Chapter 1 | Chapter 3
Chapter Two: Year One (Summer '87 - Spring '88)
I suppose The Beat became an official baseball team when Jim went to Park and Rec in June of 1987 to pay the dues and sign us up for the Summer season. We had considered getting a sponsor, as had the San Francisco Brewing Company, but in the end decided that we didn't want someone else's logo on our own personal miracle. So we all chipped in, as we have ever since.
The real thrill was a few weeks later when the schedule and paperwork arrived in the mail. I rushed to Jim and Marc's after work and there it was, The Beat vs. Scandia Realty, with opening day set for July 25th. We poured over the rulebook and started to fill in the gaps of our baseball knowledge. There was a sheet that every player had to sign agreeing to some rules of conduct, essentially to be a good sport. "Everyone has to read each rule and sign," said Jim with a growing intensity. Indeed, the next two weeks were that for all of us. More practice, constant debate over the starting lineup, both defense and batting order. Like a newly-crafted machine, our parts were being finely honed for our first performance, until someone noticed that the night before Opening Day was a Grateful Dead concert.
There is little doubt that a team with the name of The Beat would always find its power in music, it's rhythm and its message. And the concert experience has certainly added to the rich fabric of the team. But the great game of baseball can be a harsh lover. If you are devoted, it will shower you with riches far beyond the material. If, however, you take it for granted, it will find you and force upon you the consequence of your actions. And for those managers who betray the very standard they espouse for their team, the gods of baseball reserve a very special place in hell.
July 25, 1987, was a beautiful day in San Francisco. The gentle breeze off the Pacific was just enough to cool a sunny day. Even at Rossi Field, set in the Richmond district on the ocean side of town, the persistent summer fog held back, perhaps paying homage to the first steps of a great journey.
The Beat had put together a solid defensive team and adequate hitting lineup. Marc was the starting pitcher, with Dave Hamner his battery mate behind the plate. Dave had left the Monsters a year earlier, thinking it was time for him to let go of the game. For him, The Beat was a second chance, a time for a seasoned warrior to bring the savvy and leadership that are crucial in a team's first season.
The infield had John at first, Kent at second, Kevin at short, and Jim at third. Kevin had been played incessantly at second during his brief and discouraging little league stint, and he hungered for the challenge of the long throw. Likewise, Jim displayed a moth-like attraction for the hot corner, as though the effort would not be worthy unless the challenge were the highest.
The outfield had Dan, Todd, and Steve from left to center. That left far right field, and the plan was to rotate the women into that position. That day Mary Pactwa started. Mary's solution to setting the lineup was to pull names out of a hat. She may have been right.
The account of the game, and most others, can be read in On The Beat. The headline nailed it: "Beaten Up And Left For (The) Dead." At least half the team was running on fumes. Everything we thought we learned we couldn't make work. We lost our cool, threw the ball away. I was keeping score, and started to give the ump a hard time about the count in the first inning. When Dave came in from catching, he got within an inch of my face and said, "Don't you ever try to show up an umpire like that again. They're human, and you have to respect them as much as you respect the game."
Lessons learned even in catastrophe.
As the last inning approached, it became evident that Jim had forgotten the substitution pattern. To his credit, he had a lot to think about. Unfortunately, he no longer had a lot to think with. I substituted myself for Marc, determined that I was not going to miss playing in our first game. Everyone should have. It was what we worked for, the fulfillment of our shared effort. And everyone did. Except for June Dibble.
There is a picture of the team after the game, full of smiles, and indeed it was great to have actually fielded an official team. But if a picture is worth a thousand words, then the story of this day was a thousand and two, and those two were "Fuck You!" Within a few minutes, June was screaming at Kent; though the words are long forgotten, the face of rage will haunt forever. Neither would ever play for the team again. Kordt was livid: "Well, Jim, you can play your friends or you can play to win. You can't do both." His playing days were likewise over. As insult to injury, it was Todd Sattler's one and only game. He had decided to start law school in Minnesota, even though Cathy would stay another year to complete her studies.
A blowout loss. Four players gone, including two of our best athletes. The team shaken to the core, with our very philosophy trashed on the field and held up for mockery.
They say that time begins on opening day, although we had all assumed it would be a good time. Because of our own dereliction, we would not taste the fruits of our efforts, or receive the game's saving nourishment. Like Moses, we had glimpsed the Promised Land, but would be denied entry for a generation.
Thus ended The Beat's first day in organized baseball.
The Beat would not win on the field that year. The details are available in the newly reconstructed On The Beat website. But a few off-field events stand out.
Towards the end of the season, Jim was informed by the league office that our next scheduled opponent, Victory Outreach, had already forfeited two games and was thus out of the league. Our first "victory" would be by default. Jim, although manager, had long since shared decision-making with Kevin and myself, the captain and coach. He suggested that we not tell the team of the forfeit and instead have a full-squad practice, hopefully providing a little focus and discipline at a time when we were drifting. We agreed. When the day came, however, people were upset. Steve Bruckman was especially vocal, seething at being somehow manipulated. T. J. McHose walked off the field, never to play for the team again. At that moment I wavered, started to side with Steve, and generally allowed Jim to take the fall.
