Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » A Christmas Story
Posted: December 25th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 30 Comments »
Many years ago, I delivered afternoon newspapers to the houses on my old street, Warrendale Road. The paper I delivered was called The Cleveland Press — don't go looking for it now. The Cleveland Press died more than 25 years ago. That's what afternoon papers did in my lifetime. They died. it had something to do with the way America was changing or something. nobody wanted their paper to come so late in the day.
I don't remember how I got the job. I think the guy who delivered Press to us mentioned that he was quitting and wondered if I would take over. We were a Cleveland Press family. It's funny to think about it now, but I seem to recall even as a kid thinking of us that way — a Cleveland Press family. The Cleveland Plain Dealer was the morning paper, and I remember thinking that doctors and lawyers and titans of business got the morning paper. We were not a Plain Dealer family. Dad would leave for the factory at some preposterously early hour, long before I ever woke up, and too many hours later his rusty blue Chevy Nova would pull into the driveway. he would have oil on his pants and salami on his breath, and he would collapse into the sofa, and I would hand him one of the Cleveland Presses that my mother and I were neatly folding for delivery. he would fall asleep reading paper.
Thinking about the Press now only makes it feel even longer ago. The paper had no color in it at all — none at all, the front page was always this harsh black and white. there was always a little photo of a lighthouse on top — the Scripps Howard lighthouse. The only color in the Cleveland Press was the cover of the little TV guides that I inserted on Fridays, and the color of the Wednesday coupons that would weigh the paper down. I hated Wednesdays. The newspapers felt like cartoon anvils as I lugged the newspaper bag from house to house. I remember once, in 1978 I believe, the Cleveland Press turned 100 and they put out a special section to celebrate. Each individual paper, in my memory, weighed about as much as two jugs of milk. it was no celebration for an 11-year-old kid.
The Press cost $1 for the full week (a Cleveland Press week was six days — there was no Sunday paper) — I think it might have gone up to $1.10 sometime during my delivery tenure. it was 35 cents if you only wanted the Friday and Saturday paper. I only had one house on my route that got the paper on Friday and Saturday ... the old man used to leave me 35 cents wrapped in tinfoil and hung from the inside of the screen door. he never left a tip. few people left tips. The Diamonds used to tip a dime every week. They were my favorite customers. Later, a young couple moved down the street, and though I don't remember their names I do remember that he taught me the indefensible (undefensible? indefendible?) snowball throwing trick, and that she was very pretty and would tip me a quarter every week.
I remember lots of stuff like that — more about the route than the paper. my paper route was not very big — I think it peaked at 30 house. Still, there were very specific directions for each house ... the Cleveland Press could not just be thrown in someone's driveway. No, mrs. Cohen wanted her newspaper folded neatly into the milk department*. The old woman on the corner wanted the paper placed neatly into the chair on her screened-in porch. The Polsters wanted me to ring the bell when I delivered the paper — they wanted to know exactly when the paper arrived. The Mumfords wanted their paper placed just inside the screen door and not thrown in there. and so on.
*It has been years since I thought about that — every house on Warrendale had a milk compartment. Basically, on the side of the house there was a door roughly the side of the large Macbook Pro (I was going to say roughly the size of an album — but albums are about as obsolete as milk compartments), and you opened it and there was this little chamber. and, inside the house, there was an identical door. Quite the thing.
So many details. A very old woman lived in the house on the corner and she never shoveled her driveway — I'm fairly certain she never left the house — and I can remember wading through snow that was almost up to my neck to deliver her paper. I started to call that house "Snowy." there was another house — I remember the man who lived there would yell at me for various crimes that the youth of America were committing. Drugs. Alcohol. Free love. he was right out of the cliche, the archetypal "kids today don't know the meaning of hard work" kind of guy, and I suppose I was the only kid he ever actually saw. and so even though I was 10 years old, he would dump his truckload of political thoughts on me. I began to call his house "Cranky." there was one house where the owner never gave me a tip, never, not even at the holidays. I called that house "cheapy."
And then there was the house I called "Brownie." The house was not brown. The people there were not named Brown. No, the house was named for their dog — Brownie. and Brownie was the meanest dog in the world.
No, really, he was. It's like that when you are 9 or 10 or 11 years old. everything feels so much larger, colors are so much crisper, sounds are so much clearer. I guess it's because everything still feels so new, there is no static of the everyday buzzing in your mind, no fog of familiarity blocking your view. Six days a week, I would deliver the paper to the Brownie house, and as soon I opened the screen door to deliver it, I would hear this thunder-crack THUMP that would scare me enough to make me jump back. That was Brownie running full-speed into the door. Full speed. every day. like he was hoping to knock the door off its hinges. then Brownie would growl and bark, and there was menace in it.
