The Sports Stories contributed by Paul Johnson
When my son, Jake, was barely old enough to walk and talk, he used to like to take my hand and lead me to the stairs of our home on Cathance Lake, Cooper, Maine. We would sit there on the bottom step, which was very uncomfortable for me, and chit chat about whatever I could think of to talk about. He loved that. After a couple of minutes, I’d get real excited and say “Hey! Would you like to hear another baseball story?”
He would immediately jump up and run away to find a book for me to read instead.
Guess
what, Jake? I am putting as many sports stories as I can remember on paper.
And they are all for you.
When I was eight, that was the starting age for Little Leaguers. I remember being scared half to death to bat against those really big kids (Bobby Whitman would call them “older kids”) Jim Talbot, and the twins whose names I have forgotten. I have always been thankful that Ed Hennessey and David Haley were both on my team.
(I do not remember fearing Phil Stuart as a Little Leaguer, but when we all reached High School age, he was the best of the lot. When I played town team ball, the only pitcher I remember facing who was intimidating because of his size was Bill Corbett. And he couldn’t even throw a decent fastball or curveball. You hear me, Bill? The only reason you ever got to pitch was because your Dad was the coach! The fact that we almost never beat you had absolutely nothing to do with it!)
My
Little League team had a substitute coach one evening. This may have been the
only game dear old Jimmy Haley missed. The substitute didn’t know where we
all played, so he switched us around a lot. It seems like it was every inning
we played a different position, but that seems ridiculous, looking back at it
over four decades later. But I do
know that I played right field one inning, and first base the next. It was in
the second of those innings that our second baseman, Jimmy Look, fielded an
easy ground ball and stopped halfway in his throw to first. For a few seconds
I wondered why he had done such a silly thing. And why was he standing there
staring at me? Then I realized that I was the first baseman now, not the right
fielder anymore, and that he didn’t throw to first, because I hadn’t
covered the bag. In my mind, I was still way out in right field.
As
far as I can remember, I only ever committed one balk in my pitching career
that stretched from Little League to Town Team. It was Little League, and my
Dad, the League President, was umpiring behind the plate to call this balk. I
stopped in mid-pitch, because, as I was striding toward the plate, my catcher
fell over sideways.
These days it doesn’t seem like it’s much of a big deal for anybody to get called or sent to the Principal’s office. I was in fifth grade, I think, when Steven Sinclair and I were called in. I know I was in complete shock, trying to figure out what Steve and I had done.
It turned out that our Principal was also our Little League coach, and he wanted our advice on whom to pick for new players on our team for the coming year. I suggested a twelve-year-old named Bobby Sheffield. Bobby was new in town and hadn’t joined a team, yet. He was the only kid in our neighborhood besides me who could consistently hit balls over the outfield fence, when we played in Vera Luce’s back yard. What a jewel he would be. Out of misguided loyalty, Steve suggested his next door neighbor, a little nine year old named Johnny Hayward.
Bobby
didn’t play much for us. Striking out every single at bat because of extreme
nervousness might have had something to do with that. Johnny became an All
Star.
When I was twelve, Jim Fletcher put my name into a hat at the Lion’s Club, where it was drawn as the first alternate to go to Camp Jordan in Ellsworth for two weeks, at no expense to my parents. One of the other guys was too old, so Joe Robbins and I both went. The ages at the camp ranged from 12 to 17, so we were two of the youngest and smallest guys there.
When my cabin played another in a softball game, our counselors pitched. Theirs was a better fast pitch pitcher; sneakier, too. As soon as we stepped into the batter’s box, he pitched. We had almost no time to set up.
They were beating us about six to nothing, when I came to bat for probably my last time in the game, having gotten no hits yet. We had a runner on first and no outs. Rally time. I grabbed the biggest bat I could find and headed for the plate. The older, more experienced, “smarter” guys on my team started yelling at me to get a smaller bat; one that I could swing.
I ignored them, but somebody grabbed me and pulled me away from the plate, calling to our counselor to make me change bats. I ran over to the counselor and whispered quickly that I wanted to use the bigger bat to lay down a bunt. He immediately yelled at my teammates something like “Somebody’s probably going to learn a lesson here. You guys WILL let him make his own choice.” There weren’t many non-grumblers on the bench as I again headed for the plate.
I laid down a real bad bunt on the first pitch; right back to the pitcher. He picked it up and fired to second for the easy force out. You can say what you want, but I will never believe that this sneaky pitch counselor threw that ball into center field on purpose.
My
team went crazy as the lead runner advanced to third. He eventually scored our
only run, and I won a little respect with an attitude that said “I will find
a way to use what I do best; run.”
With one out to go to end a Pony League Game that we led by one run, I had pitched myself into a bases loaded jam. I had two strikes on Penn Worcestor, and I would have had more confidence that I could get him out, if I had been a little less tired. Penn lined a clean walk-off double to right center to end the game with a victory for his team.
(Years later Penn would ask me a fascinating question: “If Paul Johnson as a hitter could face Paul Johnson the pitcher over a period of time, which player would get better?”. It would also be years later that Penn and I would get involved in a macho game where we would throw the ball to each other as hard as we could. Then we would take a step closer and throw as hard as we could again. This was baseball’s version of “chicken.” At some point I decided I’d had enough, because I didn’t want to get hurt, but I couldn’t let him win this game, so I decided to catch one of his fastballs at close range with my bare hand. I changed my mind about this at the last split second, and my right thumbnail soon had a right angle in it.)
It
was several years after he hit that line drive that beat me in that Pony
League game that Penn asked me if I still remembered that game and his hit.
After I told him I did, he told me he had been so afraid of striking out on
that last pitch that he just closed his eyes and swung as hard as he could.
That made me feel a lot better about losing.
