The Spectacular Case of the 1962 Los Angeles Angels

The Spectacular Case of the 1962 Los Angeles Angels

by Jeff Mays

Copyright 2015 Jeff Mays

Smashwords Edition

[What second year team was] better than the 1962 Angels, who had Dean Chance, Bo Belinsky and Ken McBride on the mound? Bill Rigney managed his backside off, Leon Wagner hit 37 homers and drove in 107 runs, and Lee Thomas, who was later my Cardinals farm director, had 104 RBI. In their second year, in the junkyard era of expansion, they were first in the AL on July 4, went down to the last month in contention and ended up within striking distance of one of the greatest teams of all time, Roger and Mickey’s Yankees. -- Whitey Herzog, Baseball Hall of Fame manager, from his book You’re Missin’ a Great Game

1962’s Los Angeles club certainly rank as baseball’s all-time miracle team.

--Al Wolf, Los Angeles Times sports columnist, 7/3/62

I’ve never seen a club like this in my life.

-- Bill Rigney, 44-year-old Angels manager, July 1962

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. Prologue

III. Spring Training

IV. The Regular Season

V. The Post Season

VI. The Aftermath

VII. Bibliography

VIII. Images

Introduction

When I was barely a boy, I was faced with making one of the most important decisions of my life: Dodgers or Angels? As I lived just 60 miles east of Los Angeles in the outer reaches of its massive suburbia, I was subject to the marketing of both the Los Angeles Dodgers and the California Angels. The Dodgers were the glamorous choice. They had been to the World Series three times in the 1970s and already had four World Series titles to their name. They had what seemed like perpetual All-Stars up and down their line up and an endless stream of Rookie of the Year winners. But for some reason, that didn’t appeal to me. I grew up in a lower-class neighborhood dotted with houses that would become spray-painted over and have the windows busted out as soon as they became vacant while packs of dogs ran wild in the streets, knocking over trash barrels in search of a meal. Our family car was a second-hand, brown Ford Pinto that broke down every other month. Glamour was not part of the world I grew up in. I think it was because of this that I always found myself drawn instead to the underdog, which in this case was the Angels. They had never once been to the playoffs, nevermind having a showcase full of World Series trophies like the Dodgers had. They had no Rookies of the Year to speak of and had just the minimum number of players on each year’s All-Star team, one, usually Frank Tanana. Yet the Angels were my team.

As the years passed, and my knowledge of their history had increased, I became aware of a miraculous season from one of their early years. In 1962, in just their second year of existence, when everyone rightfully expected them to be terrible, the Angels instead found themselves just a handful of games behind the Yankees in September, actually challenging New York for the pennant. How could this be?

The Angels had built their team from scratch a couple months before the start of the 1961 season by participating in an expansion draft where they could pick up the so called rejects and has-beens the other eight American League teams had left unprotected. This should have made it just about impossible for Los Angeles to trade up for talent because why would any team want to give up a good player for one the Angels picked up in an expansion draft? Add to that the fact that the Angels were able to achieve what they did in 1962 without the benefit of free agency. The Andy Messersmith revolution hadn’t happened yet, so the early Angels couldn’t go out and sign a Sandy Koufax or a Harmon Killebrew to help them turn into contenders.

So how did they do it?

I wanted to read a book about this phenomenal team, but I couldn’t find one. I could find a paragraph or two in this book or that one. If I was lucky, maybe someone’s chapter on Dean Chance might have a couple of sentences about 1962. The internet proved almost as fruitless as well, so I decided to do the research myself and write the book that I wanted to read, putting all of the scraps that existed about this team together in one place to tell its story. I tracked down some useful Sports Illustrated articles, some out of print books, a season’s worth of newspaper articles, and so on, and I was even able to hunt down and interview several members of the 1962 Angels themselves. At this point, I must say thank you again Ted Bowsfield, Albie Pearson, Lee Thomas, Don Lee, Jack Spring, Earl Averill, Ken McBride, Gordie Windhorn, and Bob Botz for your correspondence and telephone conversations. Besides giving me the thrill of talking with you, you provided me with valuable insight that helped me tell your team’s story.

