Lefty O'Doul: A San Francisco Legend!

I sat down at Lefty O’Doul’s restaurant in San Francisco the other day, ordered an O’Doul’s and sat down to interview Tom O’Doul, Lefty’s cousin. Is that triple déjà vu or what?

This week would have been Lefty’s 113th birthday. So, hoist a brew in Lefty’s name, because somewhere up in heaven he’s hitting in the high .300’s and having a great time.

Benefits of a famous cousin: “I didn’t really know who Lefty O’Doul was until I started playing baseball in Little League. Until then, he was just my cousin. When I started playing ball, he started coming around more. One story I love to relate is that Lefty always came to my opening days when I was playing Little League. In 1954, opening day was approaching and my dad told me, “Cousin Frank’s coming to your opener.” And I thought, that’s cool. It was an opportunity for me to walk around and be proud for my cousin, a former major leaguer. So he shows up in a Cadillac with Joe DiMaggio. I’ll never forget the moment, because everyone’s mouth just dropped and stay opened. There was a buzz in the air. But, they were gone five minutes later. I lived off that moment for the next five years, at least.”

Why Lefty loved Japanese baseball so much: “Probably because the way they played the game. I think he liked the purity of it. He appreciated their dedication to the game. They’re very humble people; they’re very polite and I believe he respected that. He was a teacher and a great coach above all, and the Japanese were starved for coaching and knowledge about how to play the game. He actually brought Japanese coaches here to the United States to teach them. And they were extremely pleased to learn from the “Great American”. Lefty was the one who brought Babe Ruth to Japan. They were dying to see Babe and he brought them on his first tour there in 1934. He did three tours to Japan total—in ’31, ’34 and ’49. He’s influenced baseball in Japan in so many ways. In fact, the Tokyo Giants are named the Giants because of their connection with my cousin, who of course played with the NY Giants. In 2002, Lefty was chosen to be in the Japanese Baseball of Fame. He was elected by a special committee. I know Lefty would be so proud and happy to see all of the great Japanese players in the majors right now, like Ichiro and all the others. Lefty envisioned an international game. I hope people remember what Lefty did for that country and its baseball. I believe it ‘s his legacy.”

Lefty’s early days: “He never made it past the 7th grade and he would always push me to finish school, he said. ‘At least graduate from high school,’ he said. He had to drop out of school to go to work as a butcher. His father, his grandfather and his uncles were all butchers. If he hadn’t made it as a baseball player, he would have been a butcher his whole life. People could see right away that Lefty had baseball talent. He had the hand coordination, the great vision and the instincts you need to make it to be a good player. He could play any position he wanted to. In ’37, he was the MVP in the Pacific Coast League as a pitcher. They said he hurt his arm after that year for throwing too hard, but I believe he injured it lifting one too many beers. There was nothing he couldn’t do in the game.”

His relationships with other great players: “O’Doul got along with everyone, including Ty Cobb, which wasn’t easy from what I heard. He loved Babe Ruth and they spent a lot of time together. They both had that great sense of humor, so that’s probably why they got along so well. He was one of those guys who didn’t have a lot of enemies. He wasn’t enamored with most of the umpires and he had no problem telling them if he thought they blew a call. He got threw out of his share of games. But, back then they rode the umps a lot more than they do today.”

The world famous Lefty O’ Doul’s Bloody Mary: “It’s from an original O’Doul family recipe and they’ve served it there since day one. We’re a drinking family and we’ve always been a bunch of drinkers. The O’Doul’s drug of choice is alcohol. Lefty drank bourbon and water and beer. I remember sitting in our yard with my father and my uncle and he was drinking beer. But he liked his bourbon, I remember that. He drank Acme beer in the 1950’s. It was a San Francisco beer and he preferred it. My uncle loved being in bars and talking to people in bars, so opening his own restaurant/bar in his hometown was a logical progression. He loved being a restaurateur and he was very good at it.”

What Tiger Didn't Say Yesterday

As we all know, the real important things that should have been said were never even approached. So, here I am writing between the lines.

Good morning, and thank you for joining me. Many of you in this room are my friends. Many of you in this room know me. Many of you have cheered for me or you've worked with me or you've supported me.

I stacked the room.

Now every one of you has good reason to be critical of me. I want to say to each of you, simply and directly, I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior I engaged in.