On Friday, collection day, it took two men at Brownie's house to pay, one to give me the money, the other to hold back Brownie. there was no illusion about it — no "Oh, it's OK, you can pet Brownie, he won't hurt you." No, he would hurt you. The kids on Warrendale and Colony and Eastway and Grosvenor all heard the same story — that the the dog authorities (whoever these people were) had come to visit the Brownie house. I imagined them looking like British Bobbies from Sherlock Holmes time. They pronounced that Brownie had to be put down after he escaped the home and went on a neighborhood run of holy terror. I believed it. Everyone believed it. But they authorities did not return, and every time I delivered the paper, Brownie was always there to slam into the door and bark menacingly from the other side.
Two men lived at the Brownie House — one old, and the other even older. it was like something out of a Russian novel. They were father and son, old Man Brownie and Older Man Brownie, and nobody knew anything at all about them. as far as I knew, nobody ever came to visit them, and nobody ever talked to them. On snow days, the only tracks to and from the house seemed to my own from the day before. I never saw the father or son when delivering the papers during the week, and I never said a word to them when collecting on Fridays. I kept my eyes on Brownie, took the money, and scurried off with the relief of another week gone by.
Then, one day during the summer, the son was standing outside the house when I delivered the paper. I handed it to him and turned to leave, when he said the strangest thing. he said: "Do you play baseball?"
There wasn't much that an old man could say to me that would have engaged me at that age. usually, they would ask me about school or something like that, which (of course) was boring. every so often, an adult would say something about the Cleveland Browns or Indians or Cavaliers, but I never trusted that an adult could feel about those teams the way I felt and the conversation tended to peter out quickly. But old Man Brownie asked me if I played baseball, and of course I did. I had been the start third baseman for a team called "Hollywood" — good glove, decent power, kind of a pint-sized Brooks Robinson in my own memory — and then had moved to second base where I dived for every ground ball like my hero Duane Kuiper. I practiced every day in our unfinished basement by throwing baseballs against the yellow brick wall and fielding the ground balls off the hard concrete floor. I played baseball.
And old Man Brownie told me that he had played ball too. come to think of it, he probably was not that old. Connecting the dots now, he was probably around 50. he said that he had played minor league ball — he was a catcher — and then he was drafted and he had played baseball in the Army Navy* during World War II. he called me over and pulled out two photos out of his wallet. The first was a yellowing black and white photo of himself throwing a baseball. he had good form. The second was a photo of his younger self and another man, both in Army baseball uniforms, both smiling at the camera.
*The quirks of memory — it was the Navy, of course, and not the Army.
"I know I don't need to tell you what that guy is," the man said to me. I shook my head — I had no idea who it was.
"That," the man said, "is Bob Feller. The greatest pitcher who ever lived. and I was his catcher."
The man was standing outside again the next day. he told me that he had not been a great baseball player. he was good though. Well, he had a good glove. he could really throw too. he said he wasn't much of a hitter. there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that he was telling the truth.
He told me about some of the other players he played with during the war. there were a whole bunch but the only one I remember was Pee Wee Reese. I remember that because I was the shortest kid in my class, and I had only then begun to worry that this might prevent me from becoming a Major League Baseball player. Now, he was telling me stories about a man they called "Pee Wee" who could field and hit and throw and run, a great baseball player, a man who old Man Brownie insisted should be in the Hall of Fame. he told me that when Jackie Robinson was having trouble with people his first year in the big leagues — you know, because he was black — Pee Wee Reese put his arm around Jackie and people had so much love and respect for Reese that they immediately stopped bothering Jackie. it was a nice and simple version of race relations in America. it perfectly suited a 10-year-old boy.
Mostly, though, he talked about Bob Feller. nobody ever threw harder than Feller, he said. "What about Nolan Ryan?" I asked. No, the man told me. Feller threw harder than Ryan. Feller had grown up on a farm, and he used to throw baseballs against the side of the barn, and he threw so hard that his fastball would break the boards. The old man who wasn't really that old had a gift for telling stories. I asked old Man Brownie if he had any kids. he said he did not. I asked him to show me the picture again — him and Bob Feller. he pulled it from his wallet and showed me.
A while later, he brought his old glove out and asked me if I wanted to play catch. and we stood on the sideway, about 20 feet apart, and threw an old gray baseball back and forth. his glove really was like a pillow — it was hard to tell where you were supposed to catch the ball. he caught the ball with two hands, and he threw with a snap in his wrist — the baseball seemed to jump out of his hand. he told me that I had good form. That, as far as I remember, was the only advice he ever gave me.