My intention was to paint the fullest and most accurate picture of the 1962 Angels that I could, but since I was not witness to these events firsthand, I found myself in a role similar to the radio broadcasters of the early twentieth century. You see, they didn’t travel with the team when it went on road trips because the technology of the day simply did not allow them to transmit their broadcasts from hundreds of miles away. They still went to the broadcast booth of their home team’s empty stadium, though, while their team was hundreds of miles playing a baseball game and gave an account of the game so that the folks at home know what was happening, but instead of providing a dry reading from the Western Union ticker, as David Halberstam explained in Summer of ’49, they were expert at recreating as best they could the sounds and sights of the ballpark. For me, I tried to recreate for you as best I could the events of that special year in order to fully realize the experience of the amazing 1962 Los Angeles Angels.

So, as the chefs on television say after they are finished explaining the dish that they have prepared for their diners, enjoy.

Prologue

It was on February 20, 1962, that our nation held its collective, excited breath as it watched Colonel John Glenn attempt to become the first American to orbit the Earth. After several postponements, it appeared as though the weather that Tuesday morning in Cape Canaveral, Florida was going to at last give its permission. All systems were go. Cameras from ABC, CBS, and NBC showed the millions of Americans watching their television sets at home Col. Glenn walking in his shiny, aluminum-foilly space suit to the entrance of the waiting elevator, with his portable air conditioner in his grasp looking more like a suitcase meant for a week-long getaway rather than a life-saving device meant for one of the defining moments in American history.

After the ascent up the elevator that straddled the towering Mercury-Atlas rocket, the cameras allowed America to watch Glenn disembark the elevator car, walk over to the open door of the Mercury Friendship 7 capsule that was perched 100 feet above the ground, and be helped inside the capsule’s cramped quarters.

There was a problem, however, fastening the door back onto the capsule as one of the bolts had broken, but after a lengthy delay, everyone was once again ready for the launch. At 9:47 eastern time, engineer T. J. O’Malley pressed the button in the launch box, and the landscape around the rocket impressively burst into massive swirling clouds of exhaust and condensed water vapor, and Glenn began his historic climb through the atmosphere. The astronaut’s pulse was recorded at 110 beats per minute as the spacecraft rattled and roared its way upward.

After the two-and-a-half minute race to Freedom 7’s orbiting altitude, we finally had it – an astronaut from Ohio was in outer space orbiting the Earth. Glenn looked out of his window and announced that looking down upon the Earth was a beautiful sight, looking eastward across the Atlantic in a voice that was professional but carried with it detectable undertones of excitement. He would circle our planet three times before being instructed to return. His re-entry was not without its drama, as there would be four minutes of expected radio silence during the hottest and possibly most dangerous portion of his descent. The round heat shield on the bottom of the vessel should protect him from the 9,000 degrees of frictional heat as the capsule plummeted to the Earth’s surface, but it also created an ionized layer that radio waves could not penetrate. But after the four minutes of radio silence were over, Glenn was still there, able to communicate back to mission control once again and prepare for the final events of his mission.

Splashdown occurred about a hundred miles north of the Dominican Republic. Personnel aboard the USS Noa had spotted the Friendship 7 and its deployed parachute in the distance as it floated down towards the ocean’s surface. The destroyer reached the spacecraft as it was bobbing up and down in the ocean’s churning waves. A crane lifted the craft out of the ocean and drew it to the Noa where it was fastened to the side of the ship. Glenn blew open the escape hatch, and said to the men who helped extricate him from the capsule, It was hot in there!

It was done. American ingenuity had sent a man into space to orbit the Earth, and it had sent him back down safely. There was a feeling all across America that anything was possible. We were going to beat the Russians in the space race. We really were on the track to sending a man to the moon and returning him safely.

Now, if you were a Los Angeles Angels baseball fan in the last weeks of February who watched this while waiting for the new season to start, you must have felt that some of the excitement, some of that inspirational we can achieve anything feeling that you felt watching John Glenn somehow applied to the Angels as well. It was just a little over a year ago when the Angels were created from scratch, assembled from the hand-me-down and throw-away players that the other eight established teams didn’t want any more. The prediction of most was that the Angels and the other expansion team, the Washington Senators, were going to be the long-time doormats of the American League and would be lucky to win 40 games in their inaugural season; however, the 1961 Angels surprised everyone by easily passing that figure on their way to an incredible 70 that year, which was good for eighth place out of ten teams.