I
have always been a good base stealer, but I have only ever stolen home twice
in my life. They were both in one Pony League game. Billy Jordan used to pitch
with a big slow wind-up, and my third base coach, Freddie Hayward, urged me to
go for it. Safe both times. We lost 3-2.
I
wasn’t an all-but-face-in-the-dirt hustler like Pete Rose, but I know I have
made hustling back-up plays that I have seen very few others make. From the
pitcher’s, catcher’s and second baseman’s positions I have caught, on
the fly, throws from infielders that went over the first baseman’s head.
From second base in Little League, I once backed up a fly ball to Mike Day,
who was our right fielder, but that may not
have been a very smart play. If Mike had dropped it, I might have been needed
at second base.
The
base hit that I am proudest of in my career was only a single. Calais High
School’s Sammy Saunders came in to relieve in about the sixth inning, and he
was making Machias look bad. I
don’t think the first five batters he faced even managed a fair ball off
him. He was working extremely quickly, not giving our batters a chance to get
set. I kept stepping out of the batter’s box, calling time out, looking for
Coach Kendrick Mitchell’s signals, wiping something out of my eye, anything
I could think of to mess up his rhythm. After I lined that single to left, I
don’t think we managed another base runner.
The most embarrassing “home run” I ever hit was off Pat Mawhinney of Jonesboro’s High School team. He was playing, so I am assuming he was pitching. I lined what should have been a single (maybe a double) over the shortstop’s head. The outfielders chose the wrong angle, because the ball scooted between them and rolled to the fence in left, which is quite a ways out in Machias.
The problem is that I kind of missed third base on the way to the plate. I had never hit a home run in any kind of organized league, though, so I was not about to go back and tag and settle for a triple.
As I was getting all these high fives and back slaps from my teammates, I heard Coach Mitchell calling me from the third base coach’s box. I looked at him, so he would know I heard him, but I stayed where I was, safely on the bench. He called to me again, and I shook my head. He waved for me to come to where he was, so I finally dutifully jogged over.
Pat Mawhinney didn’t eventually graduate at the top of my own Class of ’68 just because somebody had to be number one. He figured out what was going on and charged at me with the ball in his glove. I sprinted for the bag, but my slide could not avoid his tag. Fortunately for me, however, the umpire had not seen me miss third, and awarded me the home run.
I
successfully managed not to hit any more four-baggers in high school, sparing
myself any further embarrassment.
Jonesboro’s high school kids had transferred to Machias by my Senior year. Pat Mawhinney, who was pitching for us in Jonesport, had been my best friend in Little League. We had played together then only on the All Star Team, and it felt really good to be playing with him as a teammate again.
With two outs in the last inning, Pat had a no-hitter on the line. The batter hit a medium speed ground ball just out of reach for Pat, but I charged from shortstop, realizing that I had time to throw this guy out. The ball hit one of those Jonesport rocks and caromed toward my face. I knocked it down, but could not find it in time to throw out the runner, who had to be given credit for a heart-breaking bad hop single. Pat finished with a hard luck one-hitter.
Weeks later, I was pitching when this same Jonesport team came to Machias. Late in the game, I also had a no-hitter going, when I messed up and walked somebody. With a right handed batter at the plate, our second baseman covered the bag when the runner took off from first. The batter sent a very routine ground ball toward the vacated spot. The second baseman desperately tried to reverse his direction, but it was no use. The ball rolled into right field, and I, too, ended up with a hard luck one-hitter against Jonesport.
The
name of our second baseman? Pat Mawhinney. Who says “there’s no irony in
baseball?” Certainly not Tom Hanks.
However,
in the what-goes-around-comes-around-category of the cheap hits department,
Pat Mawhinney lived to turn his luck around.
He was playing for the Machias Bruins at Campobello. With the bad hops,
bloops into no man’s land, and seeing eye ground balls, Pat went five for
five without hitting the ball hard even once.
When
I was in high school, basketball was the only sport that had state
championships after the regular season. My Freshman year we played baseball in
the fall and spring. Machias was 19 and 1 that year, losing our final game by
one run to Mike Merritt’s Jonesport team on the Washington Academy field.
Ed Hennessey homered in our last at bat, but it wasn’t enough. My
Junior year, year 2 for Washington County soccer, Francis Reynolds led us to
an undefeated season. Our only tie game was at Lubec. I think it was Francis
who had a netted penalty goal taken away in that tie game, because he hadn’t
waited for the whistle. I sure would have loved to have been able to go to
tournaments with those two teams.
My Dad used to catch, mostly. I can barely remember him in a baseball uniform. As much as I still love him, he wasn’t my favorite player to watch on his teams. It’s been so long, that there is a good chance I have these memories wrong, but I think I liked Dick Gardner, because he played second base, and Bucky Hatt, because he stole bases, two of my favorite things to do on a baseball field.
Dad
told me that he once caught a fastball directly on his wedding ring, and the
ring was bent back into his finger. Dad was in quite a bit of pain until it
(the ring) was cut off. I had a ring that was too small for my finger once. It
went on, but it wouldn’t slide off. I caught enough throws on this ring,
that they bloodied my finger, and I, too, had to cut the ring off.
My
four brothers (Larry, Tommy, Daryl, and Douglas) were also into sports. Mom
mostly just watched. But Mom (Elsie) collected more bowling trophies than the
rest of us together collected in all our sports combined. I can’t imagine
any of us winning trophies in our late sixties like she did.
I don’t expect to win anything that I will be more proud of than the Clarence Thompson Memorial Trophy I won in Little League in 1962. It is six inches tall, and I still have it. Whenever the Machias papers published the list of winners, Mom would forever after that year proudly show me the article and the new name on the list. It was always neat to be the first.
