“Long ago and far away, life was clear, close your eyes. Remember is a place from long ago…Remember close your eyes and you can see” Harry Nilsson

In honor of these three Venice High baseball greats, I make my return to this blog this spring training of 2024.

Dalton Guthrie a 2014 Venice grad, two-time State Champ, Rawlings National High School Gold Glove winner, a gold medal winner (2016 USA Collegiate National Team) and a National Champ at the University of Florida (2017) made his MLB debut with the Phillies in 2022. This spring he is battling for a roster spot with the Boston Red Sox.

Orion Kerkering a 2019 Venice grad, two-time State Champ was a 2022 fifth round pick out of the University of South Florida. He made his MLB debut with the Phillies in 2023, becoming the first player in three decades to play in four levels of minor league play and the big leagues in the same season. This spring he may be tabbed as the Phillies’ closer.

Mike Rivera, a 2014 Venice grad, two-time state champ, a gold medal winner (2016 USA Collegiate National Team) and a National Champ at the University of Florida (2017), was a sixth-round draft pick of the Cleveland Indians in the 2017 draft. After five seasons in the Indians organization, Mike became the 21st centuries version of “Moonlight” Graham, standing on the threshold of his dreams then “watching them brush right past you like a stranger in a crowd.” Called up to the big leagues in April of 2022, he spent two weeks on the covid squad, traveling with the team, taking BP, catching bullpens with all the requisites of a major leaguer. But he never made it into a game or on the hallowed 40-man roster. When they sent him back down, he, like “Moonlight” called it a day, going home to his family to “get on with my life.” This spring he can be found in the first base coaching box and working with catchers at the University of Florida.

It was April of 2017 when I last posted here. It seems like a lifetime ago and it was in fact four lifetimes ago. Since that spring Ayla, Henry, Melrose and Emmett have arrived and I am now a Papa 12 times over. By the end of the month, Micah will join the mix and 12 will become a Bakers Dozen. In that short six-year span, we have been Trumpized, Covidized, Bidenized, Fauchied, Facetimed, Woked, Twitterfied, Magafied and Genderfied. And in the midst of the madness, journalism has been revolutionized. Great journalism still exists; however, you have to look for it, do your own homework and one thing is for certain; it’s virtually impossible to find it, in once reliable places. Our country has been retching for nearly a decade seeking to redefine itself and in the midst of this redefinition a schism has been created the likes of which we have not seen since the days of the Great Emancipator. Our country and culture are changing leaving heads spinning, and life, sometimes not so clear and other times crystal clear.

Since my last post, I’ve retired from the teaching profession where for a quarter-century I taught what could best described as wayward boys, of all colors, creeds and ethnicities. I have entered my eighth decade of wandering this planet only to learn that I am the problem. Imagine my surprise to learn, from various allegedly educated people (who do not know me or anything about me) that I am a racist! It’s not my fault though, because you see, I am white, adorned in “white privilege,” and therefore I don’t even know that I’m racist. And, coincidently, if I dare say “I’m not racist” it’s proof that I am, of course, racist. Confused? Hold on, I’m also a guy and therefore, according to some I’m a member and product of the “toxic patriarchy.” Which is sure to earn me a one-way ticket straight to hell. Ah, but I digress, another post for another time.

My writing has continued, just not here. In 2019 Jackie’s Newport was released and in April 2023 two more: Yankees in the Hall of Fame and Dodgers in the Hall of Fame. All are available by clicking the link to my Amazon page to the right so feel free to help yourself.

I am in the process of sorting through my sports memorabilia, a bittersweet task to be sure but what I’ve realized is there are a boatload of stories associated with all my “stuff,” and this is the first of them. At the request of ALL of my children, I am selling off my baseball cards. An extensive collection and as I began my perusal of Ebay to decide which direction I want to go; a funny thing happened. I began a collection of Topps 1960 baseball cards. My kids laughed, and so did I but I am going to sell, honest!

And that brings me to my story. My first trip to Fenway came in 1959, Ted was nearing the end and though my six-year-old mind had a rudimentary understanding of what that all meant, it would take decades before I could grasp the meaning of me watching Ted Williams play left field at Fenway Park in my first visit to that sacred edifice.