So after getting the franchise off to such a good start, how much better could the 1962 Angels be? With a year of experience under its belt, management should be comfortably in the swing of things. The players who took the field for the Angels in 1961 surely would have grown and would probably have even better years in 1962, especially Lee Thomas, the Angels’ first baseman/outfielder who finished second in the 1961 voting for American League Rookie of the Year. In addition to that, the Angels’ year-old farm system had young talent like shortstop Jim Fregosi who was chomping at the bit to join the ’62 team. There were also two newcomers to the 1962 squad that Angel fans could really get excited about, and in what was hopefully an odd omen of good fortune, both of them hailed from John Glenn’s proud state of Ohio – Bob Rodgers and Dean Chance. So from an Angel fan’s perspective, when you added all of these factors together, it wasn’t hard to imagine that the Angels, in just their second year of existence, could really turn into a first division team.

The fine minds at Sports Illustrated, like the ones at every other sports publication across America, did not agree with such a rosy outlook for the new team from California, however, as they predicted the Yankees would run away with the 1962 American League pennant and the Angels would do well to repeat their eighth-place finish. But as the John Glenn event showed everyone, the sky was not even the limit anymore.

Spring Training

Wednesday, February 21st

As soon as the last of the baseball cleats finished click-clack-clicking to the gathering spot just outside the front doors of the Desert Inn, a man in a large white cowboy hat addressed the crowd. To the left of the assemblage was an entire fleet of new Schwinn bicycles.

Men, thank you for showing up so early in the morning, he said even though it was ten o’clock and then paused for the laughter from the crowd. I’m excited for the new season to begin, and I know with hard work we’ll have a successful year. You may be wonderin’ where the team bus is and what all of these bicycles are doing here. Well, we’re ridin’ to the ball park, men. I’d rather we were ridin’ horses, but Fred here says its your legs that need to be built up, not your seats, so that’s what the bikes are for. Now, you’ll be seein’ some camera men takin’ pictures of us, and that’s all right. Just give ‘em a little wave. It’ll be good publicity for us. As one of the mainstays of popular culture for the past few decades, Gene Autry, the man in the white Stetson hat and the principal owner of the Los Angeles Angels, knew a thing or two about the importance of good publicity. Now if you’ll all be so kind as to follow me.

The sudden click-clack-clicking made by 46 pairs of cleats sounded like a rain storm as the legion of white uniformed men walked over to the stable of bikes. The Scwinns were all identical, with their wide, low handle bars and steel rack fastened just above the back tire. The men flung their legs over the bikes and pushed off to get moving so they could follow Gene Autry, as he led the flood right down the middle of the street on to Palm Springs’ Polo Grounds, which held the only baseball stadium in town.

It’s funny how Autry came to be in this position. In 1960 he was a former movie, radio, and television star whose moment lassoing up the bad guys and rescuing the pretty daughter of the poor, hard-working rancher was but a warm memory. Not one to just hang up his spurs and take long naps for the rest of his life, Gene transformed himself into a prosperous business man, owning hotels and radio stations all over California. His most prosperous radio station was KMPC, and a majority of its prosperity was due to broadcasting Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games, but one night in the mountains changed all of that in an instant. The owner of the Dodgers, Walter O’Malley, was at his Lake Arrowhead home one evening and clicked on the radio to follow his Dodgers, but gently twisting the tuning dial as much as he did, he could not get the signal to come in clearly. The voices of Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett were buried under the snow of poor reception.

Angered, O’Malley ordered an immediate termination of his partnership with Autry and KMPC and also ordered a deal be struck with KFI, a station with a stronger signal.

Gene Autry, America’s favorite cowboy, was shocked at these developments and was left holding an empty bag, but as I said, Autry was a man of action. He knew that the American League wanted a piece of the Los Angeles area baseball pie and was planning to install a club there, so he went to the owners’ meetings at the end of 1960 intent on getting the radio broadcast rights from whomever was granted the new Los Angeles franchise.

Everyone at the meetings assumed that was going to be the group of investors headed by former Detroit Tiger first baseman, the Hall of Famer, Hank Greenberg. Greenberg started out with enthusiasm and confidence when assembling this group and preparing to purchase this franchise, but he soon began to have reservations when Dodgers owner O’Malley started making demands in an effort to protect his territory, but what finally pushed Greenberg to officially back out was getting a look at the list of players who were available to him in the expansion draft. A team with these players will be losers for twenty years! Greenberg bemoaned, worried about the seemingly insurmountable financial risk a team with these players would present. He had his investors and his own financial well-being to protect, so regretfully, he felt he just had to make the decision to pull out.