I think the year was 2000, when Darrell Roberts and Peter Buck and a whole bunch of other people worked very hard and donated a lot of their time to basically rebuild the Machias Little League Field. They had a dedication for this field, and I was extremely honored (as the first winner of the Thompson trophy) to be asked to throw out the first pitch. Bobby Whitman, who has known me since before I ever heard of Little League, introduced me over the loudspeaker as the “oldest” winner.
Tommy
Buck, Peter’s son, now has his name on the Thompson list.
You don’t see many outfielders get involved in rundowns in the infield. (We sometimes called them “pickles”.) Be sure to let me know if you ever see one do that.
As a Phys Ed major at UMO, I was “studying” hard in center field, when it happened. At least one of the opponents’ base runners messed up. You can guess that it didn’t take me long to get involved in this rundown. I am pretty sure we were working on more than one runner, because things were pretty hectic for a while.
After the play was over, I started jogging with the right fielder back to our positions. The right fielder pointed to the left fielder and said “Can you believe this? All three of us outfielders worked our way into an infield rundown!”
I could believe it, because I was part of it, and I was extremely impressed with our hustle. I will give you a dollar, if you can honestly tell me that you have seen this happen, any time, anywhere, at any level of baseball or softball.
By the way, my outfield teammates’ names were Brenda and Dottie.
Never in my baseball career was I a very hard-throwing pitcher. But I did pitch at every level, because I had good enough control to throw strikes on the corners fairly consistently.
I suppose a lot of this control is God-given, but there are two ways that I believe I developed what I was born with. One is that, as kids, my brothers and friends and I would spend some of our free time looking for empty beer bottles along the banks of the Machias River. We would toss the bottles into the river and then throw rocks at them. Each bottle made quite a small moving target, and you would have to throw quickly and accurately in order to be the one to break it. (I now am embarrassed at the amount of glass we boys sank to the bottom of that river.)
The second way was by pretending to pitch. I would pace off the approximate distance between home plate and the pitcher’s mound. Then I would bounce a rubber ball off the wall…of our house…just outside my truly sainted Mother’s kitchen.
She never never never ever ever ever complained. I do not remember her even asking me to stop, unless it was for supper time. As an adult, I am amazed at her ability to put up with that racket.
Of course, at the time, I didn’t realize there was much noise at all…because I was on the outside of our home.
As a foster Dad to a nine year old who loved baseball, I taught him to practice throwing the way I had. But at the garage, not the house. The thump thump thump drove me crazy, and I wasn’t even in the same building he was throwing against.
I was actually grateful when he broke a window, so I would have an excuse to ask him not to do that anymore. I felt quite hypocritical, too, but it was all worth the laugh I got from my Mom when told her this whole story.
Now this development of my incredible pitching accuracy leads me to tell of the only two pitches that I can remember ever throwing just as hard as I possibly could. I was very frustrated that the Cardinals (my younger brothers’ (Larry and Tommy at the time. Daryl and Douglas years later.) team) was royally beating up my Hawks. The two pitches were back-to-back; the first to Joe Mawhinney, the second to his cousin, Craig Calor. I reared back and turned loose every ounce of frustration force I could muster…and hit both batters in the ankle.
And
now that I have set this up so well, you will never believe that I did not hit
them on purpose, will you?
But,
speaking of how good my control was, and how much pride I take in that,
here’s another tidbit along those lines. In Town Team batting practice, I
once threw Dick Norton ten pitches, and he lined every one of them for what
would have been a base hit in a game. That’s extremely difficult to match,
and impossible to beat. I’ll
even be generous and give Dick a little credit for this, but there are a lot
of retired opposing teams out there now who would probably vouch for the fact
that I was a great pitcher for batting practice.
In
my town team playing days, I probably weighed about 150 pounds. In one game in
Princeton, their team had runners weighing close to 250 pounds apiece on
second and third with one out. I was playing third that day. The batter hit a
ground ball to me, about six feet inside the baseline. The runner on second
may have thought there were bases loaded, because he took off for third, but
the runner on third stayed on the bag. I decided to tag the runner coming
toward me. He decided he’d rather run over this scrawny third baseman than
try to get out of a rundown. I was scared half to death, and it wasn’t over
whether I would still be holding onto the ball after this collision. I reached
out and tagged the forearms he was shoving at me and spun backward out of his
way. The momentum he had built up
smashed him into the other runner, who stumbled off the base. I tagged that
runner out, too, to end the inning.
This next story happened in the next inning or two of that same game, but I am going to back up a little bit to set this one up. I was playing for the Machias Bruins in this game. Having been born and raised in Machias; having played Little League, Pony League, High School, and College baseball there, this is no surprise. However, this is all happening in my first year out of college. This is the year I got a job at Peter Dana Point and boarded at the Bellmard Motel in …………Princeton. This is the year I went to the Princeton coach before the season started and asked to play for …his team.
Heh heh heh…He turned me down Even though I’d been playing town team ball for six years at this point, apparently he didn’t know me as well as I knew him. (Or maybe he did know me, and that’s why he turned me down.)
Very late in this ballgame that we led 1 to 0, they loaded the bases with no outs, and up came their coach. He batted left-handed. For most left-handers, the third baseman moves a step or two toward the shortstop hole. But I had seen this guy hit often enough to know he slaps a lot of ground balls almost right over third base, so I moved a step closer to the bag, the opposite direction as for most left handed batters.
True to form, he ripped one barely fair. I fielded it and stepped on the bag as I moved into foul territory to get an angle on the throw to the plate that would avoid hitting the runner sprinting for home. By stepping on the bag and getting a force out on the runner coming from second, I have removed the force out at the plate. If our catcher, Rick Frye, hasn’t noticed this, and steps on the plate rather than tagging the runner, the score will be tied, instead of us getting a lead-saving double play in a crucial situation.
