Personal History XI -- My Love of Sports

My Love of Sports

    Another love of my life was sports.  I mentioned my dad’s interest in baseball earlier.  We lived in the era when every little podunk town had its own baseball team.  My dad was a catcher.  He was almost an even six feet tall and built like a football linebacker.  In those days, there were no rules against the catcher blocking home plate and he could do that, standing a foot or so directly on the path toward third base and just daring a base-runner to try to run over him.  I look at my grandchildren inheriting his size and build and I say about McKay, “There goes a little version of my dad.”
    Catcher’s mitts were also different then and had no flex built into them.  Pitched balls had to be caught with both hands, stopping the throw with the mitt and then keeping it in the pocket by clamping down on the ball with the bare hand.  An occupational hazard for catchers in those days was naturally getting your bare hand in the way of the pitch and broken knuckles. My dad ‘s right hand and his knotty knuckles were a badge of his baseball position and commitment.
    The baseball diamond on which the Glenwood Town Team played was the field at the school behind the school gym.   The Town Team games were a big deal on Sunday afternoons.  Spectators would come early and park their cars along the left and right field foul-lines.  There was a small grandstand behind the backstop, but many people seemed to prefer sitting in their cars.  When a player made a good play, they would honk their horns.  A home run brought honking that could be heard  for miles.
    I gained a preference for watching the game from behind the backstop, directly behind home plate, perhaps inheriting this desire for a catcher’s point of reference from my dad.  I liked to see what kind of “stuff” the pitcher had, and also to being able to confirm or question the calls made by the umpire.
    Other young men also hung out in that area.  We competed to chase down foul balls.  The team paid a nickle for every foul ball we returned.  In those times the team tried to save money by not using more than three or four balls to play a game.
    I remember and we have pictures of my dad in his baseball uniform when I was 4 or 5 years old.  Then all baseball stopped for World War II.  When it resumed in 1946, at his age 40 he tried once more to play the game he loved, but had lost too much of his athleticism, and didn’t get to play much, so he quit.  But still he loved the game.  We were Portland Beaver fans, and drove down to Portland a time or two to see one of their games (about 100 miles away).  It was unfortunate that radio reception for Beaver games was really spotty at our place.  Finally we resolved our problem by finding a clear channel station from Sacramento, California, that broadcast games of the Sacramento Bees of the same Pacific Coast league.  I recall my dad and I on many summer evenings after he had finished milking our cows, sitting together by the family radio relishing these baseball broadcasts.
    At the same time, I became a Boston Red Sox fan at age 9.  It was 1946, the great Ted Williams was back from the Air Force and the Sox ran away in their race for the American League pennant.  I am searching my mind to try to recall how I had enough exposure to news about the major leagues to find them interesting.  There was of course no TV or video reports of games, and I am doubtful that there were even radio broadcasts except maybe World Series times.  I guess I must have been an avid reader of the sports section of the Portland Oregonian, our newspaper.  The World Series was tragic.  The Red Sox were playing the Cardinals and led the series 3 to 2, going back St. Louis.  The Cardinals won game six to tie the series.  In the final game in bottom of the eighth with the score tied and a Cardinal runner, Enos Slaughter, on first, there was a hit to the outfield.  Slaughter got a great jump on the ball and just kept going, with a daring dash for the plate.  The Red Sox shortstop, Johnny Pesky, took the incoming throw and froze for a moment, so that his throw to home was late.  Slaughter had scored the winning run and was immortalized.  I suffered with the Red Sox in 1946 and for many years thereafter.
    I sometimes dreamed of playing baseball in the majors.  I thought if I could learn to pitch left handed, I would have a chance. So I marked off a strike zone on the side of our barn and practiced throwing baseballs, but never got past the point of “throwing like a girl” as Wendy would say with my left arm, and gave up on being a famous major league pitcher.  My good friend Jimmy Johnson had similar dreams, so for quite a few years we put ourselves through our own Spring training regime.  When the snow would begin to melt around the side of the school gym, so that there was room for two persons to play catch, we would start to bring our baseball mitts to school.  At recess or noon we would begin to get our throwing arms ready for the baseball season, throwing softly at the start and then lengthening the time and velocity of our throws gradually over the next few weeks.  I think we started this procedure long before we were a part of any formal baseball team.