That left owners and the president of the American League, Joe Cronin, in a fine mess with just a few days until the expansion draft and with just a few weeks after that before spring training was to start, but when they looked around themselves, whom did they see in a white cowboy hat schmoozing with them in the hotel lobby and around the ballroom tables? None other than Gene Autry. Here was a successful business man who possessed quite a lot of influence around Los Angeles, and he even used to be a part-owner of one of the Pacific Coast League’s baseball teams, the Hollywood Stars, in the 1950s. It didn’t take much cajoling to get Gene, who was a lifelong baseball fan, to say yes.

Although he wouldn’t have to pay a franchise fee to get started, he would have to pay $75,000 for each player he selected from each team’s 25-man roster and $25,000 for each minor league player selected in the draft. Additionally, he was going to have to pay a $550,000 fee to Walter O’Malley for encroaching on his territory, as well as for the laundry list of all the other expenses that go with starting up a new baseball team. Suffice it to say, if Autry was going to make this work, he was going to have to have some partners go in with him on this. He quickly found two – his friend Leonard Firestone of the Firestone Tire Company and Bob Reynolds, a former Stanford college football All-American and Detroit Lion tackle who was then the president of the KTLA radio station.

With only a couple of months before the start of the 1961 baseball season to create a Major League Baseball team from scratch, Autry hired his old friend Fred Haney to be his general manager and help him with this daunting task. Haney had been the manager for the old Hollywood Stars teams before he was hired to manage in the big leagues where he made it to the pinnacle by winning a World Series while managing the 1957 Milwaukee Braves.

The bare-boned front office of the Angels worked feverishly, hiring Bill Rigney to be their manager, Roland Hemond to be the scouting and farm director, and Marvin Milkes to be Fred’s assistant, and these men put together a 1961 team that far surpassed every baseball expert’s prognostication, and with a little tinkering and a little time to allow for some maturation, Autry and Haney were hopeful that this 1962 season would be even more successful than the last.

Which leads us to this moment in late February outside of the Desert Inn, the hotel Autry booked for his players, his coaches, and even the media men whose job it was to report on the team, where the former star of the silver screen was leading his posse of men on bicycle the three miles through the streets of Palm Springs to the city’s Polo Grounds, where the Angels would conduct their spring training activities.

How far is it to the park? one of the new guys at the back of the pack asked one of the older fellas.

Three and a half miles, came the reply through the clatter of squeaking seat springs, cleats on pedals, and rubber slipping on the dusty desert road. Riding a bike will get your legs in shape, the veteran said with disgust. Hell, a pitcher never won a game by running the ball to home plate.

The man riding next to him looked as if cycling was not one of his natural abilities. He was a hulking man. Looked like he could easily tip the scales at 240, 250 pounds. And he looked silly on his little bike, with his glove hanging on the end of his handlebar, just like some kid riding to his Little League game. He tipped his head to the right where a diner was sitting on the corner just up ahead. Whattaya say, Eli, we go grab a cup.

Eli, the pitcher who objected to cycling as a form of proper training for a baseball player, agreed. What about you kid? Eli asked the newbie.

Naw. I think I’ll keep up with the others, and he stood up on his pedals to get some extra torque out of his bicycle’s crank and lunged forward. The two older players made sure Rigney and Autry had their backs turned to them before they broke away from the back of the pack and turned into the driveway of the diner. They parked their bikes by the newspaper racks and went clacking inside the eatery.

They sat at a barstool up at the counter so they could get faster service than if they waited for a booth. As soon as they caught the waitress’ eye, Two coffees, please, the large man requested.

Need a coffee to wake up, eh Steve? Eli the pitcher asked his friend. Steve set his elbows on the counter and dug the heels of his large hands into his eye sockets and then drug his hands down his face.

Yeah.

Been drinkin’ last night?

Yep.

You gonna set up the cooler again this year?

Yep, and the two athletes started to laugh at the memory of ‘the cooler.’ Rigney made a rule last spring that there was to be no drinking during training while the players were getting into baseball shape. There will be plenty of time for drinking once the season starts, the manager explained to his players, but Steve Bilko had something else in mind. He set up a cooler in his room that consisted of a bathtub, fifteen gallons of crushed ice, and several six packs of Budweiser and Schlitz crammed into the frozen tundra. Players were all welcome to stop by and crack one open with Steve. He was a giver, what can I say?

When they finished their coffee, Steve and Eli both left a quarter on the counter. So, how’re we gonna get to the park in time now? Eli asked his imposing friend.

