Our Softball Stories Aren’t Over…’till They’re Over
Previously we posted our “adverting-agency-after-work-softball-stories. Now I can add two more.
The first from Allan Hayes:
Great stories. I’m sorry to admit that I don’t always read everything, and I missed the train of softball anecdotes.
For years, I was the pitcher for a series of terrible teams from Meltzer, Lennen & Newell and Wilton, Coombs and Colnett. As Meltzer’s Pride, we decided to display our macho posture by picking pink and purple as the team colors. For one game, the agency girls formed a cheering section and offered this memorable yell:
“Pink and purple, purple and pink.
We’re great, you stink!”
The enthusiasm didn’t translate into wins. Over the years, we were so bad we bragged about it.IIn a 1977 house ad for WCC, we pointed out that Nice Guys Don’t Win, and we were nicer than everybody else in the whole ad league.
The fact that I was always the pitcher was no tribute to my athletic prowess. In slow-pitch softball, all the pitcher has to do is lob the ball up somewhere near the strike zone and has few other fielding responsibilities. It’s a great place to put one of your worst fielders, and I qualified. My base running was legendary. Once, I was on first base when the batter hit a deep ball that ended up being a home run. He had to slow down between third and home to keep from passing me.
During those years, there was an annual all-star game that rotated between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and each team in the league had to send a player. One year we were so bad that, by default, they sent me to Los Angeles, I played in the All-Star game., and the result was predictable. They put me in to pitch the 5th inning when we were behind 4 – 2. I faced five batters and left with the score 9 – 2. Nobody would talk to me after the game.
Despite the chronic ineptitude of my teams, I kept playing softball into my 60s, for the last years in an over-30 league in Marin County. That’s where I had my one glorious moment. In another example of my pitching effectiveness, we were playing another terrible team, and going into the bottom of the 9th, we were behind 17 – 4. Then something happened that I’ve never seen anywhere in baseball at any level: a 14-run bottom of the ninth. I came up (for the third time in the inning) with the score 17 – 16, two outs, fast runners on second and third. I hit a soft dink single to short right field, and we won 18 – 17. It was one of the few genuine celebrations I ever got to experience, and I was the hero.
It was my 15 seconds of fame
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11 – 26-2021 — Allan continues:
I’m sorry to report I don’t have any cherished photographs from those years, but they did put me heroically on the cover of the RSR&M house organ. (Briefly, when Lennen & Newell went under nationally, they became Richardson, Seigle, Rolfs & McCoy in San Francisco.)
It got its name from the Kraft paper cover wrap
Martin Russell, who suffered with me as a teammate on all those ill-fated ad league teams I mentioned, wrote the cover article. Although he was kind enough not to mention me by name, I was the pitcher who took the one-hopper in his jacket and didn’t make it over to first base in time to hug him for the out. I was also the pitcher who watched the pop fly drop untouched on the pitcher’s rubber for a double.
As I said, we weren’t a great team.
Al Hayes
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1−24−22 a bit more from Allan:
I’m not sure that anyone cares, but it’s always nice to have my athletic prowess publicized.
Hope somebody else can smile at the accounts. The image on one of the sweatshirts we did for Meltzer came from a photograph of John Pratt swinging mightily three feet above a ball resting on home plate. In John’s defense, it might just have been a perfectly timed photograph of a foul tip, but we felt it summarized our team’s skills.
One of the good things about being 87 is that I no longer have to humiliate myself playing softball.
Allan Hayes
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1−24−22 I replied to Allan
I’ll ask John if he has the sweatshirt.
: ) Ann
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1−25−22
Hi John,
It is just a “Long shot” thinking that I could get another image for the story.
Might you have a sweatshirt from MA&L Softball team? (see Allan’s email.)
I could add a comment from you regarding you swinging the bat, 3 feet above the ball, (?)
Ann
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John Pratt has saved the team sweatshirts!
1−27−22
Hi Ann,
I imagine you want to check with Al to see if this is the shirt with the guy on it that he’s talking about. I’m not sure…it’s been a few years.
J.
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1−27−22 My email to Allen
Hi Allan,
I got these sweatshirts from John, Is that supposed to be John on the sweatshirt? Was there another shirt made that did show him?
Ann
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1−28−22 From Allan:
Actually, that was suggested by another photograph of John. I guess we never immortalized the three-feet-over-the ball swing. This one reads: Meltzer, Aron & Lemen. Dick Lemen was John’s and my direct boss.
It was great to see those shirts again. Haven’t seen them in years, and had no idea John still has them. — — —
This Brown Rapper story, by Martin Russell:
TAKE ME OUT
Have you ever seen four runs score on a dribbler to third base? Have you ever come to bat in the bottom of the first inning trailing 24 – 0? Have you ever coached third and seen two runners slide into the base at the same time, one from each direction? Have you ever seen a relay from left field to shortstop to the intersection of Turk and Gough?
These are but a few of the rich memories I take with me into the new season of the advertising softball league. And RSRM seems headed for another long summer of “Who’s on first?”
