Pops Derwood is practically a celebrity in his living room, so we've asked him to bring that fame and a .205 career batting average to Offbase and share a story or two about his illustrious career in the Chicago Cubs organization. His book, I Didn't See That Fast Ball, But I Heard It, is not scheduled for release until January, 2012, but here is an excerpt.
It’s not like I was signed for my hitting. In fact, the year I was signed out of college, 1970, I hit .200 at Springfield College (it might actually have been lower, but in those days, thank god, they didn’t keep good stats). No, I was signed as a catcher-a damn good catcher with a cannon for an arm (nobody stole a base on me). I could catch anybody, called a good game and nothing got by me.
But Spring Training in 1971 showed me a whole different world. There, still on the Rookie-A ball roster (after playing on that team the year before), I was catching a Class-AA game because they needed a catcher (this was common in Spring Training. I also caught Fergie Jenkins in the bullpen one day).
We were playing the A’s and low and behold the pitcher that day was Vida Blue. THE Vida Blue who was obviously down there getting some work in.
I batted eighth of course (no DH in those days) and didn’t expect to actually face him because I figured he would throw a couple of innings, strike out the side in both and move on. But we got a couple of guys on base and I did end up facing him with two outs in the third inning.
I actually wasn’t nervous. In fact, you're a lot safer with a Major League pitcher throwing because most of the time they can put it where they want it and had no interest in knocking down a .175 hitter from A ball. So no, I wasn’t nervous. But I was anxious. After all, I had faced Pete Broberg in college who threw in the high 90’s, and I caught Tommy Badcock in college and the pros who had a 90 mile an hour slider. I had seen speed.
And, I had never touched it…
First pitch from Blue was a fast ball right down the pipe. I took it.
Second pitch was on the outside corner and called a strike. I never even saw the damn thing. I mean, I didn’t SEE it as it went by me and landed in the catcher’s glove.
Third pitch, same thing-100 million miles an hour and I never even saw the thing.
Three pitches and I only saw one of them.
“So THAT’S the difference between the minors and the majors,” I thought.
Then I realized he could have killed me. If he had thrown at my coconut I never would have seen it! It would have beaned me before I knew I was being beaned.
Slowly (but not too slowly) I walked back to the dugout. I began to calculate how many credits I needed to graduate from college because I was pretty sure this was going to be it for me.
Next day, coach airfare home to Ossining, New York. My career was over and judging by my reaction to the Vida Blue fastball? None too soon…
Showing posts with label an evening with pops derwood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label an evening with pops derwood. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
An Evening With Pops Derwood
Pops Derwood is practically a celebrity in his living room, so we've asked him to bring that fame and a .205 career batting average to Offbase and share a story or two about his illustrious career in the Chicago Cubs organization. His book, I Didn't See That Fast Ball, But I Heard It, is not scheduled for release until January, 2012, but here is an excerpt.
More Tales from the Low-and I mean Low-Minor Leagues
Sorry to use an old-timers term, but all I could say was ‘yowza yowza yowza.’ The woman that walked into our trailer with Pete LaCock’s summer girlfriend was a knockout. Blond, busty...oh, and smelly.
The smelly part was that she was picking onions in this small, South Dakota town for a summer job (the summer job should have been the first hint of trouble to come). So, she smelled like an onion.
I had no intention of doing anything that would cause me trouble. I was practically engaged and though I was also lonely as hell sitting in rookie ball in the Pioneer League, this was strictly a ‘look at the menu but don’t taste’ situation. Of course, she and her friend weren’t thinking that way at all. Way before Susan Sarandon and that other girl were following the minor league team in Bull Durham, groupies were following team buses in the bushes of Idaho, too. And these girls actually followed the bus. When we had 13-hour bus rides to places like Ogden, Utah, some of our players would actually find their girlfriends following the bus and sleeping god knows where (we knew where), and showing up at the ballpark at night.
I must say I was intrigued that this very pretty, onion picker was following the bus and kept talking to me. But I was a good boy from start to finish. Not only didn’t I touch her, I didn’t encourage her and didn’t invite her to follow me anywhere, which is going to be real important to this story as you will find out in a minute.
As for Pete? Well, Pete was the No. 1 draft choice, which made him different (I found out just how different when I slept on the floor of his apartment after getting shipped to Caldwell, rolled over in the morning and saw his bats with his freakin’ name on them in a box. My bats said K55 and didn’t have anybody’s name on them, especially not mine). Pete was different because he was from California, and the son of Peter Marshall of Hollywood Squares fame. He was going to the big leagues and he was going to break whatever rule he wanted to break and though our manager, the great Sparky Davis, fined him so much he was borrowing money from me to buy his chew, Pete was less concerned than me about rules.