Don’t’ worry about it, he confided. Anyone here can give us a lift to the ballpark? he announced. Everyone in the room turned to look at the odd sight of two grown men wearing baseball uniforms inside a coffee shop.

Sure, I can, said a man in his forties wearing his own uniform, that of the American middle class – a jacket and tie. He was paying for his meal at the cash register.

Thanks, fella, Steve said as he and Eli walked outside to wait for the gentleman.

What about the bikes? Leave ‘em here or take ‘em with us?

The man giving them a lift emerged from the diner and put his hat on. The Chieftain over there is mine, he said, pointing to the green and white Pontiac wagon. Hey, he continued, looking at Steve, aren’t you Steve Bilko? Guilty-as-Charged nodded his head. I used to take my kid to Wrigley when we lived in Alhambra to watch you play. Man you could hit ‘em.

Yeah. Yeah I could, the thirty-three year old slugger smiled, remembering what it felt like to get all of a pitcher’s best fastball and send it screaming 420 feet over the left field wall of Wrigley Field while 20,000 people cheered for him as he trotted in quiet triumph around the bases. It was a memory he got to replay time and again as a member of the Pacific Coast League Angels. Stout Steve led the league in home runs each year from 1955-1957 as an Angel, mashing 37, 55, and 56 homers respectively. He won the PCL’s Triple Crown in 1956 and was the league’s MVP during those three legendary seasons. But now, he was entering what he felt like might be his last go of it as a professional ball player. He had a good year for the Angels last season, one of his best in the Major Leagues, hitting 20 home runs and batting .279, but he was starting to have a hard time hitting right-handed pitching, especially when they threw him inside pitches about belt-high. Rigney knew it, and so did his opponents standing tall on those pitcher’s mounds.

Thursday, February 22nd

The next day, shortly after the Angels rode en masse to the ballpark on their bicycles once again to build up those legs, came the first call (of several yet to come) to the Palm Springs police department to report an abandoned, brand-new Schwinn bicycle stuffed in the bushes in someone’s backyard.

Meanwhile, over at the park, men in white Los Angeles Angels uniforms had congregated in the outfield grass, waiting for their morning calisthenics. By the smell of things, the groundskeepers must have mowed the grass not long before practice was to start that day. The sky was blue and ready for baseball, but the air was a chilly 63 degrees, so the players knew they had to make sure they hit the ball square on the barrel of the bat if they didn’t want their hands to sting. The forecast for the week, though, was for highs to be in the 70s, and that sure beat the snowy cold of Ohio, Illinois, and New York that many of the players had been bundled up in just a few days before.

The field was crowded that morning as 46 players had been instructed by general manager Fred Haney to come to Palm Springs to compete for a position, prepare for the new season, or help the players who would make the opening day 28-man roster prepare for the new season. Everyone had shown up on the first day as required except for Felix Torres and Bob Belinsky, who were expected to be a day late as they would be arriving from Venezuela where they played winter ball, and Art Fowler, who didn’t have that excuse, but he did make it to the second day of training.

Hey, Art! Eli Grba shouted to his friend as Fowler approached, Way to start off the season! How much’d they fine ya for bein’ late to camp?

Shit, it’s nothing like that, Fowler replied. I was up in the air two days ago, you know how I don’t like to fly, and goddamit if one of the engines didn’t catch on fire!

Grba and the pals clustered around him began to laugh.

The plane is shaking and you look out the window and there’s flames and smoke. Hell, I thought I was going to die. We landed in Dallas, and I phoned Haney and told him what happened and how I wasn’t about to hop on another plane right then to fly to California. I needed a day to get over my nerves.

And a couple bottles of whiskey! one of the guys cracked, making everyone cackle with laughter.

A whistle blast from a white-haired man standing in the grass near second base alerted the players that chit-chat time was over and it was now time to come to attention. The white-haired man with the black whistle hanging around his neck was Bill Rigney, the manager of the Angels.

Good morning, men, he half-bellowed. It’s good to see you all standing up and sober. A wave of laughter came from the players, and the manager broke into a smile himself. "Now I mean it. We have got to be in great shape by the time the season starts, so I expect you all to be sober and stay sober. Now, after calisthenics, we are going to have our first batting practice of camp, and on that note, I’d like to introduce you all to Joe Gordon, who is going to be one of our batting instructors this spring."

Gordon lifted the blue cap with an LA embroidered on the front and a white halo circling the crown off of his head and tipped it to the mass of players in the outfield.

You may remember him from all of those World Series he won with those damn Yankees.