The fact that Rick was alert enough to drop to his knees and block the runner for the tag out in such a key situation, and the fact that it was against the team with the coach who turned me down, and the fact that both that coach and I were key players in this, with both our strengths coming to the front, makes this the favorite play of my entire baseball career. Ten years after this game, I talked to Rick about this play, and he had no memory of it, whatsoever. I guess Rick hadn’t asked that coach if he could play for Princeton that year
Once in a while you will see a base runner dive into first base, trying to beat the throw from an infielder. It causes a little controversy amongst the announcers as to whether it is really faster than running through the bag at a sprint. I say, good luck proving it either way. It probably depends on the individual runner anyway.
However, there is a time when sliding into first does make sense. And you almost never see anybody do it. When the first baseman leaves the bag to catch a bad throw, either by coming down the line towards home plate, or by jumping into the air, the only way he can get the runner out, usually, is by tagging him after catching the ball. When the runner sees the first baseman leave the bag, the runner should hit the dirt to avoid the tag.
I get so aggravated, when I watch guys getting paid many millions of dollars per year to play baseball run right into a tag they could easily have avoided.
Well, the truth is, I guess, that the runners are concentrating on getting to the bag as fast as they can, which makes it very hard to notice when the first baseman leaves the bag. Right?
So it shouldn’t be surprising that there are very few players smart enough to notice and make the best reaction, right?
So, if I tell you, honestly, that I was smart enough to do this, then I might be just a tad on the high side of arrogant, right?
Well, okay, call me what you will. I did see the first baseman move three steps toward home plate. And I was smarter than all those millionaires, because I did have the correct reaction, and I did slide into first base.
Of
course the throw that was too far off the bag for the first baseman to stretch
for was also just off the ground, and I dropped right into a tag that might
have missed if I had stayed on my feet, but that’s beside the point, really,
isn’t it?
I loved the cat-and-mouse game of base running; the strategy of it all, the daring, the nerve to gamble. Machias was playing Cutler one year, when we had two on and one out late in a game that we were probably losing by two runs. It’s not the usual play here to sacrifice with one out, but if we don’t, it will probably take two base hits to score that runner from first base. The way Steve Cates could pitch, that’s not very likely.
I was on second base, Steve Smith, who was our player-coach, was on first, Rick Frye at the plate. Steve calls an unusual team huddle for a quick discussion about what we should do here.
It just so happened that I had scouted a Cutler game the week before, when almost this exact same situation had occurred. I knew that when the opponents sacrificed, Cutler’s third baseman charged the plate hard. It was up to the shortstop, Kevin Look, to cover third base. I thought I had a real good chance at catching them by surprise and beating Kevin to the bag, so I suggested a double steal off a fake bunt attempt.
But I wasn’t ready to gamble on the first pitch. We had Rick fake the bunt attempt and take the first pitch, so I could get a good look at their infielder’s reaction, and better judge if I could beat Kevin to the bag. If so, I would give everybody a hand signal that the double steal was on. Otherwise, Rick would swing away. One key problem with this scenario is that we are asking Rick to possibly take two strikes here, before he gets to swing the bat. Rick, himself, thinks it’s worth the gamble, however, so we put the play on.
(Being O and 2 against Steve Cates was never a fun position for me. Sooner or later he’d get me swinging at a curve ball in the dirt, or a screwball outside.)
The first pitch was outside the strike zone, which had the added bonus of not allowing Cutler to sniff out what we were really up to. Kevin is still a good friend of mine, and one of the best pound-for-pound athletes that I have ever known, and I am not sure he has retired from boxing yet, so I won’t go so far as to say that I knew we were going to catch them sleeping on this next pitch.
I gave the hand signal.
The next pitch was ball two. Rick drew his bat back, as Cutler’s catcher, Mike Look, came up to gun a throw to third base, where I was arriving standing up. Mike wisely held onto the ball.
We
had pulled it off. With runners on second and third and one down, we now had
two shots at a single to tie the game. And the count was 2 and 0 in Rick’s
favor, so we were feeling really good about our chances here. Then Cates bore
down, striking out Frye and the next batter to end the inning with both
runners stranded, and we didn’t come close to scoring again.
I think every coach I ever had who wanted me to bunt, wanted me to lay one down as close as I could to the baselines, and to try to bunt it softly enough that it would roll about half way to a base. When I was on the Town Team, I decided on my own that I much preferred to bunt towards the second baseman or shortstop. If I could push it hard enough to get it by the pitcher, nobody else had a chance to throw me out.
We were playing a bad Pembroke team one day on a strange field. The infield was flat to about ten feet behind the baseline between first and second. There it dropped off sharply into the outfield. When you looked at the right fielder from the batter’s box, all you could see was his head sticking up over the bank.
With
the runner from first stealing, I bunted hard toward the second baseman, who
had gone to cover the bag. Before he could get back to his normal position,
the ball reached the drop off and rolled downhill towards the right fielder.
By the time the defense had picked up the ball I had hustled out a legitimate
double on a bunt.
Red
MacLauchlan wasn’t the most popular guy around town, but he was the fastest
runner I have ever seen, period. Red went nine for ten in this Pembroke game,
grounding out hard … to the first baseman…who fielded the ball ten feet
from first…and was run over by Red as they reached the bag at the same time.
The dumbest play I ever made, was against Cutler in a play-off game. If I had not messed up all of six key thought processes, I wouldn’t have ended up in the hospital with a broken collar bone.