So what’s the importance of my not having been a bad boy? Well at the team's season-ending party at the palatial and beautifully-appointed Holiday Inn, a guy with cowboy boots, chew in his mouth and a shirt that looked like he had just shat in it and put it back on, sidled up to me.
“So you been hanging out with ____ huh?” (the onion picker).
“Nope I ain’t been hanging out with anyone. She just follows the damn bus.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“Why’s that?”
Drum roll....
”'Cause she’s 14.”
I didn’t even say ‘how old?’ or anything like that. I just ran away as fast as I could and headed to my room to hide under my bed to wait for the school bus that was driving us to the airport the next day.
Looking back, the school bus was quite fitting.
More Tales from the Low-and I mean Low-Minor Leagues
Sorry to use an old-timers term, but all I could say was ‘yowza yowza yowza.’ The woman that walked into our trailer with Pete LaCock’s summer girlfriend was a knockout. Blond, busty...oh, and smelly.
The smelly part was that she was picking onions in this small, South Dakota town for a summer job (the summer job should have been the first hint of trouble to come). So, she smelled like an onion.
I had no intention of doing anything that would cause me trouble. I was practically engaged and though I was also lonely as hell sitting in rookie ball in the Pioneer League, this was strictly a ‘look at the menu but don’t taste’ situation. Of course, she and her friend weren’t thinking that way at all. Way before Susan Sarandon and that other girl were following the minor league team in Bull Durham, groupies were following team buses in the bushes of Idaho, too. And these girls actually followed the bus. When we had 13-hour bus rides to places like Ogden, Utah, some of our players would actually find their girlfriends following the bus and sleeping god knows where (we knew where), and showing up at the ballpark at night.
I must say I was intrigued that this very pretty, onion picker was following the bus and kept talking to me. But I was a good boy from start to finish. Not only didn’t I touch her, I didn’t encourage her and didn’t invite her to follow me anywhere, which is going to be real important to this story as you will find out in a minute.
As for Pete? Well, Pete was the No. 1 draft choice, which made him different (I found out just how different when I slept on the floor of his apartment after getting shipped to Caldwell, rolled over in the morning and saw his bats with his freakin’ name on them in a box. My bats said K55 and didn’t have anybody’s name on them, especially not mine). Pete was different because he was from California, and the son of Peter Marshall of Hollywood Squares fame. He was going to the big leagues and he was going to break whatever rule he wanted to break and though our manager, the great Sparky Davis, fined him so much he was borrowing money from me to buy his chew, Pete was less concerned than me about rules.
So what’s the importance of my not having been a bad boy? Well at the team's season-ending party at the palatial and beautifully-appointed Holiday Inn, a guy with cowboy boots, chew in his mouth and a shirt that looked like he had just shat in it and put it back on, sidled up to me.
“So you been hanging out with ____ huh?” (the onion picker).
“Nope I ain’t been hanging out with anyone. She just follows the damn bus.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“Why’s that?”
Drum roll....
”'Cause she’s 14.”
I didn’t even say ‘how old?’ or anything like that. I just ran away as fast as I could and headed to my room to hide under my bed to wait for the school bus that was driving us to the airport the next day.
Looking back, the school bus was quite fitting.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
An Evening With Pops Derwood
Pops Derwood is practically a celebrity in his living room, so we've asked him to bring that fame and a .205 career batting average to Offbase and share a story or two about his illustrious career in the Chicago Cubs organization. His book, I Didn't See That Fast Ball, But I Heard It, is not scheduled for release until January, 2012, but here is an excerpt.
MORE TALES FROM THE LOW MINOR LEAGUES
While my four packs of Camels per day habit was nasty, nothing prepared me for my first taste of Beechnut. Ah, I love the smell of puke in the morning.
Beechnut was the tobacco of choice in the late 1960’s. You could find other stuff, but if it was not name-brand, not chewed in the show, nobody in the low, low, low (did I mention low?) minor leagues would be caught dead with it.
Of course, I had never even seen the stuff before reporting to Huron (South Dakota) in the old Northern League. Oh, I knew about it because guys like Don Zimmer and others had a wad the size of Rhode Island in their mouth when they played. And they spit long, black gobs of disgusting juice about a gazillion times a game. So, I knew chew existed, I had just never seen it.
“Gotta try it or you’re a pussy,” was the way the verbally challenged Ralph Pipes said to me in the clubhouse one day. (Pipes once gave up a home run that carried over the wall, over the scoreboard and landed in North Dakota. When he got back to the bench someone had painted a face on the ball with X’s for eyes and told him they had found the home run). Man threw hard-90+, but his fastball was flatter than Twiggy’s ass (look her up), so while it arrived in the strike zone with some speed, it usually departed even faster. Bottom line was, according to Pipes and several other guys who had played either a year of pro ball already or were born in an f’in barn, I had to try the chew or I would be forever seen as the woos from New York.