I’m so sorry I got caught.

Elin and I have started the process of discussing the damage caused by my behavior.

Buying her an expensive yacht is the first part of that healing process.

As Elin pointed out to me, my real apology to her will not come in the form of words.

It will come written on a check .

I am also aware of the pain my behavior has caused to those of you in this room. I have let you down, and I have let down my fans. For many of you, especially my friends, my behavior has been a personal disappointment. To those of you who work for me, I have let you down personally and professionally. My behavior has caused considerable worry to my business partners.

If I could have done it differently, yes, I would have frequented massage parlors and avoided skanky nightclub hostesses.

To everyone involved in my foundation, including my staff, board of directors, sponsors, and most importantly, the young students we reach, our work is more important than ever. Thirteen years ago, my dad and I envisioned helping young people achieve their dreams through education. This work remains unchanged and will continue to grow. From the Learning Center students in Southern California to the Earl Woods scholars in Washington, D.C., millions of kids have changed their lives, and I am dedicated to making sure that continues.

I’m starting a class for kids teaching them how to pick up on strippers and another one called “Erotic Texting”.

For all that I have done, I am so sorry.

But, the fact that I’m amazingly rich makes it a little easier to deal with all this sorrow and regret.

I have a lot to atone for, but there is one issue I really want to discuss. Some people have speculated that Elin somehow hurt or attacked me on Thanksgiving night. It angers me that people would fabricate a story like that. Elin never hit me that night or any other night. There has never been an episode of domestic violence in our marriage, ever. Elin has shown enormous grace and poise throughout this ordeal. Elin deserves praise, not blame.

Elin deserves half and I’m scared.

The Presidio Golf Course is "Fore" the Environment

The Presidio golf course is one of the Presidio’s greatest attractions, with amazing panoramic views and a rich history. But, now the world is honoring the course for being a leader in environmentally sensitive golf course management. By capturing the highly-regarded Turfgrass Excellence Award in the public category of the Golf Superintendents Association of Northern California, course superintendent Brian Nettz can say with confidence that the greens at the Presidio course are truly greener.
The Presidio was built in 1895, making it the second oldest in Northern California. But by using technologies perfected in 2010, the course is running a sustainable, green and clean operation. More than 60,000 rounds are played there every year, so maintaining the course is a huge undertaking. Keeping the course green, neatly trimmed and ideal for top-flight golfers is a 24/7 job, but Nettz and his 17-member crew are up for the task.
“This award shines brightly not only on the work of Brain Nettz and his crew,” said Jeff Deis, the Presidio Trust’s Chief Operating Officer, the organization that oversees the entire Presidio. “But it also showcases the Trust’s commitment to sustainability and reflects on the golf course as a whole, given its unique position in a National Park setting.”
By taking a preventative approach to pest control and focusing on natural alternatives to pesticides, the Presidio golf course has been able to cut its pesticide use in half within the last decade and now uses 70-85 percent less pesticide than the majority of private courses in San Francisco. With fewer insects, the only thing bugging your game at the Presidio golf course might be your handicap.
Instead of teeing up, the groundskeepers at the Presidio golf course “tea up” by spraying a “compost tea” instead of chemical pesticides on their greens. This solution is made by soaking compost in water to extract the nutrients from the compost. It’s just one of the methods the course is using to control disease while promoting overall turf health.
“We use seaweed and the compost tea in conjunction to fight insects that would otherwise destroy these greens, for example,” Nettz said. “Once we get the tea, we have to apply it to the grass within 24 hours or it will lose its effectiveness. It contains beneficial microbes and they eat the bad microbes existing on the course. We’ve been on the compost tea bandwagon for a while now, so we’ve really begun to see better and better results. It’s an accumulative process and the fact that we’ve stuck with it has really paid off.”
Nettz and his crew have also adopted “cultural control” techniques such as aerating and over –seeding fairways and increasing drainage to create conditions more favorable to turf and less favorable to weeds. Groundskeepers have changed the type of turf throughout sections of the course and trim tree branches to reduce shade on certain holes to control the invasive, worm-like nematode, which sounds more like a Star Wars-like alien created just down the road at George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic.
Nettz was surprised and pleased about the award. “We’ve been stressing sustainability and avoiding the use of toxic chemicals in every case,” he said. “We’re always balancing between providing our golfers with conditions they prefer, while being committed to developing non-invasive methods for maintaining the course and providing a safer working environment for our employees. ”
Do golfers who play the Presidio yell “Fore” in response to a greener approach to the game? “Several of our regular golfers and club members have congratulated us for the award,” Nettz said. “In the end, they want to be able to play a quality 18 holes and go home to their families, but I believe they respect the fact that we focus on doing the right thing for the environment and making it a priority.