    Our community provided no opportunity for me to play organized sports until I was at least a seventh grader, and this was school basketball.  The small rural schools in our area organized seventh and eighth grade teams that sometimes played a late afternoon game the same day that their varsity teams competed.  Sometimes there was also a junior varsity game.  Those Fridays got really complicated, because of a rule enforced by the state high school athletic association, which was that no one could play in more than four quarters on a given day.  In schools such as ours with very small numbers, the coaches had to have enough subs available to finish the game if someone would get hurt or foul out.  So drawing from a grand total of about 20 boys at our school, the coaches would hold out the best 8th graders for one or two quarters, to be subs in the junior varsity game.  Likewise for the junior varsity game a couple of the best players would sit out a quarter or two of that game.  This would leave the best 5 or 6 players in the whole school to play the varsity game having two or three subs who already had played some quarters in an earlier game.  The entire schedule of games would start at perhaps 3 pm with the seventh and eighth grade game.  Then immediately following would be the junior varsity game, following which the high school girls volleyball teams would play.  Then last of all, starting about 7 pm would be the varsity basketball game.  To complicate the evening even more, we tried to field a pep band (our school band).  Since most of the students played ball and were also in the band, when we weren’t suited up for a game, we were expected to be playing our instrument in the band.
    At Glenwood High School, we played six-man football.  The rules were mostly like the eleven man game, but teams played with only six players, three linemen and three backs.  The linemen were a center and two ends.  The backs were a quarterback and two halfbacks.  Everyone was an eligible receiver.  One of our favorite plays was a center pass.  Our big old kid Don Hoodenpyl, who hiked the ball, ran down field about eight or ten yards and received a pass.  In this game, passing operated just like the eleven man game.  However, the quarterback was not allowed to do a quarterback sneak.  If he didn’t pass he had to hand the ball to someone else (a two passes in the backfield rule).  Teams had to make 15 yards for a first down.  The games typically were filled with lots offense and scoring.
    I actually started this football in the fall when I was in the eighth grade (at age 12).  There were so few boys in high school that the team that couldn’t scrimmage or practice its plays.  At one point, some of us eighth graders were drafted to play defense.  And the team didn’t have enough pads for their recruits to be in full uniform.  I was apprehensive but tried it and survived.       There was a lot of social pressure on all the guys to go out for football.  My being a year younger was a disadvantage also.  After I got some more height and size when I was about 15, sports, especially football, were more satisfying.
    In football, I usually played end both on offense and defense.  In football, we only played schools our size that competed with 6-man teams.  I can think of one exception, when Coach Chilcott wanted us to experience the regular game.  He was able to schedule a scrimmage with the Goldendale high school team, which normally played in an 11-man league with teams from Yakima valley.  We didn’t do any practice or preparation for this.  The coach had a bunch of position and play cards. When we were on offense he ran out to our huddle and held up a card which diagramed what each of us was to do on the next play he wanted us to run.  I turned out to be quite fun, and I think athletically we were able to be nearly a match.  Our main opponents in football were high school teams from Klickitat, Lyle, Wishram, in Washington, and some Oregon towns, Cascade Locks, Mosier, Dufer.  I think it was sad that we didn’t get to play against our biggest basketball rival, Trout Lake.  Their school did not field a football team.
    In basketball, by the time I was a senior, I ended up being one of the taller guys and played forward.  I was a pretty good rebounder and could hit an outside set shot (the jump shot hadn’t been invented yet).  Our basketball opponents were the Washington schools listed above, plus Trout Lake and Bickleton.  We also played pre-season with Goldendale.  We competed with the schools our size pretty well and had lots of support from the community.  We won or nearly won our league each year.  We qualified for a district tournament, but lost a team from Kalama, which was a basketball powerhouse at that time.  We were in a small school bracket but Kalama had a lot larger student population than Glenwood.  I think the state only had two brackets at this time so we were still grouped with schools that had hundreds of students.