Try it I did, slowly, as in small amounts to start with, which turned out to be a problem (more on that later). I would roll it up in a ball, put it in my cheek and then spend the rest of the practice or game worrying about nothing except not swallowing the spit. No wonder I hit .175.
After a while I got to like it and added larger amounts. Of course, my teammates had never told me it was easier to control the spit if the wad is so big nothing can go down, it can just go out. Then some guys showed me how to wrap bubble gum around it, and after a while I got good at it. And it was so healthy! There I was smoking four packs a day, chewing from the minute I got to the ballpark until I left, then smoking again. Oh, and between innings sometimes I would go down the runway from the dugout to catch a smoke, with the chew still in my mouth! Yes, boys & girls, I was a picture of health! Did I mention I hit .175?
I made it through without swallowing much of anything. Which was not the case for a backup catcher in Caldwell, Idaho (he came up after I got sent down from Huron; how do you get sent down from Huron? That’s like the country song-‘lyin in the gutter and still lookin’ down at you’). He was catching batting practice one night with a big wad when he took a foul tip in the chest. When he went to his knees I knew we were in for a treat, and there he was projectile vomiting right through his face mask! It was a thing of beauty.
I finally kicked the habit(s) after coaching high school ball for five years every minute with a chew in my mouth. What a role model. But every now and then I still have a hankering for some Red Man, which became the chew of choice in baseball before the prudes in charge banned it. But I usually withstand the pressure and do something healthy, like drink a fifth of Jack Daniels. Much better for me.
MORE TALES FROM THE LOW MINOR LEAGUES
While my four packs of Camels per day habit was nasty, nothing prepared me for my first taste of Beechnut. Ah, I love the smell of puke in the morning.
Beechnut was the tobacco of choice in the late 1960’s. You could find other stuff, but if it was not name-brand, not chewed in the show, nobody in the low, low, low (did I mention low?) minor leagues would be caught dead with it.
Of course, I had never even seen the stuff before reporting to Huron (South Dakota) in the old Northern League. Oh, I knew about it because guys like Don Zimmer and others had a wad the size of Rhode Island in their mouth when they played. And they spit long, black gobs of disgusting juice about a gazillion times a game. So, I knew chew existed, I had just never seen it.
“Gotta try it or you’re a pussy,” was the way the verbally challenged Ralph Pipes said to me in the clubhouse one day. (Pipes once gave up a home run that carried over the wall, over the scoreboard and landed in North Dakota. When he got back to the bench someone had painted a face on the ball with X’s for eyes and told him they had found the home run). Man threw hard-90+, but his fastball was flatter than Twiggy’s ass (look her up), so while it arrived in the strike zone with some speed, it usually departed even faster. Bottom line was, according to Pipes and several other guys who had played either a year of pro ball already or were born in an f’in barn, I had to try the chew or I would be forever seen as the woos from New York.
Try it I did, slowly, as in small amounts to start with, which turned out to be a problem (more on that later). I would roll it up in a ball, put it in my cheek and then spend the rest of the practice or game worrying about nothing except not swallowing the spit. No wonder I hit .175.
After a while I got to like it and added larger amounts. Of course, my teammates had never told me it was easier to control the spit if the wad is so big nothing can go down, it can just go out. Then some guys showed me how to wrap bubble gum around it, and after a while I got good at it. And it was so healthy! There I was smoking four packs a day, chewing from the minute I got to the ballpark until I left, then smoking again. Oh, and between innings sometimes I would go down the runway from the dugout to catch a smoke, with the chew still in my mouth! Yes, boys & girls, I was a picture of health! Did I mention I hit .175?
I made it through without swallowing much of anything. Which was not the case for a backup catcher in Caldwell, Idaho (he came up after I got sent down from Huron; how do you get sent down from Huron? That’s like the country song-‘lyin in the gutter and still lookin’ down at you’). He was catching batting practice one night with a big wad when he took a foul tip in the chest. When he went to his knees I knew we were in for a treat, and there he was projectile vomiting right through his face mask! It was a thing of beauty.
I finally kicked the habit(s) after coaching high school ball for five years every minute with a chew in my mouth. What a role model. But every now and then I still have a hankering for some Red Man, which became the chew of choice in baseball before the prudes in charge banned it. But I usually withstand the pressure and do something healthy, like drink a fifth of Jack Daniels. Much better for me.