I was on first base late in the game, and we were attempting to sacrifice me to second. The pitcher fielded the bunt and threw to second, forcing me out. Intending to break up a double play, I was preparing to dive head first into the shortstop’s legs. (This would be the first and last time I would go after Jeff Davis’s legs.) I tripped over second base and literally flipped through the air, landing on the back of my left shoulder. As I jogged back to the bench, I wound my arm in a circle, trying to loosen the tightness I felt. I knew immediately I had broken the collar bone.
I had to spend the night in the hospital, the most boring 24 hours of my life. I was told to expect to wear the back brace for four weeks and a sling for two more weeks after that. The doctor took both the brace and sling off me in three weeks. I healed quickly, but still missed that year’s blueberry season.
My six mental errors on the play?
I was fifteen the year I first played for the Town Team. Clayton Soccabasin, of Pleasant Point, struck me out four times in one game that year. It took him all of twelve pitches. I have never in my life been so over matched by anyone in any sport. I didn’t come close to even hitting a foul ball.
Fast-forward for fifteen years. Machias is now using Jonesboro’s diamond for its home field. Pleasant Point lost its first game to Machias in a best of three series for the season championship. A double-header, if necessary, will provide a showdown setting.
Clayton is pitching the first game. He’s still very good, but nowhere near the pitcher he used to be. I had hit .400 that year and had an on base percentage of .600, my best year ever at the plate. My personal rematch with Mr. Soccabasin would be different this time.
Actually, I don’t remember any of my first at bats that day. But I was pretty psyched coming to the plate in the bottom of the last inning, with the winning run on third and one out in a tie game. After getting deep into the count, I managed to lift a soft fly ball to medium shallow left field. Deep enough for the runner to try to score. Shallow enough to throw him out with an accurate throw.
The play at the plate became the back end of a double play that really fired up the Indians. They beat us in extra innings and then won the second game to complete the sweep for the championship.
Oh…by the way...Clayton Soccabasin pitched the whole second game, too.
The
irony of this day for me is that all season long, I’d bugged my brother,
Daryl, to come play in a few regular season games for us, so he could qualify
for the playoffs. I felt we could use his speed, if we didn’t use him for
anything else. In his prime, he was faster than I was in mine. He could have
scored on that fly ball I hit, and I would have driven in the run that won the
championship, instead of hitting into a double play.
I have told you that Steve Cates would too often strike me out with a curve ball in the dirt. One day the pitch broke so much the catcher didn’t have a prayer of catching it, but I had still swung at it. The ball got by the catcher and I managed to beat the throw to first.
I don’t know how many times Steve picked me off first before I figured his move out. And I am not sure how consistently he stuck with what I figured out. When Steve looked at me, he threw to the plate. When he looked at the plate, he would try to pick me off. I fell for it enough times. And this would be another one.
Howard McFadden was playing first, and he’s even older than I am. Steve caught me going the wrong way, and I had no chance at getting back to first, so I put myself in a rundown. The infielders made a couple of throws back and forth, and I was frantically changing directions. On one of the throws back to Howard, I pretended to stumble as I moved away from him. This planted the idea in his head that he could catch me for the tag without having to take a chance on another throw. I listened to his footsteps to tell how far away from me he was, as I increased my speed to stay barely ahead of him. When I sensed that he was running full speed and reaching for the tag, I dropped flat and drove my spikes into the ground. Howard crashed into me real hard.
My body had gotten so racked that I mistakenly assumed part of that had to have been a tag for the out. I hopped to my feet and stood there in the middle of the baseline knocking dirt off my uniform. Then I noticed the umpire running back toward first base, where Cates was holding his glove up for a throw. I was not out! I sprinted for the bag and dived head first as far to the home plate side as I could and still reach. I heard the ball slam into the glove just before my hand slid under it to safety. This time I climb triumphantly to my feet. I had been struck out, picked off and pickled, but I was still safe on first.
The umpire didn’t see it that way though. He called me out.
Penn Worcestor told me after the game that it was the greatest base running play he had ever seen. But what does Penn know? He closes his eyes before he swings.
I hope you don’t get the impression here that I disagree with umpires and referees calls all the time when they go against me. This is not true. I just remember the injustices better, I guess.
Dale Look was probably the best umpire around when I played. He had a tendency to call low pitches strikes. But he was consistent both ways with it, and I was a low-ball hitter anyway.
I was playing JV Basketball when Donnie Mallar was refereeing a home game. It must not have been a very close game, one way or the other, because while the game was going on Donnie said to me “Johnson. If you move over there you’ll have a better chance of getting an open pass.” Referee Mallar only had to tell me once. I am a quick learner.
I
didn’t hit as many as six homeruns in my town team career, which covered
about twelve seasons. I was probably in my mid-twenties, when we played
Jonesboro on their Pony League sized field. They weren’t very good (no
Mawhinneys were playing.) and we were beating them badly, so our whole team
started hitting from the opposite side of the plate. It was in one of these
at-bats that I struck my first Town Team homerun, left-handed. That happened
to be my last at-bat of the game. In my first at-bat in the second game of
this double header, I homered from my natural side of the plate. So about ten
years after my first Town Team at-bat, I hit my first two homeruns, in
consecutive at-bats, from opposite sides of the plate.
I believe that it’s an advantage to be a left-handed batter, because you are closer to first to start with, and your follow through naturally pushes you toward first, so you can beat out more ground balls for hits. When my son, Jake, was, at most, two years old, I started him hitting a plastic ball off a Tee. I decided to make him a left-handed hitter, even though he held the bat naturally with the right hand on top and put the bat over his right shoulder. Daddy knows best.
We were standing about six feet in front of the garage and hitting onto the lawn. I placed the ball on the Tee and moved Jake to the left side and set his hands and the bat so he would hit left-handed. I proudly stepped back knowing he would be better off with what I was teaching him. I told him to clobber it. He immediately shifted his hands back to where they were, put the bat on his right shoulder and slammed the ball off the garage. Okay, Jake, you are a right-handed hitter.
