Why Joe Left Town

Although his father and brothers were fisherman, Joe DiMaggio could only fake it.

(posed publicity photo courtesy Julian Frazer)

Why Joe Left Town

by Jamie Jobb

Before he turned three years old, Joe DiMaggio and his family had left Martinez for good. Joe often returned to the town of his birth after he retired from baseball, but San Francisco gets to call itself Joe’s hometown. That’s where Joe and his brothers Vincent and Dominic learned the ropes of professional baseball.

If they’d remained in Martinez, fishing knots would have been the only ropes the DiMaggio boys would have known. Papa didn’t like his sons wasting time playing ball. But few people realize the real reason the DiMaggios had to leave Martinez in the first place.

Their move was the result of an odd accident involving a passing train and Joe’s sister, Frances DiMaggio, who was seven at the time.

The DiMaggios – father Giuseppe and mother Rosalie along with their nine children – lived in a small house at the base of Island Hill at the foot of Grangers Wharf on Foster Street near where Barrellesa crosses the railroad tracks. The house no longer remains, but it’s marked by an historic placard.

Like other Sicilian-American children in the neighborhood at that time, the DiMaggios were accustomed to playing on and around the railroad tracks that ran less than a block from their house. One day young Frances was playing there when she was hit in the eye by a sudden piece of hot charcoal from a passing steam locomotive.

The damage to her eye was so severe that inexperienced local doctor Edwin Merrithew, M.D., could do little more than treat her with bandages in Martinez. Merrithew was known as “Il Dottore del Dichu” – or “the Doctor of The Ditch” – which referred to Alhambra Creek, where no other doctor in town would venture.

So Rosalie had to take her child to San Francisco for proper ocular health care. Bridges to the city would not be build for another two decades, so Frances and her mother had to ferry to the City. That was not an easy commute in 1917.

After a while, those transbay trips became so burdensome that Rosalie convinced her husband to move the family to North Beach where he and his sons could still maintain their fishing boats in Fishermans Wharf from their apartment on Taylor Street.

Little did these parents realize how much The National Pastime would affect their younger sons once they started playing hardball in their fields of dreams on San Francisco streets.

* * *

“Ya Gotta Believe!”

Another famous big leaguer, New York Met reliever Tug McGraw, also grew up in Martinez. But Tug’s legacy doesn’t hold the water that the Yankee Clipper held. For one thing, McGraw was born in 1944 and belonged to a generation of ballplayers far removed from the heyday of DiMaggio, Ruth and Shoeless Joe.

McGraw’s dad was know as “Big Mac”, so his mother knew their son needed a nickname. She decided to call him “Tug” because of his particularly aggressive way of breast feeding. The McGraws left Martinez before Tug entered high school, so he never got to play for the Alhambra High Bulldogs.

McGraw is most remembered for minting the phrase “Ya Gotta Believe” – which became the rallying cry for the once hapless Mets as he became the National League’s top closer in the early 1970s.

Tug’s catchphrase might be something Martinez Clippers would want to try as their rallying cry! At least they could claim that the expression has a somewhat local pedigree!

* * *

Martinez author Jamie Jobb has written a play, “Joe Fish Ties the Knot” or “Last Gillnet on Grangers Wharf”, which assumes a guy named Joe never left his hometown, particularly after he met the girl of his dreams named Norma Jeane. In this what-if story, Jobb further assumes Norma Jeane never knew Hollywood and Joe never played baseball. She worked in the cannery and Joe toughed out his living on a Monterey Clipper hauling in salmon stuck in gillnets.

The play will be read as part of the Dramatists Guild “Footlight Series” on September 1 in San Francisco. For more information, contact: 925 723-1782.

* * *

Sources:

Joe DiMaggio – The Hero’s Life by Richard Ben Cramer. 2000. Simon & Schuster, New York. p. 18

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/may/21/the-forgotten-story-of-joe-dimaggio-and-the-san-francisco-seals-talent-factory

https://books.google.com/books?id=HxIVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA490&lpg=PA490&dq=martinez+doctor+merrithew&source=bl&ots=CTVb7qb53D&sig=WgF-HXVZE9D5pmodidBhna5Hzjk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihnojFy6HbAhUpHjQIHVzwBP8Q6AEIRzAF#v=onepage&q=martinez%20doctor%20merrithew&f=false

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tug_McGraw#"Ya_Gotta_Believe!"