The 1949 U.S. Goodwill Baseball Tour of Japan

“The 1949 U.S. Goodwill Baseball Tour of Japan” is currently a display at the Society of California Pioneers museum at 300 4th Street (at Folsom) in San Francisco. It runs through Spring. Call (415) 957-1849 for more information. If you’re a fan of baseball history, this is a must-see, featuring more than 250 items from this historical tour.

I enjoy studying about the long history of baseball in San Francisco. Next month, the City By the Bay will celebrate 150 years of baseball in the Bay Area.

Lefty O’Doul was a fascinating guy. He’s the second-greatest player from the area, old-timers say. (Joe D. is obviously #1). O’Doul loved Japan and spearheaded the 1949 U.S. Goodwill Baseball Tour of Japan in 1949. Even though we dropped the big bomb on their country, the Japanese were enthralled by American baseball and welcomed our San Francisco Seals players with open hands.

The 1949 U.S. Goodwill Baseball Tour of Japan was one of the first peacetime cultural exchanges of the post-war era between the two nations. It was the 1940’s equivalent of the famed “ping-pong” diplomacy practiced by the U.S. and mainland China in the 1970’s. The Tour captured the imagination of the Japanese public with a fervor unmatched by any other pre-war or post-war Baseball Tour of Japan. The publicity surrounding this Tour dwarfed all others – scores of graphic posters, hand colored and printed baseball cards, commemorative jewelry, kimonos, umbrellas, uniforms and tour jackets were produced and presented to each player upon arriving in Yokohama on October 12th. At tour’s end, each player was presented with a personalized fabric covered album containing large, high quality black and white photos of the players’ arrival, receptions, parades, team photos, and game action shots.

Upon the personal request of General Douglas MacArthur, the Tour was organized by Lefty O’Doul, a man beloved by Japanese baseball fans, who had toured Japan with various U.S. All-Star Teams as early as 1931. By 1949, O’Doul was manager of the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League. In that era, the P.C.L. was not the Triple A minor league team that we know today, but a league containing many major league caliber players who preferred to play west of the Mississippi for more money than major league teams had offered them. It was only fitting that O’Doul bring the Seals to play the Japanese All-Star teams, for over the course of the eleven game Tour, they drew more than half a million spectators to the games played at Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka.

In the span of a month, O’Doul and the Seals had managed to restore some of the nation’s morale, break the post-war tension in Japanese-American relations, and lay a new foundation for friendship between the two countries. Emperor Hirohito was so grateful that he invited the Seals to the Imperial Palace to personally thank them for all they had done. General MacArthur was even more effusive in his praise, fervently claiming of O’Doul’s 1949 Tour, “This is the greatest piece of diplomacy ever.”

Compliments of Tim Evans,
Exhibitions & Education Coordinator

Ed's Picks From the Street

Many sportswriters and/or prognosticators are skittish when they make their NFL postseason selections, but I'm ready to give you mine right now!

This year's playoffs features more parity than in any recent seasons. Will Wild Card teams like Green Bay and the Jets go deep in the brackets? Or will the leading teams (New Orleans & Indy) reach the Promised Land called the Super Bowl? Get your fantasy playoff rosters and your score squares ready, because here I go:

First Round:

Jets vs. Bengals: The Jets are hot and their defense is tough! Jets win!

Ravens vs. Pats: Baltimore is better and improving, but Brady and Moss will prevail. Pats!

Eagles vs. Cowboys: Dallas is ready and primed to make a run & Philly is slumping. Boyz!

Pack vs. Cards: Green Bay is playing a hot hand and Arizona has big holes on defense. Cheese!

Second Round:

Jets vs. Colts: The NY magic ends here. Manning and Addai will make everything right. Colts!

Pats vs. Chargers: San Diego will outscore New England and Belichick will whine. Chargers!