My hitting style was to stand as close to the plate as legally possible and lean over it. This could be a problem when I got a high inside fastball, because I had to hang in there in case it broke over the plate. Sometimes, by the time I figured out it wasn’t a curve ball, it was too late to get out of the way.
I had fortunate instincts in these cases, because I never once got hit in the head. I would instinctively arch my back, trying to get out of the way. At the same time, without thinking about it, I would raise my left arm to cover my face, and fall on my backward into the dirt. This would all happen in a split second, and to on-lookers, it often appeared that I had gotten severely beaned.
Doug
Woods, who would later become my first left-handed Best Man, was the only
person who ever went after a pitcher whom he thought had intentionally thrown
at me. I had to get in front of this normally mild-mannered friend myself to
convince him I was all right.
In another game, Doug Woods was pitching for us. Doug had the best change-of-speeds style of any Town Team pitcher I ever saw. (Mike Flanagan won the Cy Young Award pitching for the Baltimore Orioles. I think it was an American Legion game where Flanagan was beaten 1-0 by Woods.)
Cutler had runners on second and third with one out, and Steve Cates was at the plate. Steve was a good hitter. We needed to keep that runner from scoring, so the infielders moved closer to the plate. My throwing arm was in major pain, so I moved in so close that Doug walked down off the mound to see what I wanted to talk to him about.
Cates lined a pitch to Woods’s left that was impossible for him to catch. This bullet had “base hit” written all over it, so both runners took off. But this sore-armed second baseman was so far out of position that he was easily able to snag this rising liner before it could clear the infield. An easy toss to third ended the inning that should have turned the tide Cutler’s way.
We once beat Cutler about 39 to 3, in a play off game that cost us the Championship that year. Cutler had won the first game in a best of three series, so we needed to win the last two.
Peter Stevens, our best pitcher, was scheduled to go for us in the first game of the double header. Cutler was saving their ace, Steve Cates, for the finale, if we managed to win the first game.
Jeff Davis started the first game for them. He didn’t have his best stuff at all. Watching more closely, I formed the conclusion that Jeff was pitching with a pretty sore arm. Could this be? Cutler was starting a sore armed pitcher in a play off game? For sure, something wasn’t right here.
I was batting eighth in this line-up, and came to bat in the first inning with bases loaded. The centerfielder moved in a couple of steps, because, as he told me after the game, the left fielder had informed him that I could spray line drives anywhere, but I would not hit one deep. I guess I was pretty pumped up for this game at the Washington Academy field, because when the centerfielder got back to the fence, he still couldn’t reach this line drive.
Machias already had a seven to nothing lead, and our best pitcher had not thrown a pitch yet. As soon as my feet touched home plate, I headed for our coach. I told him in no uncertain terms that Davis had nothing today. Cutler was giving us the opener and putting all their marbles on the second game. We needed to stop Stevens from warming up, and save him for game two.
Coach didn’t like that idea. Neither did the former UMO pitcher we had on our team. I think this guy had pitched in the College World Series, so he must know what he is talking about. The platitude they kept giving me was “In order to win two games, we have to win the first one.” I could not convince them that this one was already in the bag.
Pete held Cutler to nothing in the first and we scored five more in the second. Now I was really in their faces, trying to get their clichéd logic out of their heads and Peter out of this game. They still didn’t dare “risk” it. Stevens pitched another inning, and had thrown enough pitches to worry about stiffening up in the second game, if he was pulled from this one now.
We
lost the second game about 8-5, but not to a better team, just a smarter one.
Because they had always been our archrivals, it was very hard for me to put a Cutler Cardinal uniform on. But, for some reason, Machias didn’t field a team that year, and anything was better than not playing baseball at all.
Mike Look was managing the team. Late in one scoreless game, the slow-footed runner who batted in front of me, reached first base with nobody out. The logical move here is for me to sacrifice the runner to second, but a slow runner might be thrown out at second, and we would have wasted a precious out.
Mike called time out to get my input. I never really thought of myself as cocky, but I certainly was here. I told Mike I’d try to sacrifice the runner over, but if they got him out, I would steal second to get into scoring position myself. Mike liked the strategy.
I
squared to bunt, but the first pitch was in the dirt; a wild pitch that got
the runner to second without sacrificing an out. I then singled to center to
drive in the run, and stole second on the next pitch. We won that game 1-0.
I once did a Phys Ed Internship at UMM. It was like being a student teacher; 14 to 16 hour days for no pay. (Actually, Fran Plunkett Robinson did see that I got a small stipend after it was over. I guess she thought I had earned it, even though she didn’t give me better than a B+ in any of the three subjects I was earning college credits for.)
I lived in the dorm for that semester. One of the floors challenged mine to a softball game. Nobody discussed whether this would be a fast pitch or a slow pitch game, but I assumed anything this informal (even though we did have a volunteer umpire) would be slow pitch. They batted first. Nobody else wanted to pitch, so I did. Slow pitch it was, and they scored a bunch of runs.
Slow pitch it was, until we batted, that is. Their pitcher apparently hadn’t noticed how slowly I had lobbed them in there. A bunch of our players immediately complained that this wasn’t a fast pitch game, but he didn’t change.
Our at bat was over rather quickly.
I still continued to slow-pitch. They scored a bunch more runs. Frustratingly for us, they continued fast pitching.
Well, I am supposed to be the teacher here; the one who sets the example. I don’t feel as though I should start fast-pitching now. That would be a poor sportsmanship reaction to poor sportsmanship. (Besides, we didn’t stand a chance of winning now anyway.)
We played seven innings and he fast-pitched the entire game, even after they were 30 runs ahead. I won the fight with my temper, and slow pitched the entire game, even though we were 30 runs behind.