When's a Clipper Not a Clipper?

Last Monterey Clipper in Martinez at Eagle Marine

(iPhoto by Jamie Jobb)

When’s a Clipper

Not a Clipper?

“Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?

A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”

                                                        – Paul Simon

By Jamie Jobb

Baseball recalls Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio as “Joltin’ Joe” but he was also famously known as “The Yankee Clipper”. Understanding this background is key to any baseball fan comprehending the significance of that name as it applies to the Martinez Clippers, the new Pacific Association ballclub which plays the Sonoma Stompers in its inaugural game here tomorrow night.

In the 1930s, windy New York sportswriters considered DiMaggio as speedy and graceful in center field as a 19^th Century “clipper ship” was on the horizon. Like Joe’s gliding outfield strides that smothered line drives – these tall-masted sailing vessels were capable of making the world’s difficult waters ride easy.

At the time, tall ships had not been seen on the docks of New York City and San Francisco for half a century. But readers knew what the sportswriters meant when they hung that antique maritime nickname onto the lofty Yank.

They thought the term “clipper” honored the man’s fishing heritage. However, the sporting scribes were referring to exactly the wrong “clipper”! “Tall ships” – indeed!

Although his father and older brothers – not to mention their Sicilian ancestors – were commercial fishermen, Joe DiMaggio detested that immigrant lifestyle.  He was lucky to get wrapped up in the national pastime after his family moved from Martinez to San Francisco’s North Beach. Originally these relocated Sicilians fished like their ancient Roman and Greek ancestors – from traditional “feluccas” powered by oar and a single sail known as a “lateen”. The fishing life was not easy on these slow boats.

Eventually, the DiMaggios became professional enough to fish local waters in “Monterey Clippers”. Oddly enough, these low boats had replaced actual tall Clipper ships on the docks of Martinez before the demise of Contra Costa’s grain farms which originally fed Grangers Wharf with wheat bound for Europe.

Monterey Clippers were slow two-man vessels powered by clunky one-stroke motors made and serviced in Benicia. These working wooden fishing boats required constant maintenance and were used by Italian fishermen to set their gillnets, also high-maintenance tools of their trade. A well-preserved fleet of Monterey Clippers still floats in San Francisco Bay, mostly to benefit tourists visiting Fisherman’s Wharf.

Martinez writer Harlan Bailey, a respected fisher poet and salmon fisherman, also believes the term “clipper” was used to describe the unique cut of the bow of these ships, a sharply angled curve climbing quickly out of the water. It “clips” through the water. Bailey points out that the clipper ships of yore had the same cut bow as the Monterey clippers.

Confounding things further is the fact that upon his retirement, the New York Yankees gave their “Clipper” an inboard Chris Craft Cruiser called “The Joltin’ Joe”. Forget the sportswriters, what part of “tall ships” did the Yanks not understand?!?

Joe’s pleasure craft suffered from years of neglect on the local waterfront, but was carefully restored over a period of several months by Sons of Italy and other volunteers for the Hometown Hero Project, which expects to display the refurbished Joltin’ Joe at Clipper home games this season. The last Monterey Clipper residing in Martinez is also out of water – in dry-dock at Eagle Marine.

Public Works Superintendent Bob Cellini with Joe DiMaggio’s restored Chris Craft pleasure boat

(photo by Jamie Jobb)

* * *

Thanks for assistance in research: Harlan Bailey, Julian Frazer and Bob Cellini.

Vernacular Bagmen & Their Ballyard Jargon

Vernacular Bagmen &

Their Ballyard Jargon

by Jamie Jobb

It’s long past time for local baseball fans to update their flashcards, as the Martinez Clippers prepare to pop the cork on their inaugural season in the Pacific Association of Profession Baseball Clubs Thursday (May 31) in newly refurbished Waterfront Park.

On these days before opening night, we conclude our brief crash course in grass-roots baseball jargon. The goal is to help fans comprehend any strange words or other unique catchphrases hurled by these “boys of summer” as they claw through the first season in their spanking new Carquinez Strait ballyard -- until further notice known as “Joe DiMaggio Field Three”.