I knew all about the Red Sox “Big Guns.” Ted had battled, down to the wire, with teammate Pete Runnels for the American League batting title and Jackie Jensen was the 1958 MVP. The Red Sox had been a “first division,” team four straight years. First division meant that they had finished in the top four of an eight team league. They had winning records but never finished closer than 12 games to the AL pennant winning NY Yankees. A solid baseball team, hope always sprung eternal that “this year could be the year” and they would topple the Yankees. The 1959 season was no different, especially for this six-year-old little fella.

This was the year I started to pay attention to baseball. Having just learned to read, I scoured the sports pages of the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and the Record American. I paid particular attention to the box scores. And of course, came the requisite collection of baseball cards, and why not, the wonderful world of color brought to you for only a nickel with a piece of bubblegum thrown in to boot! The Red Sox opened the season in Yankee Stadium and then it was on to Fenway for a nine game homestand facing the Washington Senators, Baltimore Orioles and the Yankees. And a six-year-old boy was on the threshold of discovering his first baseball hero. Was it one of the “big guns?”

1959 pack of baseball cards.

Ted signed a contract with Fleer Card Company for 1959 and did not appear on a Topps card. He hit .254 and for the first time in his career did not lead the league in one offensive category. Not willing to go out after such a paltry season, he played in 1960, insisting on a 30% pay cut. He hit .316 and homered in his last at bat. But it wasn’t him.

Jackie led the league in RBIs in 1958 and 1959. A virulent fear of flying forced an early retirement following the “59” season. He returned in 1961 for one last go round. Not him either.

Pete hit .314 in 1959 and was an all-star. He won batting titles in 1960 (.320) and 1962 (.326). A lifetime .290 hitter he managed the Red Sox for the last 16 games of the 1966 season. Nope, not him either!

It was this guy!!!!

GENNARO (JERRY) JOSEPH CASALE

After dropping the season opener 3-2 to the Yanks, the Sox beat the Senators 7-3 in the home opener; and on the next day before “3,498 shivering fans…at frigid Fenway Park…25-year-old Jerry Casale” made his first major league start.

It was 1952 when he signed with the Red Sox out of Manual Training High School in Brooklyn NY. Signing for $40,000 the “top prospect” reported to the San Jose Red Sox in the California League, the Red Sox Class C affiliate. In eight years in the minors, Casale had 140 starts, pitched 1062 innings and went 81-55 with a 3.94 ERA. He struck out 838 averaging 7 strikeouts per 9 innings. He also could mash a baseball! He hit .217 while thumping 18 homers and knocking in 83 runs in his 619 at bats. Averaging two homers and 10 RBI per season was pretty damn good for a pitcher. And it would be no different in his debut as a Red Sox starter.

It took two hours and thirty-two minutes for Jerry Casale to dispose of the Washington Senators and he did so in dramatic fashion, striking out 1957 AL home run king Roy Sievers three times. The second time came in the top of the fifth with the bases loaded, to end the inning. With his team leading 2-1, the rookie flame-thrower walked three straight hitters, before zipping a called strike three passed the veteran slugger. “I think I crossed up Sievers” he told Boston Globe reporter Cliff Keane. “I think he was looking for a breaking pitch, but I gave the fastball everything I had, and I don’t think he was expecting it.” He struck him out a third time to end the game. But in the immortal words of the delectable Miss Vito in My Cousin Vinny, “There’s moah!” A lot more. In the Red Sox half of the sixth, Jackie Jenson led off with a double. After Frank Malzone fouled out, Dick Gernet walked, which was followed by a Gary Geiger single scoring Jensen and stretching the Red Sox lead to 3-1. Catcher Sammy White then fouled out bringing up Jerry Casale. The rookie hurler had already contributed a sacrifice bunt in the fifth inning which set up a run scoring single by Pete Runnels. There was no bunt sign this time and Jerry took the first two pitches for balls. “I was looking for the curve,” said Casale, “it was a little up there.” Senators’ righty Russ Kemmerer confirmed it, “I got it up a little high,” he told Cliff Keane, “He got it lots higher didn’t he.” Indeed, he did, launching a three run smash high over the left center-field wall, over the screen and on to the roof of a building on Lansdowne Street.