That was wrong. We may have screwed up, but I was part of that decision, and I left my buddy hanging in the wind. My only solace now is that it happens to the best of us; even Peter denied Jesus when the chips were down. But if you're going to build a team, you can't just go with the emotion of the moment. You have to build a respect for each other and a dedication to the game. Sometimes a young team has to fail trying to know how bad that feels, to learn what to avoid, what not to do.
A final note on Victory Outreach: I saw a flier a few weeks later for an event they were holding. They were a drug rehabilitation program, apparently government-sponsored. That The Beat survived adversity when Victory Outreach didn't says a lot about how teams are built.
One other person worth noting is Kevin Dunlap, one of The Beat's first fans. I met Kevin and his family when I first moved west in 1976. He was a gay house-husband who had managed to make a child with his androgynous wife. He took care of me for a month that first year after I had been injured during a robbery at a night-shift convenience store. Like Tim Leary, Kevin could fly you high and swoop you low. He took me to the gates of hell to show me the glories of heaven. He taught me my hardest lesson, that all the grand notions of the world come back to how well we relate with each other, that all the philosophizing doesn't mean a lick if it doesn't help us grow closer. He became the spiritual inspiration for all of my writing since.
Kevin's daughter, Terra, took a video of our last game. Kevin Austin was at short, I was playing second. The view was across the infield from behind first base, showing us both, crouched and waiting for the ball. When the batter didn't swing, we both straightened up, took two steps back, paused, took two steps forward, and crouched again, as if synchronous swimmers, but oblivious to each other. Such is the inherent teamwork of the game.
A week later, Kevin felt dizzy and was having trouble walking. I took him to the clinic, and will always remember the doctor asking me to leave the room after the initial tests, so that he could talk with Kevin alone, and how he came out a bit later to tell me that they would have to keep him to do more tests. There is no good way to say, "Your best friend is dying." But we did get him back home, and for two months shared even the bitter humor of a body and mind slowly shutting down. The day after Thanksgiving we took him back, as the pain was unbearable. On December 1, 1987, Kevin Dunlap died.
1988
By the end of 1987, The Beat had failed to win a game on the field and had lost players, and perhaps friends. We couldn't help but feel that we had failed in our effort to become a team. Anyone can get together and lose every game. It takes a team to win one. Over the winter Jim searched his heart and soul and decided to reach beyond our circle of friends to add to the teams skills and savvy. What he may not have known was that he would find a few more diamonds in our midst.
The first of those was his older brother, Michael Harvey. Michael was a drinker, with a beer belly so big it might explode. He once told me that if you drank enough tequila to throw up, then slugged down some more, that's when you'd get the really good hallucinations. I wondered why anyone would drink so much. One day at practice, he was hitting grounders to the infielders. I was walking behind the backstop and found a ball that had gotten away. I threw it over the top and yelled out "Incoming," which up till then had been a cute joke. Michael spun in terror; his face conveyed the many horrors of a war in a far away jungle, a war that no one should have had to face, but that so many did. I would never speak that word again. And the game would embrace Michael, and give him a chance to heal.
The other was Anna Sandoval, Dennis Harvey's girlfriend and eventual lifelong partner. Early in 1987, she had come upon a group of us playing a board game for the umpteenth time and challenged, "You can't just sit around playing Sorry for the rest of your lives!" And a sorry group we were. Now a year later, she had decided to join the team she had helped create with a kick in the seat of our pants. Her raw talent and fresh enthusiasm would be pivotal that first spring as The Beat sought to complete its birth.
The third one-year wonder was Roy Nelson. Ramblin' Roy, that Boxcar Boy, which only Jim can explain. Roy had all the physical grace of a beached whale and the social charm of a gentle giant. Two memories stand out. Trying to stretch a single into a rare double, he sort of half-slid, half-dove into second base. He was safe, but we struggled to muffle our laughter on the bench. Out of kindness? Because he was our teammate? Or because he gave his heart and soul to the game, and our respect was stronger than our amusement? Roy also was the first catcher to "work" with me as a pitcher. Once brought me a cartoon of birds playing baseball ("Shoe"). The catcher brought a flipchart to the mound, flipped over the cover, and pointed to the words "Dare to throw heat on 3 and 0." It was one of my early lessons, that I had to face adversity rather than avoid it if the team and I were to move on.
Of the other five members of the class of '88, one, Mark Chan, stayed only long enough for a cup of coffee. A more colorful two-year stint was put in by Gary Rothlein, who was as close as we came to a court fool. Gary was a decent player; even his nickname, Offline Rothlein, came from only a few of his throws from the outfield. But Gary was the most pompous and self-important person ever to play for The Beat, and thus begged to be put down. He was very proud of how hairy his back was, and took every opportunity to doff his top and show it off. The humorous/philosophical banter between himself and Sherilyn on his lack of attire is well chronicled in On The Beat.