DISCLAIMER: There are no actual guarantees that players on the Clipper roster will use any of the following arcane expressions on opening night. Indeed, the young team is still trying to figure how to fit catcher Alex Oleszkowicz’s name onto the back of his uniform!

It’s quite probable the Clippers will arrive in town with their own odd way of expressing themselves. After all, this is Martinez – a First Amendment Sister City – and while skipper Chris Decker’s crew may be a bunch of untested rookies, they’ll soon learn that oldtimers around here have their own peculiar way of paraphrasing things. 

Stenciled graffito on old Martinez Train Station - 2017

(iPhone photo by Jamie Jobb)

* * *

The first Eephus Hurler

Eephus ain’t nothing

But a Wild Soft Ball

An “Eephus” is a loopy junk pitch which traces its name back to Biblical times, although its baseball derivation is likewise fabled. The word “efes” is a Hebrew expression that basically means “zero” or “nothing”, but it can also be used to mean “loser”. That’s why pitchers so often avoid this pitch.

Seldom seen in actual games, an Eephus pitch mimics a change-up in that it relies on a surprise delivery and is only thrown in certain gamer situations to catch hitters off guard, causing them to wildly swing and miss. Although it’s not delivered underhand, in flight the ball looks more like a softball pitch.

An Eephus ball is characterized by its very low velocity and its wicked backspin. That’s why it’s also called a “slowball” – one that flutters down onto the batters box, enticing a hitter to swing early.

It’s worth noting that an Eephus should not be confused with a “knuckleball”, which is also characterized by its slow but low arch toward the plate. However, a pitcher can throw a knuckler repeatedly because its flight is so erratic hitters are often baffled. Even the catcher is unsure where any “knuckler” will end up after it leaves the mound!

The main reason an Eephus pitch seldom gets thrown in games is simple: it’s murder on a defense when a hitter clocks wise to the timing of the ball. Kinda like batting practice. Ted Williams notoriously knocked his second of two consecutive Eephus pitches into the seats for a three-run eighth-inning homer in the 1946 All Star Game.

The first major leaguer to hurl an Eephus was Pittsburgh Pirate Rip Sewell – the same guy who served up Ted’s gopher ball, although nobody called it by that name until Rip’s teammate Maurice Van Robays concocted the term. “Eephus ain’t nothing,” he said. “And that’s what that ball is.”

That whole heap of “nothing” only transpired after Sewell applied two loads of buckshot to his big toe in a hunting accident before Christmas, 1941. The toe was attached to Sewell’s right foot which pushed off against the rubber on every pitch. That freak injury forced the right-hander to adjust his throwing motion, eventually leading him to his blooper pitch which caused less pain in the foot on the mound.

In the early 1940s, Sewell relied on his Eephus to craft twin 21-win seasons. He also pitched in four consecutive All-Star games. No other big league pitcher has been able to use Eephus to such dramatic effect. And, it can be surmised, that no other pitcher would ever want to retrace Sewell’s odd outdoorsman's method of achieving success with such a goofball!

* * *

Twangy Bats &

Banjo Hitters

Martinez is a musicians hangout with live music on live stages most nights of the week around town. Armando’s, our eclectic music hall down by the tracks, has a national reputation and often features outstanding talent, including a band with seven banjos!

Baseball does not shy away from its own musical references. And while a banjo is quite useful as a tool to enliven music halls, it’s quite another thing to bring such an instrument with you when you step up to home plate.

A “banjo hitter” lacks punch or power in the batters box, so he usually knocks “Texas League” bloop singles into the shortfields – just beyond the reach of any infielder or outfielder. Or he knocks infield “scratch hits”, “slap hits” or “punch hits”. Or maybe sometimes a surprise “drag bunt”. The point is the batter swings with easy restraint, just enough to get the ball in play somewhere -- anywhere! This is otherwise known as “Hit ‘em where they ain’t!”

The term “banjo hitter” originated for purely sonic reasons – players recalling the sound such a hit makes when ball makes contact with bat to an accompanying country twang.  It remains to be seen if the Clippers develop a team with at least one such sagacious hitter. If they do, you can expect that hitter to also be swift afoot.

