Joey Lisella, who carried a bat around with him on his fourth birthday, would have loved it!
As many games as possible were played at Segner Field, a complex that included a handful of fields complete with lights, grandstands, dugouts, and refreshment stands. I considered this place paradise. I fell in love with it at first site. I could think of nothing that could possibly match the thrill of playing there, and I was right!
Not Sunflower Drugs, but similar.
My baseball career did not get off to a great start. I began at the lowest level, Midget C. I think that this was after fourth grade, which would be 1958, but I may be off by a year. My team was sponsored by Sunflower Drugs, a local store that still had a soda fountain counter large enough to serve our whole team at once. Midget C teams dressed in ball caps, blue jeans, sneakers, and tee shirts. Our shirts were red and white, with our sponsor’s name prominently displayed.
I suspect that I was allowed onto the team because of the influence of Mr. Wood, who was, I think, one of the coaches. I was a good fielder and one of the fastest runners. However, my arm was weak, and my hitting left a lot to be desired.
We had a good team. We won most of our games. Whenever we prevailed we were transported to Sunflower Drugs to get free ice-cold cherry cokes. We often were ahead by substantial amounts, which let the coach put me in to play. We did not win our league. My recollection is that we lost to the winners because they bunted us to death.
I think that we played at Segner once or twice. Most of our games were at fields at nearby schools. We practiced at Tomahawk School.
One time near the end of the season our team’s entire practice was devoted to a fielding contest. Nine guys took the field. A coach hit ground balls and fly balls. You had to leave the field for a time if you made an error. I stayed on the field longer than anyone else. This was probably the highlight of my season.
In the games that I got to play in I did OK in the field, but I was atrocious in the batter’s box. I actually batted .000. I did get on base a few times with walks, and I even scored a run or two. On every other occasion (except two) I struck out. I never even hit a foul ball.
It happens to Major Leaguers, too.
The first exception was the time that I reached first because of catcher’s interference. When I swung at a pitch my bat grazed the catcher’s mitt. I thought that I had accidentally done something illegal and dangerous, but the umpire firmly told me to take first base, which I gladly did. Who says that you can’t steal first?
After the coaches explained the rule to me, I could not help myself from thinking that the catcher’s mitt just a few feet behind me would be a lot easier to hit than most of those pitches. Nevertheless, I did not try to do it again. I was a Boy Scout and an altar boy, remember.
The other exception was my very last at-bat in that red and white tee shirt. I actually hit a weak fly ball over the first baseman’s head. Unfortunately he had time to take a couple of steps back. He then reached up and caught it. Nevertheless, I was thrilled that I finally had a chance to sprint down the first base line after making contact.
I tried out for Sunflower Drugs the next year, but I did not make the team. I thought that my ignominious baseball career was over, but my parents told me that other teams needed players. I ended up playing with some guys from QHRS on another Midget C team, Bauman’s Red Goose Shoes. You might think that our tee shirts would be at least partially red, but they were actually green and yellow.
By this time I had a season of experience under my belt and a pair of glasses in front of my very myopic eyes. I was just an average player on an average team, but at least I was not a laughingstock at the plate. I got my share of hits, but nothing exciting. I played every position except pitcher and catcher. My favorite positions were first base and second base because neither required a strong arm.
If you are wondering if our sponsor provided treats for us at the shoe store, the answer is no. No cherry Cokes, no free shoes, nothing. In baseball parlance, a goose egg.
In my third and last year I played for the Prairie Village Optimists Club. This was a Midget B team, which meant that we had real baseball uniforms with bloused pants, long socks, and cleats. We would also be playing more of our games at Segner Field.
I started almost every game even though I was not in the official starting lineup. My family did not take on a vacation that summer, but many of the other players did. I played seven positions again, mostly replacing whoever was on vacation at that time.
Our team had was peculiar in one regard. We had two starting pitchers. One of them was probably the best in our league. He was actually too old to play in Midget B, but because he had polio when he was younger, he was granted an extra year of eligibility. Whenever he pitched, we were at least in the game. The problem was that he was totally undependable. The manager, Mr. O’Neil, never knew if he would show up or not.
Our other pitcher was Mr. O’Neil’s son. He could throw strikes, but his velocity was not great, and he had no “stuff”. It was only one step up from batting practice.
With only a game or two remaining we faced the only undefeated team, Bill Cook’s Standard. Our shortstop was on vacation, and I replaced him. I could field grounders well enough, but if I had to move in either direction, the throw to finrst was difficult for me. To avoid putting my rag arm on display, we dispensed with fielding grounders between innings. Instead we just lobbed the ball around around the infield.
Our good pitcher took the mound, and he had a great day. With a couple of innings to play, neither side had scored. I had hardly been tested at shortstop, and I was the lead-off hitter when we took our cuts. I don’t remember to which field I hit the ball, but I got all the way to third base. I never hit a home run in 3&2; this was my best hit ever. I was so psyched.
The guy batting behind me then struck out. The batter after him popped up to an infielder. If either of them had even hit a ground ball, I was primed to race toward home.
Now, however, there were two outs, and I was still stuck on third. I decided to follow the advice of Egbert Sousé and take a chance while I was young. I broke for home on the first pitch. I was hoping for a passed ball or wild pitch, but I was prepared for a hot box. The catcher caught the pitch cleanly. He made a move toward me and then—a moment too soon—he threw the ball past me to the third baseman. I had not yet committed to going back to third. I put on a burst toward the plate, got past the catcher and scored before he could grab the throw back from the third baseman and tag me. We were up 1-0. Incidentally, the next batter made an out. My gamble was a good one, better than Og Oggilby’s.
The other team also scored in their half of the inning. We got two runs in the next inning to take the lead back 3-1. Our pitcher got tired in the last inning. I don’t remember the details, but they somehow had the bases loaded with two out. The batter hit a pop fly into short left field. I raced back as fast as I could. I thrust out my left hand and I nabbed the ball on the far end of my glove’s webbing. The ball looked like a scoop of vanilla ice cream on a cone.
Just then my parents were arriving at the field to take me home. They missed seeing my catch, but they arrived just in time to see my teammates literally carrying me off the field on their shoulders. I have had a few great moments in my life. I am not sure that any topped this one.
1. Johnson County abuts KC KS on the north and KC MO on the east. It now boasts a population of over 600,000—20 percent more than KC MO and five times the size of Hartford.