Cowboys vs. Vikings: This could be close, but Dallas will prevail with DEFENSE. Cowboys!

Pack vs. Saints: New Orleans is real, but the Pack is Back. Packers!

Championship Round:

Chargers vs. Colts: Decided by a field goal. (Final score: S.D.: 27-23) Chargers to the Bowl!

Green Bay vs. Cowboys: Decided by a TD. (Final score: 'Boyz: 31-24) Dallas Back on the Grassy Knoll!

Super Bowl:

Chargers vs. Cowboys: San Diego is better and deeper overall. It will be close until the 4th quarter when two crucial turnovers bury the Boyz. (Final: Chargers 30 Cowboys 20. Super Bowl MVP: Phil Rivers)

Yo, Meathead!

Even though I'm wary of giving picks, Big Ed and I are going to post them for this year's NFL playoffs, just for fun!

Here are my picks.

Wild Card Round:

Jets vs. Bengals: Much to my chagrin, Jets will win (sigh). Hey, I made a rhyme!

Ravens vs. Patriots: Even without Wes Welker, New England has enough to take this one, darn it. Pats will win.

Eagles vs. Cowboys: A deadly matchup for me. Dallas hasn't won a playoff game since 1996, and it will stay that way. Eagles will win.

Packers vs. Cardinals: Just like the last game of the season. Packers will win.

Divisional Round:

Jets vs. Colts: Don't make me laugh. Colts will win.

Patriots vs. Chargers: Bolts are too much for injured Pats. Chargers will win.

Eagles vs. Saints: Iggles find their midseason form. Eagles will win.

Packers vs. Vikings: A Favre postseason grudge match. Vikings will win.

Championship Round:

Chargers vs. Colts: Manning can't be stopped. Colts will win.

Eagles vs. Vikings: Vikes will choke, McNabb will shine. Eagles will win.

Super Bowl:

Eagles vs. Colts: Now it's the Eagles' turn to choke, as they so often do at this time of year. Final: Colts 27, Eagles 17. Super Bowl MVP: Who else? Peyton Manning.

Lester Rodney: He Helped Get Jackie in the Game

Lester Rodney, the sports editor and columnist for the American Communist Party newspaper the Daily Worker who crusaded to end segregation in major league baseball in the 1930s and '40s, has died. He was 98.

Mr. Rodney died Sunday December 20th at his home in a retirement community in Walnut Creek, Calif., said his daughter, Amy Rodney.

Beginning in the decade before Jackie Robinson suited up with the Brooklyn Dodgers and broke baseball's color barrier in 1947, Rodney began pressing for the desegregation of baseball via columns and stories in the Daily Worker's sports pages. By joining with the black press, Rodney was able to implement a plan to get a black player on a major league roster.

He called the ban against blacks in the major leagues "un-American" and "the crime of the big leagues."

During World War II, Mr. Rodney served as an Army combat medic in the Pacific. But he was back home in New York to cover Robinson's debut as a Brooklyn Dodger on April 15, 1947.

"It's hard this Opening Day to write straight baseball and not stop to mention the wonderful fact of Jackie Robinson," Mr. Rodney wrote. "You tell yourself it shouldn't be especially wonderful in America, no more wonderful, for instance, than Negro soldiers being with us on the way overseas through submarine-infested waters in 1943."

Clare, Rodney's wife of 58 years, died in 2004.

Writing for the Daily Worker: “I ran the entire sports department, including laying out the sports section and then I had to get my ass to the ball games, and so on and prove myself as a sportswriter. At first, my main objective was to show that we were a real sports section. Then, the one scoop we had never covered smacked me right in the face. No other papers would talk about the amazing fact that halfway through the 20th century in the land of the free, qualified and over-qualified baseball players couldn’t participate in our national pastime. And it was our national pastime back then much more than it is today. There was no NBA or NFL at the level it’s at today. There were no video games, no Internet, no cable TV. If the Dodgers were playing in Brooklyn and a truck pulled up next to you, it would be unthinkable to not hear Red Barber on the radio or people would find it peculiar. Baseball was huge back then. No other paper said anything about the fact that the black players were locked out of major league baseball. If the Negro leagues had a game in town, you could read about the game, but nothing was ever mentioned that these players were not allowed to play in the majors. Did this mean that all of the sportswriters in New York during this time were racists? No, they were ordinary people, but they knew what they could turn into their paper and if they wrote something saying things like, ‘why aren’t these guys playing in the big leagues?’ their editors would have asked them something like, “why are you bringing this stuff up here?’ That was the culture of the times. Racism was accepted. And that was one of the things that attracted me to the Communists. What the Communists were going down in the South was working for black voting rights, putting their bodies were their mouths were.”