* * *

Paint The Black

Any contending ball club needs great pitching. And it helps to have one or two “aces” who can “paint the black”. This term is often tossed between catchers and pitchers. It refers to the black trim around home plate.

These black marks help umpires determine the edges of home in their peripheral vision. A pitcher who “paints the black” is someone who can throw strikes on the extreme right and left sides of the plate. But if a pitcher can’t get these tough inside/outside strikes, batters eventually end up collecting “bags” or “sacks” which sometimes leads to “runs”!

* * *

Around the Horn

A baseball goes “around the horn” after a pitcher’s last warmup toss, or after a strikeout with the bases empty for the first or second out of an inning. The term may also be applied to double or triple plays. “Around the horn” is such a ritual, most infielders participate without thinking much about it.

The term recalls a time long before air flight, when transcontinental travel was long and arduous – like sailing around Africa via Cape Horn, also known to weary steamship travelers as “around The Horn”.

For anyone keeping score, an “around-the-horn” ball often goes “2-to-5-to-6-to-4” – from catcher to third base to shortstop to second base around the infield. This is baseball body language for the defensive team, visibly demonstrating that it is opposed to forward movement of any baserunners, who all must run counter clockwise – against the grain of this basic infielders ritual.

* * *

Sources:

Martinez Historical Society/Martinez Museum

Contra Costa County Historical Society

http://www.baseballfarming.com/BatControlHitters.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eephus_pitch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_baseball_(B)#banjo_hitter

http://www.youswear.com/sitemap.asp?language=Hebrew&word=Efes

https://www.amazon.com/How-Speak-Baseball-Illustrated-Ballpark/dp/1452126453/

http://www.harvard.com/book/how_to_speak_baseball_an_illustrated_guide_to_ballpark_banter/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Sewell#The_blooper_pitch

https://youtu.be/VfWXADedncM?t=42s

Ten Bucks for One Field of Dreams

Big League sluggers Babe Ruth and Shoeless Joe Jackson

Ten Bucks for One

Field of Dreams

or

A Brief History of Pro Ball

in Contra Costa County

by Jamie Jobb

“Bush League” – Also see “Bush-leaguers”. Adj.

1) Below good standards, not good or incorrect.

Pitiful, poor, terrible, awful, bad …

(Urban Dictionary)

Some folks toss out the term “semi-professional baseball” to describe teams like the neophyte Martinez Clippers – hoping to distinguish top-salaried Big League pros from gig ballplayers who play the game for grins and stipends.

But the Clippers don’t care to be known as a “semi-pro” team, and who could blame them? The new local nine consider themselves part of “an independent league” ranked at a “high single-A minor league level” – although the six-team Pacific Association is not connected in any way with Major League Baseball® and its full multitude of contract players, impartial umpires, licensed brands and dedicated minions decorated in team swag.

Paraprofessional baseball is nothing new to Contra Costa. Many so-called “semi-pro” teams existed throughout the county, particularly around the turn of the Twentieth Century and well into the World War years. Like Vaudeville, these ball clubs began to fade away with the advent of television and stay-at-home families diverted by other “post-war” pastimes. Some of them downgraded into adult recreational softball leagues open to anyone who could regularly show up for games.

Urban sophisticates called these underpaid players “bush-leaguers” – implying they were lost in The Sporting Outback somewhere south of Down Under. The term also applied to any minor league team not within the “Big Leagues”.

But on these underfunded local teams, a self-certain attitude always persisted – “If-you-build-it-they-will-come”. Indeed three of these 20^th Century “Field-of-Dreams” ballparks have survived to this very day – and that’s half of the Pacific Association’s venues. The Vallejo Admirals still use that town’s charming old wooden ballyard in Wilson Park, the San Rafael Pacifics call venerable Albert Park home and the Sonoma Stompers use Arnold Field just a short walk north of the town square.

* * *

In the old days, if your team couldn’t afford the luxury of a neighborhood ballyard, it used a convenient farmer’s field. Curious, isn’t it, that ballyards are often called “fields” to acknowledge the sport’s grass-roots? “Once in a while,” wrote Nilda Rego, “the farmer would want his field back and the team would have to move.”