It did not occur to me, of course, that the old man was sad. it did not occur to me that he had fought in World War II, and he lost any chance to play in the big leagues, and he ended up living in a small brick house on a tiny street with his aging father and a maniacal dog. I never did find out what he did or if he had been married or anything else about him. I only remember that we played catch, and he told me baseball stories, and that one day I read in The Cleveland Press that Bob Feller was going to be signing books at Cedar Center, near our home. I told the man that he had to go see his old friend, and old Man Brownie said: "Oh, Bob Feller wouldn't remember me."
"Sure he would," I said, or some such thing. "You were his catcher."
"No," the man said sadly. "He would not. he had a lot of catchers."
I begged and pleaded with him to go. it seemed important to me, though I could not explain why. and finally, he agreed to go. It's funny, then, how memory can play games. I remember that he took me with him. I remember specific details about the walk to the store, and how crowded it was inside, and how Bob Feller looked behind a table of books. But I'm thinking now that's impossible ... I cannot imagine that I would have gone with a relative stranger to a book signing. I feel certain that he went alone and told me about it later. I feel certain about it.
Still ... I remember going with old Man Brownie to see Bob Feller. I remember it the way I remember other stories from my childhood. I remember walking in with him, and there being a long line, and Bob Feller sitting there and talking loudly about the old days. Maybe that's because I have seen that Bob Feller scene many times since. In any event, I remember old Man Brownie walking up to the table, and I thought I saw him shaking just a little bit. It's a powerful thing, being a great athlete. you can inspire such deep and powerful memories in people's minds. I can remember through the years seeing adults near tears as they approached Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio or Pete Rose or John Unitas. I know that to some people that seems sad somehow ... I know that makes many roll their eyes. "They're just PEOPLE," you hear the cynics say. But I never thought those in line were going to see the people. They were going to revisit their childhood. They were going to get as close as they could to a younger time, a better time, when the world seemed sunnier and Mays' cap flew off his head and Brown tore away from tacklers and Wilt dropped the ball in the basket from impossible heights. They were going to give thanks to someone who brought joy into their lives.
"How are you doing Bob," the man said as he stepped to the table.
"You look familiar," Bob Feller said.
And the man handed him the photograph. Bob looked at it for quite a long time. I suspect it isn't easy being people's hero. I suspect that you can feel unworthy — I'm just the same as you — or you can feel resentful or you can feel like people are asking you to live up to an impossible standard. how many people over the last 50 years have come up to Bob Feller and said "Remember me?" how many people have handed him an old photograph? how many people have expected him to recall an autograph he signed in Des Moines in ‘68 or a pitch he threw in Detroit in ‘53 or an autograph he signed in Waco in ‘74 or a handshake in Augusta in ‘91? and how much has it meant to them when he did remember? and why did it mean that much to them?
I still see the old man's face while Bob Feller looked over the photograph. I feel sure I wasn't even there, but I still see it — his eyes locked on Feller, his shoulders rigid, his lips pressed together. he looked for all the world like a man on trial. he looked for all the world like someone who wanted to be somewhere else.
And then Bob Feller looked up from the photograph, smiled, and said "How the hell are you!"
They talked for a little while after that — NavyNavy talk, men they knew, rules they observed, food they ate, trips they made, and so on. all these years later, I still don't know if Bob Feller really remembered the old man. I have seen many famous people pretend to remember ... though, even then, there's something touching about pretending. I only know that the old man smiled broadly as he would retell the story, which he did a few times on request over the next few weeks.
"What did he say then?" I would ask.
"He said, ‘How the hell are you!'" old Man Brownie would say.
Eventually, they did take Brownie the dog away. or maybe he ran off. or maybe he died of natural causes. I don't know. I only know that when I delivered The Cleveland Press to Brownie's house, there was a dead silence behind the door. After a while, I stopped seeing old Man Brownie. Maybe he was only staying at the house to keep the dog from killing people. Whatever, he no longer stood outside the house, and he he was not around to pay for the paper on Fridays. I never thought to ask about him — I suppose kids don't think much about that sort of thing.
Many years later, I became a sportswriter and I interviewed Bob Feller on several occasions. I had mixed feelings about Feller, and still do, but one time I told him a version of this story and asked him if he remembered meeting his old Navy catcher at a book signing. he said: "Sure I remember." I doubt he did. I figure that he had many book signings and many catchers in the Navy and many people who wanted to feel in some small way a part of his pitching greatness. I figure it's impossible to remember everything. I told Feller how much it had meant to the old man, what he said. Feller nodded.
"What did I say to him?" he asked.
"You said, ‘How the hell are you?'" I told him.
Feller nodded again. "Well," he said, "that sounds like me."