    I played a lot of the positions in baseball.  For at least a couple of years, I was the regular catcher.  Our little valley produced some good baseball talent.  We played a pre-season game against Goldendale, in which Steve Hoodenpyl pitched a one hitter, and we won 1-0.  I caught that game. I played first base one year, when I had an ankle sprain left over from the football season.  I also sometimes played in the infield, second base and third base. 
    In all of these sports, I was one of the better players but never the best.  In football we had a couple of guys who could pass and others that were good runners with the football.  Lyle Schilling was a great basketball scorer and good for 20 or 30 points each night.  It was a lot of fun to play and compete on these teams.
    One of the disadvantages I experienced in school sports was that I was always a year younger and less mature than the others.  In fact Lyle Schilling had been held back a year in the elementary grades so was a 19 year old the same time we were both high school seniors.
    A further baseball experience I had after my junior year was to be invited along with a couple of others from our Glenwood team to join an American Legion team that played out of White Salmon.
    Just after my 17th birthday I graduated from high school.  Several of us seniors were invited to join the Town Team, the same team my dad had played for when I was smaller.  By this time, I had grown to my full height and had begun to add a few muscles.  It was late May and as I started attending the Town Team practices I noticed that something different was happening as I took batting practice.  The ball seemed to fly off my bat in a new way.  I watched my drives consistently going deep into the outfield or even beyond the fence.  It was almost magical and I think the older players on the team were also taking notice.
    Early in the first of June we had a visitor drop in.  It was the Branch President who had made the one-hour drive to our place with an invitation.  He said to me and my sister Dorothy, “We have reserved the baptismal font at the Hood River Ward for a branch baptismal service on Saturday at 5 p.m.  Why don’t you come and be baptized?”
    I had been praying for this opportunity since I was 8 years old.  My father had opposed our being baptized until were grown up enough to make a mature decision but now gave his approval.  We made the 90 minute drive to Hood River and, sure enough, the Branch leaders were there, and they baptized us and confirmed us members of the Church.
    Over the next few days I pondered the implications of what had happened.  Things had changed.  I had made promises to the Lord that I needed to try to keep.  The Town Team played all of its games on Sunday.  I knew that I just covenanted to be obedient to commandments that included keeping the Sabbath Day holy, and spending my Sundays playing baseball games seemed now to not fulfill that expectation.  So I made the choice that I felt I had to make and retired from the Town Team.  You might say that I had retired from baseball at age 17.
    After I began college at BYU, there was a time when I toyed with the idea of preparing to be a high school teacher and coach.  A physical education major or minor required a person to take a series of PE skills classes.  I took three of these classes in my sophomore year, including gymnastics and track and field.  I found that I did not have the best body type for gymnastics–I was too tall and lacked upper body strength, but it was fun to jump on the trampoline.  Track and field was more to my liking.  I tried the various events, and thought that I had potential to do well in the middle distance races.  I did especially well in the high jump.
    In those days, the best high jump form involved a sort of scissors kick and roll.  You approached the bar at a sharp angle, usually from the left side.  While running at the bar, you kicked upward with the right leg, then rolled over the bar on your stomach, kicking backward with your left leg.  I worked on this for a couple of weeks and successfully jumped 5 feet 11 inches.  This was not more than 5 or 6 inches below the height being achieved by the varsity jumpers.  I briefly had a dream of competing with the BYU track team, but then went on a mission and didn’t have the chance to pursue this any further.  And then came the Fosbury Flop that totally changed this event.