This was an extremely difficult thing for me to do. I so wanted to at least fast-pitch to their pitcher, or throw one overhand at him, or at least walk him intentionally every time he came up. But I kept reminding myself who was supposed to be setting the good example here. Mom would have been proud. I am not so sure about Dad.
After this game was finally over, somebody I didn’t even know came up to me to shake my hand and say something like “That was one of the most incredible displays of good sportsmanship I have ever seen. I am impressed.”
That
did feel good. Somebody had noticed the two-hour battle I had just waged with
myself.
I have only been knocked out once in my life. That was while playing basketball in a high school phys ed class.
We were playing cross-court. The bleachers were folded up about eight feet behind each basket. Greg Myers was dribbling the ball near the top of his foul circle, when I stole the ball from him and streaked for a lay-up on my end. I was going full speed and jumping as high as I could, reaching toward the basket, when somebody slammed me from behind, face first into the bleachers.
I
have never had any memory of flying through the air and sitting up with my
nose bleeding and classmates starting to gather around. I don’t remember
hitting the bleachers or falling to the floor, but, as far as I know, I never
remembered that, because I was unconscious.
A bunch of us neighborhood kids used to love playing touch football in the Legion Hall yard across from our house when we were kids. I was probably ten when we started playing, Larry, nine, and Tommy, six. There were several other neighborhood kids between those ages: probably Guy Armstrong, Darrell Roberts, and Donnie Cole. We would all play against three older kids. Tommy Gillis, Larry Morgan and Billy Russell were all about 13 or 14 years old.
We little kids almost always won (At least, that’s the way I remember it.). Larry and I were good enough to knock down a lot of their passes. But our biggest defensive weapon was all those little kids. They were everywhere. There was nowhere for the big kids to run to, and when two of the big kids went out for a pass, there was nobody to block for the quarterback, so he would have very little time to get a pass away.
When we were on offense somebody was always open. The younger kids dropped lots of passes, but Larry didn’t miss many, when I could get a pass to him. It took all of us, but it sure was fun beating those big kids.
We
played tackle football without equipment one high school summer. We quit after
guys got broken collar bones on consecutive Saturdays. One was Willy Luce’s.
Neither was mine.
When I was in the seventh grade, the eighth grade basketball team had room for one more player, so we were allowed to compete for it. Bobby Whitman got the spot. That didn’t upset me, but when the coach read the names of the five guys he had considered, I was very annoyed to not be on that list.
The next year, as an eighth grader, I was a starter, so I felt partially vindicated. But it was even better the next year, when I got some Varsity minutes, despite an unwritten school rule that Freshman didn’t get to play Varsity. Take that, whoever wrote that list.
My
Freshman year I swished the only shot I took for the varsity. We were in
Woodland. Jamie Black got the assist.
I never really developed into much of a high school player, though. I just couldn’t shoot well enough. Coach Mitchell had made me wear gloves in practices at times to try to teach me to soften my shot. It didn’t work.
I started about half the Varsity games as a sophomore, but by my Junior Year, Willy Gardner, a year younger than I was, had passed me in size and ability, and he became the scoring guard we needed.
It was in high school that Dick Gross tagged me with the nickname “Jet.” I earned most of my playing time with hustle and a willingness to pass the ball. I always have loved the nickname.
Mr. Grant was our JV coach my Freshman year. I think I was his favorite, because he rode me harder than anybody else on the team. At one practice late in the season he actually physically kicked me in the butt, after lecturing me and then telling me to get back in there. I was highly offended. I talked to Jim Mallar about it after practice. He told me Coach took swings like that at me all the time. Apparently, this was just the first time I had not hustled back onto the court after one of his lectures. Apparently, this was the first time I had left myself within range of a foot that I had never known was being aimed at me.
In basketball games I never was much of a scorer, until I had graduated from college. I preferred to be the point guard, quickly moving the ball to open teammates and staying prepared to stop an opponent’s fast break. But I did do pretty well in some games.
Playing in Milbridge on a Junior Varsity team, I scored twenty points. It seemed like everything I put up went into the basket, and it seemed like all of my teammates were setting me up for shots. I was the hero that night. What a game!
I couldn’t believe it, when I found out after the game that Mike Day had scored 25 points for us, plus gotten about 20 rebounds.
My best high school varsity game was against Blue Hill in Machias. I scored eleven points in the second half to spark us to a come-from-behind win.
I once hit the ceiling in Jonesport with a shot from the top of the key.
Machias was playing a high school soccer game in Ellsworth the time Coach Mitchell had to take me out of a game before a referee threw me out.
Early in the season Machias was doing warm-up drills at home, when I started chatting with a referee who played semi-pro in Canada, so he knew more about the rules than anyone in Washington County. (This was just year III for soccer in the state of Maine.) I asked him if it was legal to try to block a goalie’s drop kick. He said it was, as long as we didn’t touch the goalie.
We tried this several times without success in following games. We would jump right in front of the goalie as he kicked and turn our backs to him.
One game in Jonesport, with a tie score and just minutes to go in the game, Billy Jordan had the unheard of courage to try to block a kick while facing the goalie. I watched the ball bounce off his chest and into the goal for a 2-1 win for Machias.
I was talking to Jim Mallar about this play about ten years after we graduated, when he told me that Billy had actually illegally hit the ball into the goal with his forearm. I was flabbergasted. How could I not have known this?
Now, back to the Ellsworth game, where they have a goalie who lobs the ball way out front and takes five or six steps to kick it. If I can time it right, and I can jump high enough, I can get a foot on the ball before he kicks it. This is a new trick, but conceivable because he takes that many steps while the ball is in the air.