Fourteen-year-old Billy Street from South Boston retrieved the ball from the roof and returned it to Casal receiving an autographed baseball in return. “Someone said there was a ball on the roof top”, the gleeful youngster told the Globe’s Harold Kaese, “so I climbed up and got it.”

Jerry Casale was the center of attention, effusively praised for his remarkable performance which invoked the memories of the some of the game’s all-time greats. “It wasn’t one of those tainted Fenway Park taps either,” wrote Cliff Keane, ” But a tremendous clout, over the left centerfield wall and screen, across the street, atop a building. Possibly it was 500 feet, belonging in the same class with those hit by Jimmy Foxx…Hank Greenberg and some of the other muscular men of the past.” And then came the headline of Harold Kaese’s article invoking the sainted memory of the man who bore such nicknames as “The Colossus”, “Caveman,” “Tarzan”, and “The Mauler” when he played for the Red Sox in the nascent days of Fenway Park. “…Probably the longest home run hit by a pitcher in Boston since Babe Ruth.” The similarities were everywhere. Babe sent to a home for “incorrigibles” as a little boy, Jerry losing his father at six and his mother at 14. Both heavily influenced by Roman Catholic clergy, Babe by Brother Mathias at St. Mary’s, Jerry by Father John Keane at St. Francis Xavier church in Brooklyn. Both clouting balls higher and farther than most, both pitchers and both Red Sox. For me it was the perfect storm; A pitcher who could hit bombs!!! Gets no better than that! Jerry Casale, a first-generation Italian immigrant (just like my dad) was my guy! But yes Miss Vito…There’s still “moah.” A bunch “moah.”

Four days later was Patriots Day, the marathon ran through Kenmore Square and Frank Malzone’s home run in the 12th beat the Yankees 5-4, putting the Sox 4-3 on the season. Five days hence, they beat the Senators in Washington for a 6-5 mark on the year, in fourth place, four games behind the Cleveland Indians. They would never be over .500 again and by mid-May it was clear that this was not “next year.” On the last day of June, they hit last place, two days later manager Mike Higgins was fired and replaced by Rudy York (for one game), a loss and then Billy Jurgis.

Billy Jurgis, the Red Sox, and Elijah “Pumpsie” Green, were on the precipice of history.

Streaky was the earmark of this club. They dropped the first two under Jurgis but then, holy mackerel! They won seven out of their next eight including, get this, a FIVE GAME SWEEP OF THE YANKEES at Fenway! They dropped five of their next seven.

And then…History was made!

The Red Sox occupied the cellar in the eight team American League when “Pumpsie” arrived. They were 40-50, eleven games behind the Indians and White Sox. He made his major league debut and history on July 21, 1959, in Commiskey Park against the White Sox. With the Red Sox trailing 2-1 in the top of the eighth, Vic Wertz, batting for shortstop Don Buddin, singled leading off the inning. Jurgis inserted Green to run for Wertz. He was stranded on first as Pete Runnels lined to right, Marty Keough popped to third and Dick Gernet fouled out to the catcher. He replaced Buddin at short for the eighth, did not see a chance and was on deck in the top of the ninth with runners on first and third when Jackie Jensen grounded out to end the game, a 5-4 loss.

Ted Williams immediately took the 25-year-old rookie under his wing, making him his warm-up throwing partner before games.

“Pumpsie’s” first at bat came the following afternoon against Hall of Fame pitcher Early Wynn. He went 0-3 with a walk, however, Jerry Casale hit his second homer of the year and at the breakfast table the following day, that six-year-old kid in Weymouth Massachusetts learned that “Pumpsie” Green was a switch-hitter which immediately added him to the list of “my guys.” The Red Sox were stumbling through to the end of the road trip losing 10 of 13 games and every day I checked the box scores, no “Pumpsie.”

A switch hitter!!!!! How awesome is that!!! “Pumpsie joined Casale as one of “My Guys.”

Then….Still more Miss Vito…Another move.