Don’t forget the ’48 Indians! another coach yelled out, with his hands cupping his mouth, instigating another wave of laughter from the players. It was Bob Lemon, another guest instructor who was there to help pitching coach Marv Grissom with the Angels pitchers. Lemon and Joe Gordon were teammates on the 1948 Cleveland Indians team that beat the Boston Braves in the World Series.

Yeah, yeah, Rigney continued, with a laugh of his own. Well, anyway, like I said, we’re going to do some batting after calisthenics, and you all need to hear this and understand it well. Last year we did a lot of mashing and banging. We were second to the damn Yankees in home runs, but that’s not the team we need to be this year. Last year, at Wrigley Field, with the short fences, it behooved us to hit the ball high and far, but we’re not playing at Wrigley anymore. As you know, we’re playing at the new ball park Mr. O’Malley built for his Dodgers, and it’s a much bigger park than Wrigley was, so if we try to hit home runs there, most all of them’re just going to be long fly outs. So if we want to win, we’re going to have to change our approach. I want to see line drives to right, to center, and to left. I want to see you using the whole field when you bat. I want to see you working on your timing, and I want to see line drives sprayed all over the field. No home runs. Let me repeat that. No home runs. During batting practice today and for the rest of training camp, I don’t want to see any fella hitting a home run. If I see a player hit a home run, I’m gonna blow this whistle, and everybody, I mean every single one of you, will drop what you are doing and run a lap.

Instead of a wave of laughter this time, there was in its place an extended groan because many on the team loved hitting home runs just as much as they hated running laps.

Steve Bilko was the last batter the first time through. So far everyone had managed to keep the ball in the park, but it didn’t take him but two swings until he connected with one and everyone heard the loud TWEE! from Rigney’s whistle.

Shit, Steve said to himself as he dropped the bat that had just performed what was ordinarily a heroic feat and joined the others as they began their begrudged jog around the field.

Bilko wasn’t the only one to draw one of Rigney’s dreaded whistle blows that day. Lee Thomas, Leon Wagner, and Earl Averill also couldn’t stop themselves from muscling one over the outfield wall.

The final player to step into the box and take his swings that day was Bilko, and on the ninth pitch of this session, he lifted one high and deep. The players all winced at the crack of the slugger’s 36-inch wooden bat. Rigney grabbed the whistle from around his neck, but a breeze must have kicked in right at that moment because the ball didn’t go out of the park. It fell down about two feet before the outfield wall into the glove of Art Fowler. Everyone exhaled the breath they were holding, and the manager lowered the whistle from his lips.

Hey, Bowsie, Bilko called to Ted Bowsfield who was the pitcher of the moment. Throw me a curveball, huh. Bowsfield picked up one of the baseballs lying on the ground near his feet, put his hands set together, and then flung his arm out from behind the protective screen. Bilko swung and missed by a mile.

Hey Bowsie, Bilko called out again. That was the best curveball I’ve seen all spring.

Bowsfield started to smile, but then the slugger cracked, "Of course, that was the only curveball I’ve seen all spring," and the laughter from the relieved choir of baseball players lifted all the way to the snow-capped peak of Mt. San Jacinto that overlooked the park below.

After the day’s workout, the men showered, dressed, and talked to the reporters one last time before they went off to sit down in a restaurant to a juicy rib eye steak and a large, buttered baked potato. Bud Furillo from the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Ross Newhan from the Long Beach Press-Telegram, and Braven Dyer from the Los Angeles Times were all there with their pencil and notepad soaking up the chatter.

I don’t mind them hitting home runs just as long as they don’t mind running their laps, was one of the zingers Rigney gave to the sports writers.

Outfielder Leon Wagner was quoted as saying, I don’t know about riding the bikes to the park and not hitting home runs. It’s crazy. What’re they going to do next? Have us play in Bermuda shorts?

And on and on.

When only the last couple of stragglers remained in the clubhouse, the owner of the Angels, Gene Autry, popped in holding a six-pack of beer in the crook of his arm the way you might hold a small dog. Bob Rodgers, the rookie catcher, was sitting in front of his stall, shirtless, pulling on his worn cowboy boots. Steve Bilko and Ryne Duren were also lurking about, putting on their finishing touches before going out to dinner.

I know Rig said no drinking before the season, boys, but hell, one little beer won’t mean the fall of Rome, Mr. Autry said while sitting down on one of the wooden benches. Anybody care to share one before you go?