Friday, August 6, 2010
An Evening with Pops Derwood
Pops Derwood is practically a celebrity in his living room, so we've asked him to bring that fame and a .205 career batting average to Offbase and share a story or two about his illustrious career in the Chicago Cubs organization. His book, I Didn't See That Fast Ball, But I Heard It, is not scheduled for release until January, 2012, but here is an excerpt.
OK, I swear this is a true story though I wasn’t there. I have it from good sources though, my college roommate and fellow Chicago Cubs farmhand, Tommy Badcock, that this story was completely true. I had already been long gone from the organization when Badcock was in Triple-A with a catcher named Steve Swisher-yea, little Nicky’s Dad. Now Swisher (just like me) was a terrible hitter but not a bad catcher. Not a great catcher (like me), but good nevertheless.
Well (Swisher) was hitting about .150 in Triple-A playing in Iowa and according to Badcock was getting worse and worse. In fact, it was affecting his catching and everyone---and I mean everyone---thought his days were numbered. Even that lousy, crappy Cubs organization wasn’t going to hold on to a Triple-A, so-so catcher hitting a buck and a half.
One lazy, summer afternoon (yes we played in the after-freakin’-noon in those days) during BP there was no Swisher to be found; gone. He wasn't on the field and nobody could find him in the clubhouse either. The word in the outfield during hitting was ‘oh-oh, this could be it.’
And sure enough, a little while later, here comes Swish (original huh?), walking out of the clubhouse onto the field with his big old Cubs equipment bag over his shoulder (catching gear, helmet, gloves etc). Everyone was absolutely sure what that meant: “you don’t have to go home, but you gotta’ leave here.”
As Swisher meandered around the park talking to individual players, he would talk, shake hands, sometimes hug, and move on. Badcock’s group in the outfield just waited for him, head down, and wondered 'what the hell do you say to a guy who just had his life long dream blasted away on him?' (I remember what everyone said to me a few years earlier after being released in Spring Training: “get the hell out of here you’re using up space"). Tommy told me it was the longest five minutes of his life, just waiting for Swisher, who of course was Badcock’s catcher, to make his way out to him.
Slowly, he walked. It seemed like time stood still and when he got to Badcock he looked up with tears in his eyes. (Well that seals it--he’s toast). As if on cue, Swisher looked up, locked eyes with Tommy, and Tommy began to say “sorry Swish” but Swisher beat him to it: “I’m going to Wrigley.”
“Yea, so sorry to hear it, Swish…what did you say?”
“I’m going to Wrigley. Hundley’s hurt and they need a catcher.”
He never came back and played nine years in the big leagues.
Go figure.
OK, I swear this is a true story though I wasn’t there. I have it from good sources though, my college roommate and fellow Chicago Cubs farmhand, Tommy Badcock, that this story was completely true. I had already been long gone from the organization when Badcock was in Triple-A with a catcher named Steve Swisher-yea, little Nicky’s Dad. Now Swisher (just like me) was a terrible hitter but not a bad catcher. Not a great catcher (like me), but good nevertheless.
Well (Swisher) was hitting about .150 in Triple-A playing in Iowa and according to Badcock was getting worse and worse. In fact, it was affecting his catching and everyone---and I mean everyone---thought his days were numbered. Even that lousy, crappy Cubs organization wasn’t going to hold on to a Triple-A, so-so catcher hitting a buck and a half.
One lazy, summer afternoon (yes we played in the after-freakin’-noon in those days) during BP there was no Swisher to be found; gone. He wasn't on the field and nobody could find him in the clubhouse either. The word in the outfield during hitting was ‘oh-oh, this could be it.’
And sure enough, a little while later, here comes Swish (original huh?), walking out of the clubhouse onto the field with his big old Cubs equipment bag over his shoulder (catching gear, helmet, gloves etc). Everyone was absolutely sure what that meant: “you don’t have to go home, but you gotta’ leave here.”
As Swisher meandered around the park talking to individual players, he would talk, shake hands, sometimes hug, and move on. Badcock’s group in the outfield just waited for him, head down, and wondered 'what the hell do you say to a guy who just had his life long dream blasted away on him?' (I remember what everyone said to me a few years earlier after being released in Spring Training: “get the hell out of here you’re using up space"). Tommy told me it was the longest five minutes of his life, just waiting for Swisher, who of course was Badcock’s catcher, to make his way out to him.
Slowly, he walked. It seemed like time stood still and when he got to Badcock he looked up with tears in his eyes. (Well that seals it--he’s toast). As if on cue, Swisher looked up, locked eyes with Tommy, and Tommy began to say “sorry Swish” but Swisher beat him to it: “I’m going to Wrigley.”
“Yea, so sorry to hear it, Swish…what did you say?”
“I’m going to Wrigley. Hundley’s hurt and they need a catcher.”
He never came back and played nine years in the big leagues.
Go figure.
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