The “heart” of the team goes back enough years to relieve every horrific moment with me. Who can forget Nureyev, our effete art director/outfielder who never stopped at second base, and the time he tried to run over Turtle, by far the largest man in the league? Nureyev was outweighed at least three to one, and his path was firmly blocked as Turtle stooped to receive the throw. So he dived over the gargantuan third baseman. Unfortunately, Turtle stood up at that moment, catapulting Nureyev into the cyclone fence beyond the foul line. He then lumbered over like a button man from “The Godfather” and made the putout.
We lost one game when the ball went on one hop inside our pitcher’s jacket. Before he tracked it down, the winning run was on first.
Then there was that poetic moment when our right fielder and center fielder converged on a fly ball. Swift as deer they ran, crossed and kept running. They were a good fifteen yards apart when the ball fell softly between their retreating backs.
I can see him now, our short centerfielder falling like a petrified redwood under a drifting fly ball. His feet wouldn’t move, and as the ball floated further behind him he leaned back, then fell to the ground, straight as hewn timber, only to gaze in popeyed agony as the ball descended on his head.
How, you may have wondered, can four runs score on an infield dribbler? Nothing to it. Only one player made an error. That was the catcher, and he made three of them. First he took the throw at the plate, and dropped the ball. Undaunted, he picked it up and tried to nail the runner at third. By the time the left fielder had recovered his throw, the runner from first was on his way home. The throw came to the plate too late, so our catcher tried to shoot down the batter steaming around second. The ball landed in deep right centerfield, about two hundred feet further than originally hit. Any more questions?
Yes, the memories come and, fortunately, go. The high pop-up to the pitcher who covered his head and yelled “Yours” while we all stood and watched the ball bounce off the rubber for a double. Our double play combination that went from short to second to the stands behind first. Our centerfielder telling the rightfielder how to play a batter while a line drive whistles past his head. A chicano ringer shortstop striking out swinging with the explanation: “He trow me a corve.”
Then there was our outfielder who would get so mad when he dropped a fly that he threw his glove down and stomped away, leaving the ball lying there like a deserted ostrich egg. Our first baseman recalls chasing one of these balls out to the right field fence. Predictably the game started again before anyone noticed he’d gone, and the shortstop fired a strike past the abandoned first base bag. Our first baseman fielded the throw on the bounce off the fence and walked the ball (we felt with undue bitterness) all the way back to the mound. We simply scored it as an infield home run.
Ah, and our friend, the drunken umpire. They drummed him out of the league. But before they did, he took pity on us. We were getting clobbered at Rossi Field one windy evening. Another enemy batter hit one downtown and scampered . happily around the bases. “He missed the base,” the ump wheezed to our catcher. “Which one?” “Second.” The catcher dutifully threw down to the second baseman who, after receiving careful instructions, stepped on the bag. “You’re out,” yelled the ump. Later in the game, the same thing happened. “He missed the base.” The catcher threw to second. “Wrong base,” chuckled the ump whiskily. And he wouldn’t tell us which was the right one. But I can’t complain. As an ex-cricket player, the glove still feels like a malignant growth on my left hand. I tried playing shortstop barehanded, but the opposition was so upset that the umpire issued an arbitrary “no glove, no play” edict. And I remember striking out on a high outside pitch when I dreamily took a late cut, a delicate cricket stroke, some time after the catcher had the ball.
But we have fun. As our supporters tell us, when they can stop laughing long enough to talk, “it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” ‑Martin Russell
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And now, a chic little number for spring that’s already being seen on San Francisco’s most exclusive softball diamonds. This colorful black-and-white pullover, a pair of white Levi ‘s, a navy blue cap, and a stylish navy nylon windbreaker (Penney’s, $4.98) are de rigeur for the well-turned-out ballplayer.
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1−31−22 11:42AM John Pratt wrote:
Hi Ann…
So enjoyed Al and Martin’s recollections!
As I told you earlier, I don’t remember me being the guy on the shirt. And as I bat left handed it’s possible Al’s memory could have me confused with someone else. Makes a good story though!
What I remember is my atrocious batting average of around .069 or so in a league where the average player was hitting 700 or so. (We kept records of our games) and it wasn’t until Martin and Jim Nehr (sic) our first baseman at the time, took me aside years later and eventually I started to occasionally hit the ball out of one of the parks we played in, that had a short right field. Except they changed the rules by the time I learned to hit and it be became a ground rule double!!
John
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1−31−22 12 – 06 PM I wrote:
Hi John,
I am left handed, too, but I throw and would (try to) bat right-handed (in jr. high.).
Can I add these detail to our story?
Ann
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1−31−22 4:16PM Allan wrote:
John’s early hitting was as memorable as my pitching. Should mention that Jim’s last name was Neher. He was one of our two really good ringers.
What John didn’t say is that, thanks to his stage experience, he was a great-looking left fielder. He might not catch it, but when he went after a fly ball, he approached it with grace worthy of Joe DiMaggio.
Allan
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1−31−22 5:48PM John wrote:
Hi again
Didn’t mention that I’m right handed in every other way. Just swing left, and dig left with a shovel. My dad was the same and had a twin brother who was just the opposite!!!
If Al and Martin (who I greatly respect) agree you can add it .
John
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This has gone on into “extra innings”!
I’m calling this game on account of nightfall.
Our softball stories are over…?
Ann