Willie Doyle stayed for five seasons and was the team's first family man. His wife and son, Wendy and Patrick, came to all the games. Having a kindergartner idolize his dad and get excited about the game meant a lot to the rest of us, an innocent confirmation of the joy and camaraderie we all felt. Willie was a solid and stocky infielder, plugging a desperate hole at second. Fatefully, he was wrapping up a stint in another league, mainly of advertising firms, and would soon connect us to the third great branch of The Beat family tree.
Lasting three full years would be Tim Hesselgren, who perhaps brought the highest degree of professionalism to the team, certainly in its early years. Tim was a nuts and bolts, serious about practice player/coach, who would work us again and again on the relay from the outfield. He was right to point out that such a basic play separated flounderers from champions. Until our defense could play crisp and not give up the extra base, we would never win, unless by flailing luck. Yet in spite of the irritating repetitions, learning the skill of working with each other gave us a new understanding and appreciation of the game, an additional essential respect for our undertaking.
Of all who joined us that spring, the one who stayed the longest and had the greatest impact was Eric Meyer. Like John Palmer, he was built for baseball, a perfect proportion of speed, strength, and coordination. He chaffed at being a rookie, even writing an article about the value of a newcomer’s perspective. Other than the founders, he would play the greatest role in the first act of the team's drama.
This, then, was the motley crew of old friends and skilled strangers that would try to form a team. Would try to win a game, any game. Who would probably fold if we couldn’t. Go back to Saturday afternoon volleyball, watch ball on the tube, the heck with this working hard and straining friendships. And halfway through the spring season, that's how it felt. "Losing is a disease, like syphilis." Yet the only way to win was to try harder, to continue to believe in each other and our shared effort. For not the first time, we had to rely on faith. And that faith would be put to the test as we faced one of our early rivals, Rockin' Robin's Couch Potatoes.
Rockin' Robin's was a new hip 50's dance bar south of Market. They sponsored a team, complete with uniforms and player names like Spud, Idaho, Fry, etc.. They looked at us a bit down their noses. Jim has since referred to the underdog mentality that has eternally inspired the team. At that moment it was scrap and desire against the Yankees of the club league. But the game itself, perhaps, gave us our first break; we would play at Lang Field, the original home of The Beat.
As a pitcher I have usually had the best seat in the house. But the starting pitcher that day was Anna Sandoval, another laugher for the potato heads, as we remained the only team in the league with a woman on the roster. She pitched us to a lead for three innings before Jim put me in for relief. But as much for her pitching, I remember Anna getting her first hit. It was during one of our rare rallies, a clean hit to right field. When she got to first, she jumped up and down with glee over the accomplishment, a striking contrast to the serious and calm demeanor she kept on the mound. More than anyone else that day, Anna combined the best of enthusiasm and intensity.
I pitched adequately, but gave up a few runs. We were down by one when I left the mound after the fifth. But The Beat scored in the top of the sixth to take the lead. Jim put Anna back in (re-entry of starters allowed in the city league) and she bore down with every ounce of determination a person could muster. By the seventh inning we held onto a one-run lead. I remember pacing back and forth behind the third base bench, hyper-alert, wondering if a year’s efforts, and more, would finally be fulfilled. Rockin' Robin's threatened, bringing the tying run to third with two outs, when Anna coaxed one more fly ball to deep right field. Steve Bruckman raced back, and we held our breath as he approached a slope in front of the fence, where many a player had stumbled. But all those early practices at our unofficial home paid off. He deftly backed up, reached out, and made the catch. The Beat had won its first game.
The celebration was magnificent. Steve wanted to keep the ball, but I think Jim still sleeps with it. We had videotaped the game, and went to Jim and Marc’s to watch it over and over again. Beers and cheers abounded. The camera’s battery had run out just before the last inning, but that didn’t matter. We all knew we would have that scene burned in our memories forever. There really are some things that no one can ever take from you.
But there is something that a person can deny, and that is recognition. Many of us have struggled fiercely in our lives, and sometimes we are not recognized for our efforts, be they on the field or off. Like many in our resurrected group, I wanted to be able to point to some accomplishment with pride. Thus, even a year later, I would insist that I was the winning pitcher that day, as I was the pitcher of record when The Beat took the lead. I still had not learned all the game could teach about dedication and fulfillment. Anna had truly been the inspiration of the game, had made the transition from heckling outsider to player, had reached a level even she had not known. I was relying on a technicality to preserve a place in team history.
There is a scoring rule in the major leagues that allows a scorekeeper to give the win to a subsequent pitcher if a reliever is ineffective, gives up the lead, then is benefited by his or her team's rally. Now, giving up a few runs in two innings is not really ineffective in softball. But in light of the re-entry rule, it seems the standard should be more flexible than in the majors, especially since the subsequent pitcher can be the starter who did so well before.
Such is the greatness of the game, where even recognition is guided by fairness, where effort and intangibles matter more than logic and legality. As we began our drive for respect, we would all need to learn that lesson. Let us then close the book on that first year with an image of a smiling team of winners, among them a hero, Anna Sandoval, the first winning pitcher of The Beat.