Port Costa (current population 228) once was a major West Coast deep-water port that supported teams known as the Tigers, the Wild Cats and the Bull Valleys. In the 1920s, the growing towns of Concord, Pittsburg, Antioch, Richmond joined with Martinez to field semi-pro teams in the Three C League. A hundred years ago, Pacheco (current population 3,685) cheered for its All-Stars.

Rego in her 1988 Contra Costa Times article – “The national pastime was once a local obsession” – quotes Ernie Mangini whose father played for those Pacheco Stars:

“You brought in a pitcher, paid him ten dollars. That was big money.”

Rego also wrote that in the 1930s “every major manufacturing plant in the county seemed to have a baseball team”. And plant managers were always scouting for potential employees who also were productive on the basepaths. Shell Oil,

and Union 76 fielded rival teams in the Refinery League. Then, as now, players had colorful names – Louis Ferreira, Poly Northcutt, Coco Commuzzi.

Martinez historian Tom Greerty recalls the Refinery League was filled with a lot of former major leaguers who played “really good baseball”. And they “got paid” for playing ball at night by working for Shell in the daytime.

“It was a way to get a good job,” Greerty said. “The refineries were always looking for a worker who could play second base.”

* * *

Thanks to Harriett Burt and Tom Greerty; Andrea Blachman and Richard Patchin at the Martinez Museum; Priscilla Couden and Maxine Brown at the Contra Costa History Center for all their help is preparing this brief report.

* * *

“Days Gone By, Vol. 1” by Nilda Rego. Available at the Contra Costa History Museum.

"Can of Corn" and Other Ballyard Jargon

"Can of Corn" and Other

Off-the-Shelf Ballyard Jargon

by Jamie Jobb

"Can of Corn" is antique baseball jargon sprouting from dramatic roots.

When Mike Krukow says those words, he’s just repeating a catch-phrase ballplayers have said hundreds of times in hundreds of dugouts around the country for hundreds of years. The term is still used to describe a routine fly ball to the outfield. Any outfielder who catches a “can of corn” does so with very little effort.

The origin of the expression comes from an experience folks had in grocery stories two centuries ago. It involved actual cans of corn!

According to Major League Baseball’s Official Glossary, when 19^th century grocery store clerks needed an easy way to reach stacked canned goods in high places, they used long hooked sticks to knock them down. As the cans fell, the clerks would open their aprons and catch them -- like an outfielder catching a fly ball.

After such a “basket catch”, other nearby clerks would yell out: “Can of corn!”

It must be pointed out, however, that the most famous “basket catch” of all time – Giant center fielder Willie Mays’ over-the-shoulder grab of Vic Wertz’ 425-foot line drive in Game One of the 1954 World Series – absolutely WAS NOT a “can of corn”!

Source: http://m.mlb.com/glossary/idioms/can-of-corn

* * *

Ollie Pickering – Cleveland Blues

A Texas Leaguer

Bloops in Cleveland

by Jamie Jobb

All y’all may recall, a “Texas Leaguer” occurs in a baseball game when a batter knocks a short but lofty lob that falls between an infielder and an outfielder for a clean base hit. Y’all may also know the play is called a “bloop single” or a “blooper”.

Often, the batter is off-balance when hitting a “Texas Leaguer”, however many modern major leaguers have developed more solid-footed off-balance swings which deliver blooper base hits – consider Giants Hunter Pence, who is from Texas, and Pablo Sandoval, who is not.

The term dates back to 1901 when rookie Ollie Pickering left the Texas League to join the Cleveland Blues, who would later to be known as the Cleveland Indians. Swift afoot, Pickering was a natural-born leadoff hitter --- indeed he’s known for taking the very first at-bat in American League history. And in that first game, Ollie came to bat seven times, hitting bloop singles every dang time! That sure made an impression on Major League Baseball, I tell ya what!

Being a game long on tradition and short on active measures, baseball recognized an historic moment as it happened, and Pickering’s teammates were quick to name his hitting style after his "bush league" origins.

Source:

http://m.mlb.com/glossary/idioms/texas-leaguer