The Ban: “I talk to my granddaughter’s friends and I try to make a connection to what happened back then compared to now. I tell them ‘look at Barry Bonds today’, the superstar (this interview was in 2004 right before the steroids hearing). Supposedly everyone knows how great he is, just the same way that people back then knew how good Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson were, but they weren’t allowed to play. Unspeakable! It’s dastardly and un-American. Ridiculous! But that’s the way things were back then. Josh Gibson, the greatest catcher who ever put on a uniform, never played an inning of big league baseball, and he died in a bitter, drunken wreck. You know, we’ve really gotten off the hook a little light about this time in our history. And so this is what motivated me to write for the Daily Worker. People will ask me, ‘were you doing this to get the Negroes to join the Communist Party?’ No. I was doing it personally because basically I wanted the ban to end. I was a baseball fan since I was six years old it was the game I loved. I wanted the best players in the game to show their stuff to America. I never met a black player who told me he wanted to stay in the Negro Leagues. That’s ridiculous. If you feel you’re the best violinist in the country and you live in Paducah, you don’t want to stay in Paducah. Of course, you want to play at Carnegie Hall, for the money and the acclaim.”

Jackie Robinson: “Oh, the things Jackie had to go through, you can’t imagine. First of all, he was hit by pitchers twice as much as any other player in baseball. He was called all kinds of names. The first time they played in Philadelphia, they threw a black cat out of their dugout. Why didn’t he say, ‘hey, who needs this, to hell with it, I’m outta here.’ Some people are thrust into historic roles without their understanding, but Jackie was an intensely bright guy and he knew exactly what he was doing. He knew what his role was and that’s why he took all this stuff. It has to be the single most heroic act ever performed in the history of sports in this country. I think I can say that. He made a real difference in America.”

The Best Managers He Ever Saw: “Stengel and Durocher are my top managers. They’re the only ones I saw that really know how to manage in the World Series. They wouldn’t hesitate to yank their ace pitcher in the fourth inning or to use an ace in relief. They knew it was a different ball game in the postseason. Charlie Dressen was a good regular season manager, like Dusty Baker, who hasn’t yet shown that he can win a World Series, but managing successfully in the big games defines the great ones.”

Leo Durocher: “I was talking to the Lip. I was chatting with Leo before a game and he suddenly turns to me and says, ‘you know, Rodney—for a #@%!# Communist, you sure know your baseball.”

Don Newcombe: “Newcombe was a corporation guy and he still works for the Dodgers today. But, he knew what what’s going on. His father was a union organizer. He didn’t beat the Yankees often in World Series play and that haunted him. The first time he pitched against the Yankees in his rookie year in ’49, it was a 0-0 game until the bottom of the ninth, when Tommy Heinrich hit one out and beat him.”

McCarthyism: “They didn’t go after me, because I was right out in the open. Many of my friends went down, but I wasn’t a screen writer using another name. As a baseball writer, they didn’t go after me and probably didn’t think of me as a serious Communist. They would kid around it jovially, say things like, ‘hey, does Marx follow the box scores?” Writing about baseball wasn’t perceived as doing politics. They didn’t see me as a threat.”

Joe DiMaggio: “He was a different guy. During his first two years up, before the aura of superstardom socked in on him, he was more convivial. After that, he was very closed-mouthed. You know he never certainly joined in with the rowdies like Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, but importantly, he was always curt and monosyllabic with reporters and he became mean-spirited. He was known to be a cheap sonofabitch, a notorious note tipper, and at the end he was over-selling his signature, all that stuff. But, I remember a different DiMaggio. During his first year, I was asked to take Joe down to see a bunch of kids from the International Workers Order, a left wing group. But, Joe agreed to show up and throw out the first ball for their tournament. And he enjoyed it and he really mingled with the kids. He was great. So, something happened to him somewhere along the way. He changed.”