Sure thing, boss, Duren piped up.

Count me in, Bilko added.

Okay, said Rodgers, a little uncertainly, as he put on his shirt.

The fifty-five year old Autry pulled out four cans from the cardboard holder and passed out three of them, along with a church key, and sat the remaining beer on the floor.

Pfft. Pfffft. Pfft. Pfffft. Their cans made the golden music of relaxation.

Looks like the weather is going to hold up for us now, Autry said before taking his first gulp. Two days ago one of the rarest of rarities occurred – it had rained in Palm Springs, delaying the opening of camp by one day. It was really coming down in LA, though. Schools were closed. O’Malley is a little worried that his new stadium won’t be finished in time for Opening Day, so yesterday I had two of my radio station’s helicopters go to the site, after they were done with the morning traffic report that is, and hover above the stadium, you know, to dry it out like a coupla big fans, so the workers could get on with it.

They all took a swallow from their can.

You’d better take it easy in the batter’s box, Steve, or you’ll wear this team out before we even play our first game, Autry needled.

I should have Ryno pitch to me, Steve replied, and the three older men chuckled.

Why’s that? Rodgers asked.

Ryne Duren was quick to tell the story. In our younger days, Steve was hitting a home run every other at bat back in the Pacific Coast League, and I just got called up to Vancouver. My first game with the Mounties happened to be against the Angels. Well, I wanted to impress, and I wasn’t going to let Bilko here ruin things for me, so I was damned if he was going to hit one off of me.

Bilko looked at the ground and just shook his head, the can of beer slung between his knees.

I threw a heater with everything on it, and it flew by Steve just an inch away from his chest. He hit the deck, and I knew I’d put the fear of God in him.

Sheeit, Bilko retorted. He was throwin’ in the upper 90s. Maybe a hundred. Coulda killed me.

The next pitch, Steve must have been a foot away from the plate this time, but I buzzed him again. For the third pitch, were you even standing in the batter’s box?

My toes were just in, I think.

The four men all laughed at the thought.

The next three pitches, Duren recalled, were all strikes, right down the middle of the plate, but he didn’t swing at one of them, just flinched as they went by.

Sheeit, was all Bilko had to say about that.

As he was sitting there, Gene Autry, a man who had recorded more than 600 songs, made over 90 movies, and had been the star of a radio and television show, took a drink from his beer and thought that there was nothing he enjoyed more than sitting around with a few ballplayers nursing a beer and listening to them tell their stories.

Friday, February 23rd – Monday, February 26th

During that first week of spring training, Bud Furillo, the Angels beat writer from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner noticed that there was still one of the Angels players yet to show up. The player was a fellow named Bob Belinsky, a right-handed pitcher the Angels had picked up at the end of November in the Rule V draft. Belinsky was plucked from the Baltimore Orioles, and he seemed like a plum. He had a 3.72 ERA for Little Rock in 1961, and reports were that he had a million dollar arm. Belinsky was still mired in the minor leagues, presumably, because the Orioles had one of the best pitching staffs in the American League in the late fifties/early sixties, so it was just about impossible for him to get a spot on the Major League roster.

Furillo asked Fred Haney several times about the absent Belinsky. At first, Haney said that maybe he sent Belinsky’s letter about reporting to spring training to the wrong address. Later he said that Belinsky would be reporting later, but wouldn’t say when nor give a reason why. Furillo smelled something fishy, so he went to the Herald-Examiner’s office to look through the dispatches from the Associated Press to see what might turn up, and did he ever find a nugget. There was a story from New Jersey about Belinsky and how he wasn’t going to report to the Angels because he felt like they weren’t going to pay him enough. He stated that he was going to play pool during the day and spend the nights with the broads instead. The accompanying photo showed a handsome, confident young man smiling for the camera like he was posing for his Hollywood head shot.

The reporter hunted down Belinsky’s phone number and gave him a call.

"Hi, Bob Belinsky? This is Bud Furillo from the Los Angeles Herald Exam--"

Bob? No Bud, the name’s Bo. Bo Belinsky.

You’re the pitcher, correct, who’s supposed to be with the Angels this year?

Yeah, yeah. I guess. What can I do for you?

Is it true that you’re not going to report to spring training?