    I did other things with sports also, as a BYU student.  As a freshman, I took a PE class in tennis and learned something about how to play this game.  My coach with Fred “Buck” Dixon a Utah Sports Hall of Fame coach.  As an aside, his brother Sanky Dixon had some of the same coaching acclaim, and was the father of Don Dixon, BYU football quarterback and social worker, with whom I worked at the Welfare Department and State Hospital. And Don was the father of Sean Dixon, the Blake’s current Stake President and who also was Payson Seminary Principal when I was substitute teaching when I first moved to Utah County after retiring.
    In my student wards at college I played on the ward basketball and volleyball teams.  One of the wards had some California kids who were very good at the latter.  We won in our stake and came in second to an American Fork team led by the BYU basketball great Herschel Pedersen in a Utah County regional tournament, and qualified for and played in the All-Church volleyball tournament in Salt Lake.

    For many years, I played with whatever sports teams the ward fielded.   In our Orem Morningsides Heights ward, we had basketball and also fastpitch softball.  There were lots of younger men in the ward, so we were pretty competitive  Living in the ward was Lonnie Gleave, who had played freshman basketball ay BYU.  He was tall and bulky by this time and took up a lot of space in the on the basketball court.  He also was a talented softball pitcher.  I caught some of our team’s games.  Living in another ward of our stake was Gary Earnest, who had played varsity basketball ay BYU and was an excellent softball pitcher.  I had the good fortune to connect on one of his fastballs and hit it over the fence in centerfield in one of games. 
    I also played on teams from our ward in Taylorsville, basketball and softball.  We played slowpitch softball there and I usually played way out in the outfield, because I had some running and catching skills.
    One of the most happy experiences I had with sports was helping coach Mattthew’s and David’s little league baseball teams.
    As I approached my 40th birthday, I started running or jogging, either before work or noon.  Our Department state office building on North Temple had a dressing and shower room that was a big asset.  Usually I would run up City Creek Canyon, or sometimes west to the Jordan River trail, and occasionally to the top of Ensign Peak.
    I ran in several 5k or 10k races during this period for the exercise, but of course never contended to try to win.
    I also played noon basketball at times with a group from our office, at a nearby special school building where we had permission to use the gym.  That is what I was doing in 1985, at age 48, when I had my first heart attack
    I always remained a sports fan.  I cheered for BYU in all sports, but sometimes also rooted for teams from the U of U or USU, when they were not playing the Y.   Surely I am allowed to do that, since I have graduate degrees or credit from both other schools.
    More recently, when available I have enjoy following BYU sports on TV, watching some of the lesser sports, women’s soccer and basketball, and both mens and women’s volleyball.  Since I also played that game, it has become an amazing spectacle for me, a real power game both for the women and the men.
    I have been a fan of the Utah Jazz, all of the years they have been in Salt Lake City
    In baseball, I have maintained my devotion for the Red Sox, but have also followed other teams especially the Denver Rockies, since we can watch all of their games on the Spanish Fork cable network (SFCN).  I was not able to pass my devotion to the Red Sox to anyone else in the family, and early on Matthew and David chose their own MLB teams to follow. 
    I thank David for arranging to take us on a guided tour of Fenway Park during the off-season when Wendy and I visited their family while they were living in Massachusetts.  I loved seeing for myself features of the park that have been immortalized, the Green Monster, the Pesky Pole, and especially the seat way out in the right field bleachers that is painted red.  In case you don’t know, this signifies the spot where the longest home run ever hit in the park landed, 504 feet from home plate, by Ted Williams.  The rest of the story is that it struck a Yankee fan, while he was dozing.  He had come up from New York and the teams were playing a double header on a hot afternoon.  The right field bleachers had no cover.  He had just closed his eyes to catch a few winks, when the ball came flying.  He didn’t suffer any injuries, but the Red Sox management were generous in offering him a free ticket whenever her returned.
    Interestingly, Wendy along with her sisters are great baseball fans.  She has suffered with the Chicago Cubs for almost as many years as I have with the Red Sox, and she, like me, is a Jazz fan.  We try to go to a Salt Lake Bees game a time or two with her siblings each summer.  We have watched quite a lot of baseball and basketball TV together.  She also is a diehard Ute, but I still care for her.