A week later the stumbling Sox reached down to Minneapolis once again and brought up “the future” as shortstop Jim (not Joe) Mahoney and pitcher Earl Wilson arrived. Mahoney, a slick field no hit guy replaced Don Buddin at short. My dad referred to Buddin as E-6. Pumpsie was inserted at second base and Runnels moved to first. But what caught my six-year-old eye was Earl Wilson. He arrived hitting .356 with three homers and 10 RBI. It is worthy of note that his OPS in Minneapolis was 1.010. Of course, in 1959 OPS had not yet been invented but in retrospect it provides a great indicator of Earl’s prowess at the plate. And he was 10-2 while leading the American Association in strikeouts. Another pitcher that could hit bombs!!! I was in heaven and my triumvirate of heroes was complete. Two pitchers who could hit bombs and a switch-hitter would be my bright spots in an otherwise dreary year!

On July 27th, in Cleveland, Jerry Casale stopped a six-game skid beating Herb Score and the first place Indians 4-0, hurling a three-hit shutout. The following day was a truly historic one in the annals of the Boston Red Sox. It was the first game of a double-header pitting Gary Bell against 6′ 6″ Red Sox right-hander Frank Sullivan. “Sully entered the fourth inning with a 2-0 lead and he had not surrendered a hit. And then…A lead-off walk to Minnie Minoso, a single to Terry Francona’s dad “Tito,” a double to Rocky Colavito, a single to George Strikland, followed by a two-run homer to 31-year-old rookie Jim Baxes. And when the dust cleared, the Sox were down 5-2 and Ike Delock was on the mound. Delock was superb, holding the Indians at bay for three innings, and in the top of the seventh Billy Jurgis sent up “Pumpsie” to pinch-hit. He flied out to center and when the inning was over, the second black man in one week, 24-year-old Earl Wilson, emerged from the bullpen to make his MLB debut with the Boston Red Sox, replacing Green in the lineup. Perhaps ironically, perhaps serendipitously, perhaps both, the second black man to play for the Boston Red Sox, replaced the first black man to do so.

It took Wilson only six pitches to dispose of Minoso, Francona and Colavito, the heart of the Indians order. And he wasn’t even nervous!

Just “scared to death.” On the day that Pumpsie Green was replaced by Earl Wilson in the line-up, the Red Sox were 42-56, in last place 15 and half games behind the first place White Sox. From that day until the end of the year, they went 33-23. Although they finished the season in fifth place, (75-79 and 19 games out of first), that 33-23 mark was second best in the league trailing only the pennant winning White Sox.

Two days later, the Sox left Cleveland bound for Detroit and a three game weekend series to wrap up their road trip. Wilson was tabbed for his first big league start. There were 31,916 fans watching “Pumpsie” Green lead-off the game with a single to right. He scored on a double by Gary Geiger who then scored on a single by Ted Williams; staking the flame throwing rookie to a 2-0 lead before he even fired a pitch. Wilson faced 20 batters in his debut start. He did not surrender a run; in fact, he did not surrender a hit and he had four strikeouts. He added an RBI double off of Hall of Famer Jim Bunning and he was leading 4-0 when he left the game. And he didn’t get the win. He didn’t get the win because he only went 3 2/3 innings. an inning and a third short of qualifying for the win. You see, he walked nine Tigers! Earl’s first start was, in fact, a microcosm of his entire pro career. In the minor leagues he averaged 7.6 strikeouts per nine innings and 7.5 walks per nine. There was never a doubt about his athleticism, nor his ability, nor his strength. The question was, can he harness command of his pitches?

The Red Sox returned home on August 2nd, a much different baseball team, that had left Boston two weeks earlier. Having taken two of three from the Tigers, they won five of the first six games of the homestand, but alas, the see-saw of the streaky Sox continued throughout the summer. They’d win six of nine, lose four, win four, lose five and on and on. But then came the last three weeks of the season and in that stretch my Boston Red Sox were the best team in the American League. They were 12-5, including 8-2 in the last 10 games, with three of those wins…the always exciting walk-offs. Leaving a six-year-old little boy absolutely convinced that 1960 was going to be their year.

As for my guys?