Yeah, that’s true. They’re trying to stiff me. They offered me $6,000 like I was a rookie who had never done nuthin’. I’ve been playin’ professional ball for six years. I’ve won 56 games. I told Haney he couldn’t offer me the minimum like I was some kid with no record. It’s a fuckin’ joke. I told him if he gave me $8,500 I’d come out and play, otherwise the hell with it. I’ve got a few things going on here in Trenton, and I’ll just stay.

While he was listening, Furillo was also dreaming of the stories he could write if this character and his conflict with Haney would just come to California. The Herald-Examiner was the kind of paper that loved to celebrate personality. This was a paper that would run a story about Frank Sinatra breaking up with his girlfriend Juliet Prowse on the front page right alongside a story about the crisis in Berlin.

You should come out to California, the reporter suggested. At least that way you could make your case to the LA papers and maybe Haney’ll give in. You never know. It could be fun.

The next day Furillo found Gene Autry and Fred Haney having a smoke in the bleachers while watching their team practice defensive drills. Coach Del Rice was standing at home plate, hitting a ball to third base and telling the infield squad to Turn Two! Turn Two! when Furillo sat next to the owner and general manager.

I talked to the Belinsky kid, he began. He wants to play, but he needs just a little more dough.

Look, Haney exhaled a plume of smoke into the chilly air. Six grand is all he’s getting.

Yeah, okay, but think of the publicity. What’s the big story over in Florida right now? Roger Maris holding out for more money, right? This Belinsky is a character. He hustles pool all day and is a real charmer with the ladies and isn’t shy about it neither. He’s a good looking kid, too. The camera’ll love him. The folks at home will eat him up.

Haney was quick to make up his mind against the whole scheme, but Autry was thinking about the 56,000 empty seats at O’Malley’s stadium that needed to be filled with Angel fans. The Angels averaged just over 7,000 tickets sold per game at Wrigley Field last year and came in dead last in attendance in the American League. It was a scary thought to imagine playing baseball games in front of 49,000 empty seats, especially since Autry just signed a two-year $200,000 deal with KHJ to televise 20 games a season. The more people who were sitting in the stands would make more people think that an Angel game would be the place to be, and a character like Belinsky making the papers might help fill a few more of those empty seats.

Bring him here, Autry decided. If we have to pay him, then we have to pay him, but bring him here. We could have a big press conference at the Desert Inn, by the pool, and let him do his thing. Autry, the veteran showman, knew in his gut that this was a good idea.

Don’t you worry, Fred, this will turn out all right.

Thursday, March 1st

The Angels’ assistant publicity director, Irv Kaze, went to the Palm Springs airport to pick up one Robert Bo Belinsky and deliver him to the Desert Inn Hotel. Kaze watched as the airport’s landing crew rolled the portable stairs up to the Western Airlines Lockheed Electra and fastened the ramp to the door by the head of a Native American that was painted in red onto the fuselage near the cockpit. Among the passengers making their way down the stairs, he identified the man who had to be Belinsky. This young man looked like an actor from a Hollywood magazine, wearing a yellow open collared shirt underneath a cashmere sport jacket, overly large sunglasses, long sideburns, and his thick, dark hair slicked back.

When Kaze said hello to him inside the terminal and introduced himself, Bo said, Irv Kaze, huh? Damn, I expected Autry.

In the car, the assistant publicity director told Belinsky about the press conference they had set up pool-side at the hotel.

That’s more like it, the young pitcher voiced his approval.

Feel free to say whatever’s on your mind, the older gentleman instructed.

Bo looked out of the window and noted the restaurants and liquor stores they passed on their way to the hotel.

Any place to shoot pool around here?

Yes, there are more than a few pool tables here in Palm Springs. I’m sure the players can show you where they are. Golf is good here though, plenty of world-class golf courses here.

Golf? I don’t know nuthin’ about no golf.

The car came to a halt in front of their destination, and the men got out of the car. It was a comfortable 74 degrees outside, the sky was blue, and the palm trees in front of the Desert Inn shot high into the sky like searchlights in the front of a Hollywood premiere. The concierge came to the car to take care of Belinsky’s luggage as the two baseball men made their way through the front doors, across the lobby, and back outside to the pool area where Kaze announced, Gentlemen, I give you Bo Belinsky, the man of the hour!

The reporters all stopped what they were doing, retrieved their notepad and pencil from their pockets, and rushed over to Belinsky.

They called his name repeatedly, hoping to be the first to get a response from pitcher from New Jersey.

Fellas, nice to meet you, too.

And then a question.

Bo, how long do you plan to hold out?

"Just until Autry asks me personally to stay.