Thursday, June 19, 2014

Number 19


Photo by Rick Stewart

From my earliest days in San Diego, I knew the name Tony Gwynn. He preceded me by one year, arriving in 1977 from Long Beach to claim a basketball scholarship at San Diego State University. The following year, he played both baseball and basketball, lettered in both, and was nearly recruited by the San Diego Clippers when he left SDSU. But the Padres intercepted him in the third round of the baseball draft and the rest is history.

San Diego is not your thriving sports mecca. One columnist referred to Tony as the "lone light in an otherwise pitch-black sports town." Sorry and sad, but not far from the truth. We love our Padres and Chargers, but the foamy surf from the ocean casts a chill, like a slow wave rippling the sand. They're just way to mellow about winning. At bat, Tony was the winning factor,  and has been called the "best hitter this generation has seen," claiming dozens of titles and records during his twenty years with the Padres. He was on fifteen all-star teams and made the top ten MVPs ten times, with a  batting record that rivaled Ted Williams:  Tony Gwynn Stats



 
Photo by Tim Mantoani

In his post-Padres years, Tony coached the SDSU Aztecs, so he never left us.  Not that he wasn't lured.  All the big guys wanted Tony, but he was true blue San Diego, and for that, we celebrate him like our favorite son. Because he was. I'm not even the biggest sports fan, and didn't really follow his career, but what I'm reading and hearing tells me I lost out. This guy was the real deal, the genuine golden athlete, the most unassuming fella you could ever meet, and the one who made you feel good because his laugh was so effervescent.

Keith Olbermann says it best, because he knew Tony, he followed his career, and he loved San Diego's most humble, joyful sports hero, the guy we lost this week, the guy who won't be replaced any time soon. See Olbermann's tribute on ESPN:   Keith Olbermann Tribute to Tony Gwynn.

National Baseball Hall of Fame exhibit (en.wikipedia.org)










Friday, June 6, 2014

The Meaning of Horses and Home

Ah, the tug of the track, the horses, the feeling of home.  It's gotten to me again, but we're past the first Saturday in May. The Kentucky Derby already ran. But something is different this year. The winner is still running, for a bigger, brighter, bolder trophy in oh so many ways.

They call him the "people's horse." California Chrome won the Derby, then the Preakness, and now those four socks and oversized star with its nasal strip are going for the Triple Crown at the 146th Belmont Stakes. I'm utterly sentimental about it, go figure. Watery eyes, trickling chills, and listening to CDs -- the "Kentucky Sounds" and "Bluegrass Number 1's" -- volume high.



This weekend reminds me of the best of my two worlds -- Kentucky and California -- where I've spent the most formative and poignant years and times of my life.

Oh, the sun shines bright...tis summer......the corn tops ripe and the meadow's in the bloom, in my old Kentucky home, far away...Weep no more my lady....we will sing one song for my Old Kentucky Home...far away.  

Growing up in Louisville, we usually celebrated Derby Day with a jackpot at Marty and Popa's (my maternal grandparents) house on the corner of Whitney and Southern Parkway, blocks from Churchill Downs. But the memories of the day started much sooner, when trainers or visitors rented a room from Marty, weeks before the big race. There was Tinsley Webb, the pastel artist who drew lovely, oval-shaped pastels of my sister, Mila, and me that hang in the arched hallway of my home today. Cheery Dot and Al from Florida were race fans who booked the room for years in a row and signed on as part of the family, in touch for decades after their betting days faded. And the trainers whose names I forget took us to visit the horses and barns on Churchill's backside, etched with low, green-roofed buildings and dusty roads in a village of yelping dogs, crusty characters, and grooms washing down stately thoroughbreds with a garden hose.

On Derby day, our family room front porch, with its extra-large, real-life screen of the parkway, gave the best views of the journey to the track. The perfect setting to feel a part of the festivities. Perched in the big swing that hung from the ceiling, our legs pumping, we kids could take in the sights, sounds, and fever of the pre-Derby crowd. By late morning, horns honked and traffic slowed to a lazy crawl. The Chevys, Oldsmobiles, Fords, and Buicks carried rich locals and famous visitors from all parts of the world, on their way to another race day for some, or a lifetime dream come true for others. Hands waved back from rolled-down windows as the cars cruised the four-lane road on the other side of the bridle path, which stretched from the rental stable a few houses down to Iroquois Park, dozens of blocks away, at the far end of the tree-shaded parkway. Racegoers paraded on the sidewalk too. They came in all sizes and shapes, in short colorful dresses and suits, big flowery hats, shiny high heels, dapper sportcoats, and horsey ties. They abandoned their cars on a neighborly lawn turned parking lot for the day. Out back, past the crumbling, rock-framed fish pond, the white, single-car garage and driveway rutted with grass, next to the beagles' running pen, Popa lured his own collection of American automobiles and pocketed the bills in his overalls.