Jerry Casale (with catcher Sammy White) went 13-8 on the year with a 4.31 ERA and led the team in wins. He threw 179.2, innings, second most on the team. He tied for the team lead in shutouts with three and his nine complete games was second to Tom Brewer (11). He hit .169 garnering 10 hits on the year. Three of them were homers, two of them were doubles and he had nine RBI. It turned out that 1959 was his best season. He fell to 2-9 in 1960 and was left unprotected in the American League expansion draft and the LA Angels made him their fifth choice. Jerry would throw only 91.1 more innings in the big leagues with the Angels and Tigers, and he would win only two more games, one with each. However, he still had a role to play in baseball and Red Sox history.

On Tuesday April 11, 1961, the Los Angeles Angels played their inaugural baseball game in Baltimore, defeating the Orioles 7-2. Cold, rain and a few sprinkles of snow blanketed the northeast causing postponements everywhere. Thus, the new franchise spent their first four days in first place. Their second game was at Fenway Park. The brand spanking new Angels arrived in town with nine players who once belonged to the Red Sox. However, the one in the spotlight was my boy, Jerry Casale, the pitcher who hit bombs. A little over 7,000 folks crowded into Fenway on that chilly afternoon when the Angels took the field behind Casale. The Red Sox touched their old teammate with a run in the bottom of the first, when rookie Carl Yastrzemski singled in Chuck Schilling, his first major league RBI. It was all the Red Sox would need as Ike Delock twirled a four hit shutout and Jerry Casale took the loss, the first in the history of the LA Angels.

Jerry had one more chapter to write in Red Sox history and it would take place on May 9th in Los Angeles’ Wrigley Field as once again he was matched up against Ike Delock. With the game scoreless in the bottom of the second, Casale came to the plate with two outs and a runner on second base. He proceeded to launch, what would be the last homer of his career over the 412-foot sign in dead center field, staking himself and his mates to a 2-0 lead. In the top of the fifth, the Red Sox had knotted the score at two when rookie Carl Yastrzemski strolled to the plate. The Boston Globe’s Bob Holbrook described the action…”the hard swinging left-hander pickled a 3-1 pitch thrown by Casale…it was a savage line drive that leaped over the left field wall for Yaz’s first major league homer.” One of my boys had departed and the guy who would become my “all-time guy” had arrived, Carl Michael Yastrzemski.

Earl and Pumpsie.

ELIJAH, JERRY “PUMPSIE” GREEN

In four seasons “Pumpsie” played 327 games with the Red Sox, 133 of them in the 1960 season. He spent most of the 1961 season as a starter. It was his most productive year as he hit .260, with career highs in home runs (6), RBI (27), doubles (12) and triples (3). A solid utility player he divided time between short and second and in December of 1962 he was traded to the brand new, New York Mets, along with Tracy Stallard and a player to be named later. In return the Red Sox received Felix Mantilla. In yet another ironic twist Mantilla would become the Red Sox first player of color to be named an All-Star.

In Danny Peary’s book We Played the Game, Pumpsie said “When I was playing, being the first black on the Red Sox wasn’t nearly as big a source of pride as it would be once I was out of the game. At the time I never put much stock in it or thought about it. Later I understood my place in history. I don’t know if I would have been better in another organization with more black players. But as it turned out, I became increasingly proud to have been with the Red Sox as their first black.” He later told Harvey Frommer “There’s really nothing that interesting about me. I am just an everyday person happy with what I did, I take a lot of pride in having played for the Red Sox…I would like to be remembered in Red Sox history as just another ballplayer…That was what it was really all about, from the beginning.”

I chuckled when I read these passages for in a way, I was like “Pumpsie.” I fell in love with “Pumpsie” Green when I was six, for one reason, he could switch hit. He was “just another ball player” but he could SWITCH HIT!! Just like Mickey Mantle. And like “Pumpsie” I was far removed from 1959 when I realized what “Pumpsie” Green meant to the Boston Red Sox and their history and how much more I appreciate and admire him for it!

EARL WILSON

Ten years ago, I wrote the piece below which tells my tale of Earl Wilson. And there is “moah” Miss Vito, so much ‘moah” but that’s for another post. I would only add this.

Earl’s page from the 1965 Red Sox yearbook which he signed for me in 1965. No matter what my kids say, I ain’t selling!