I can time it right, and I do! Look at this unbelievable sight! I am moving toward the Ellsworth goal. Their goalie is going by me in the opposite direction. The ball I tapped is rolling gently on the ground between me and the wide-open goal. This is going to be the easiest goal I ever scored!
Then the goalie grabs me with both hands on my shirt and tries to throw me onto the ground, like he’s bulldogging a steer. My hands on the ground keep me from falling. He hasn’t stopped me. I continue forward as he falls.
No, Ref! Don’t blow that whistle! I don’t want a penalty kick! I want this wide-open piece-of-cake goal! I beat him! I earned this! Penalizing him for unnecessary roughness penalizes me, and that’s not fair!
Ref, why are you pointing at me??? What do you mean “Roughing the goalie?” I never touched him! He was the one who tried to bulldog a Bulldog! What do you mean, Ellsworth gets a penalty kick? What is this? Are you nuts, Ref? Get back here! I am talking to you!
Out of my way Coach! This ref and I have some serious rules discussion to do, and he’s not going to do any of the talking! What do you mean “Settle down?” What do you mean
“Get off the field?”
I may be hopping around, flailing my arms, and kicking, but I’m right! I’m right! I’m right!
I did make the UMM Varsity Basketball Team my Freshman year there. The team was made up of me and eleven other guards. Six foot one Mike Merritt, from Jonesport, was our tallest player, and he was a starting guard. Woodland’s Brian Manza, our center, was five eleven.
I am going to claim Nate Fagonde of Jonesport as my favorite teammate here, even though he may not have even joined the team until after I left. He once caught an opponent’s elbow near his hairline that opened a pretty good cut. Nate was pretty mad when Coach took him out of the game just because his face was covered with blood. (I used to play a lot of Whist (simplified bridge) with Nate and his wife, Jenny. Years later, I think it was their son that I played some basketball with somewhere. And I know I met their daughter at a high school Math Mete in Woodland. That was neat, Nate.)
I only got into one college game. I was fouled on my only shot attempt, and then missed both foul shots.
At the start of second semester other players were allowed to try out for the team. At one of the practices, Coach Schmidlin had me and five other guys pressing full court against Steve Beal (Jonesport…Notice how that town keeps coming up here? How do you suppose these guys did on the same high school team?) and some other guys who were trying out. We actually had six players against their five. I saw the handwriting on the wall here, and quit the team shortly after, rather than waiting to be cut.
At the UMM sports banquet my Senior Year, I received trophies for playing on intramural flag football and basketball championship teams. I also got one for winning the two-night school foul shooting championship with 93 out of 100 shots. And there was a letter for playing Varsity Baseball. What a meal!
On February 29th, 1976, I played a pick-up basketball game with adults from Machias. I had just showered and was leaving the gym, when my brother, Larry, walked in to tell me that our Dad had just died after his years long battle with cancer.
I
immediately went back into the locker room to tell Mike Worcestor, who was one
of the few non-family members who ever asked how my Dad was doing.
My first wife, Evelyn, one of the Machiasport Wards, and I joined a Machias Couples Bowling League one year. I hadn’t bowled enough to become consistently good, but it was always my pattern to bowl the first game about at about 80, then 90, and the third string would break 100. This was my pattern even if it had been over a year since I bowled. I figured if we bowled in the league every week and went for a practice round every week besides that, I’d have an average close to 100 by the time the season was finished. All it would take would be practice. I already had the skills.
Apparently, I didn’t have Mom’s skill or her temperament, though. It took me over six weeks of league bowling to break 90. Yogi was right. Fifty percent of some things is ninety percent mental.
I
don’t remember who was her partner, but Dawn Richards probably won the
league that year. She was real good.
When I was a Phys Ed Major at the University of Maine at Orono, I played lots of basketball. In my mid-twenties now, this is where I played the best basketball of my life.
Rufus Harris is one of the greatest players Orono has ever had. He would eventually be drafted and signed by the Boston Celtics. He must have needed some exercise one evening, because he and I ended up playing together on a pick-up team in the field house. He would get a defensive rebound and I’d take off on a fast break. He would get the ball to me, and I’d drive to the basket and score every time. Good players could not stop me. I never played a better basketball game in my life.
The Harlem Globetrotters and their tricky dribbling ball handler, Curly Neal, happened to be in Bangor about this time. I knew who Rufus was, but we had never met. He didn’t know my name, so he started calling me “Curly”. That’s how good I played that day.
It was also at Orono that I decided to experiment a little by wearing feather-light track sneakers to play basketball in, attempting to enhance my speed. They were low cut with practically no ankle support, and I could fly in them. (I hate high top sneakers. Might as well play with boots on. (I actually played with guys wearing combat boots in pick-up games in Machiasport sometimes. Those guys were dangerous. The backboards were fastened either directly on the walls or real close to it in the town hall. Some guys would run up the wall and dunk baskets.)) While wearing my feather-lights, I faked a move to the left and rolled my ankle, but I got enough push off the left foot to move back to the right, where I managed to roll my other ankle, too. I crawled off the court on my hands and knees, having twisted both ankles on one move. That’s how well I played that day.
I
was somewhere in my thirties when I would get blood in my urine while playing
basketball. It happened so often that summer that I decided on my own to go
see a doctor. I thought for sure I had cancer.
After I explained what was happening to the doctor, he examined me, and then said “I bet you play basketball really hard, don’t you, Mr. Johnson?” I admitted I did, and he said “You are a very rare case for your age.”
I thought to myself “Damn. Most guys don’t get this form of cancer until they’re at least 60.”
Then he explained. “There is nothing wrong with you at all. This seldom happens to anybody but teenagers. You are just playing basketball so hard that you are bursting blood vessels, and it is showing up in your urine.”
Now, that’s hustle.
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