Who will watch the home place.....tend my heart's dear space....when I am gone from here?.... in my grandfather's shed.....tools....they've patched this old place....it was my place when I was quite small....I wander around, touching each blessed thing.....memories swirl 'round me like birds on the wing.... 

An hour or so before the Derby, Marty's house bubbled over with aunts and uncles and cousins, all younger than me. My sister, Mila, and I were the oldest of the grandkids. A lot of screaming, shouting, and laughing created the same joyful celebrations that were part of all the holidays of my youth, when hide-and-seek was the game du jour in the rambling back hallways that led to the upstairs/downstairs apartments Popa constructed from scratch. We knew it was showtime when the big glass bowl came out, with papers folded into tiny squares to hide the numbers penciled inside. If you wanted in, you paid a dollar for every pick you plucked from the jiggling papers. Even if you drew a long shot, you held it tight in your fist throughout the race and rooted for it to cross the finish line first so you could win the jackpot.

Speaking of winners...on my dad's side, his Uncle Roscoe won the 1913 Kentucky Derby riding Donerail, a 92 to 1 long shot. A two-dollar bet paid $184.90, which was probably more like a million bucks back then. Earl Ruby, a well known Louisville Courier-Journal sportswriter, told Roscoe Goose's story and called him the Dean of the Derby in The Golden Goose, a biography with a foreword by Eddie Arcaro, the five-time Derby winning jockey. In 2013, the Tuesday before the 100th anniversary of his win, which still holds the record for biggest long shot to win the Derby, the Louisville newspaper ran a giant front page photo of Roscoe on Donerail. The article continued inside with a full-page, six-column story and photo of his wife, Fanny, and him. Though small in stature, Uncle Roscoe was a gentle giant of a man. He went on to become a trainer and owner and one of the first inductees into the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame. But even greater than his racing record was his achievement in the department of human rights, long before it became a liberal cause. Roscoe took black jockeys and trainers into hotels and restaurants where they weren't so welcome and stood up for them in the jockey rooms at racetracks. He and Fanny also brought young men from Ormsby Village, a place for wayward boys, to live with them in their home. A legendary figure in racing, he's a hero whose bloodline I'm proud to claim.

Born in the valley, and and raised in the trees, of Western Kentucky on wobbly knees,
With Mama beside you to help you along...could never prepare you...
And it's run for the roses...as fast as you can...It's the chance of a lifetime...In a lifetime of chance...it's high time you joined in the dance....It's high time you joined in the dance.

When we were in high school, Mother and Daddy took Mila and me to the Clubhouse area on Derby day.  Enthusiastic race fans who grew up in the Churchill Downs southend neighborhood, our parents usually went to the Oaks, the big fillies' race held the day before the Derby, when locals show up. But they wanted us to experience the excitement of Derby day first hand, maybe even a few sips of their mint juleps. I remember long, winding gardens overflowing with brilliant roses and flowers, and paved walkways and patios with friendly strangers who gasped when the gates banged open like a gunshot, and shoved their fists in the air when the horses rounded the bend toward the final stretch. Daddy loved to tell stories about Derby days when he was a little rascal, sitting on rooftops to watch the races, sneaking through broken boards to wander the backside and infield, or paying off somebody to get good seats when he was older. One year, he and his buddy, Jimmy, played the horses with the aim of winning enough money to follow them around the country to all the famous racetracks. Somehow, that one fizzled faster than the horses ran because they kept losing bets

During college, my first husband and I went to a medical student party with his classmates the night before the Derby. The entertainment was injecting a pile of bright oranges with straight vodka for the picnic coolers we'd carry to the infield the next day. Alcohol was prohibited, so necessity became the mother of our invention and inebriation. The Derby infield was an all-day sun festival, reminiscent of future concerts sans pot, with a few sightings of fast horses. An ocean of colorful blankets, outfits and hats became ever more dim as the afternoon sun lowered toward the horizon, and scattered orange peels and empty mint julep glasses announced a successful day.

Jimmy Linehan, Daddy's childhood buddy, was the family friend who always had a box at Churchill. It was Jimmy who gave Mother his box for the Oaks when I took my California husband back for the Derby. When my daughters turned 18 and 21, each of them made a trip with me to experience Derby day in Louisville, which included a meetup with my uncles, aunts and a cousin at the track, and a stop at Marty's house afterwards. Rod Stewart, Joan Rivers, the first President Bush, Phyllis George, and many others filled the list of our celebrity sightings. In 2011, Dan and I were thrilled to share the Derby and Oaks with friends Fay and Denis from New Zealand. Denis' father owned horses, including one of the biggest long shots to win a race in New Zealand, so it was his lifelong dream to attend a Derby. Jimmy worked some magic and secured a box for us, adjacent to his. What a weekend, in the company of my dad's childhood buddy, with his family and friends. Nostalgia and tears flowed with all the memories. It was another Derby Day that will be embedded in our hearts and minds forever, until we enter the great big Derby in the sky.