Bob Banker, mgr.
The Bronx 1947
Baseball is and was the National Pastime, but it had to be played on a grass field. Our sport was dedicated to the black surface of our streets or the cement surface of a nearby schoolyard. A pink Spalding, a softball, a baseball glove, a broomstick, a cracked surface of a curb, or sewer lids satisfied our need for our National Pastime. Baseball was not on the program.
Lindy, whom I knew from junior high school asked me if I wanted to play on his baseball team. I told him that I never played baseball and would only be a hindrance.
“Come on Dan. I saw you play softball in the schoolyard. Our team needs you.”
He assured me I could easily make his team.
“OK, where do we meet?”
“Our next meeting is Friday, at our manager’s apartment.”
We met at Crotona Gardens, a building with an elevator facing Crotona Park. Wow. an elevator! This guy must be rich.
I entered a modestly furnished living room. Seated on folding chairs and on the floor were the members of the team. Settled on a recliner was our rotund and pudgy manager, Bob Banker. His wife, who was in the kitchen completely ignored the impending, critical events.
Lindy introduced me to the manager and the rest of the team. The only player I knew was Murray Lichtman, who was in my class at James Monroe H.S. in the Bronx, NY.
Bob Banker was a simple man about forty with no children. He began the meeting with the schedule for our season, then he assigned positions to the players. After, he searched for words that he couldn’t find. We sat, uncomfortable, and looking at each other. Following a prolonged silence, questions were drummed out in staccato fashion.
“Do we practice or just play a game?”
“Practice? Oh yes, practice. I’ll call practice for Wednesday.”
“Where?”
“Maybe at the P.S.A.L. field in Crotona Park.”
“Maybe?”
“Have you reserved it?”
“We don’t have to reserve it.”
“What if all the fields are taken?”
“We’ll practice in the corner where there is no field, just grass.”
“What’s the name of our team?”
“We haven’t agreed on a name.”
“How about The Bankers?”
“I like that,” said Bob, whose invisible ego was suddenly inflated.
“OK. There we are,” he said gleefully. “The Bankers, and we have practice this Wednesday.”
“Do we have catcher’s equipment?”
“Yes. I bought it last year.”
Now here was a gifted manager.
I saw this was a questionable undertaking, but it was my only opportunity to play baseball.
At our first practice, half of the team showed up. During our softball games there was a third team waiting to play the winner of the first game.
I waited for Murray to accompany me to the street.
“This Bob Banker, mgr. reminds of Mr. Sabato, our home room teacher. Neither of them know how to manage a group.”
Murray agreed. “When Sabato called me in for guidance, he asked me what I wanted to be after I graduate. I told him I wanted to be President. He went berserk. When he calmed down, he asked me what my second choice would be. I told him Vice-President. That was it. He called for my mother.”
“I’ll see you on Monday. Maybe you could settle for a Senator,” I replied.
My only contribution to baseball was that I had a strong arm. During Wednesday’s practice, I bent down to field a ground ball that hit a clump of grass in front of me. It bounded off the clump and crashed onto my lips. I came home with two swollen, bloody lips. Do I need this?
On Thursday I received a post card saying that our first game will be on Sunday at 10:00 o’clock on Field 2 in Bronx Park East against the Indians signed, Bob Banker, mgr.
Lindy came with two bats and catcher’s equipment in a duffel bag. Only eight men showed up leaving our second baseman to play short center field as well as second base.
I was a lefty, so strategic Bob Banker, mgr placed me up first with his hope and mine that I would draw a walk.
I picked the bat whose size, weight and handle seemed just right. Upon closer examination I saw that black tape covered the cracked bat, and nailed together at the handle. The next bat was too heavy, but what choice did I have?
The first time up I did draw a walk, but the next two batters struck out and our fourth batter hit a ground ball out to the second baseman.
Lindy looked good at the bottom of the first inning. He struck out the side.
We came to bat at the top of the second inning. I saw that The Banker’s batters were no better than myself. Was there a future for this team? Well, the sunlight was good for producing vitamin D in my skin. The green trees and grass gave my lungs an opportunity to test fresh air, but the competitiveness in our softball games was absent. Walks, not base hits placed men on base.
In the fourth inning I was up with the bases loaded.
“Strike one,” cried the ump.
“Time,” shouted Bob Banker, mgr.
He strode towards me, threw an arm around me then led me to the corner of the backstop. He stared at the ump. What was his brilliant strategy, I thought.
With a good deal of authority, he pulled me closer, then whispered in my ear,
“Do what you want.”
“I struck out.”
I didn’t do what I want. As Casey Stengal the memorable Mets manager said,
“Can’t anybody here play this game?”
Finally, with a man on first, an Indian hit a ground ball that went between our first and second baseman then bounced to me. I threw a perfectly placed ball to Murray, our third baseman. He stepped aside, reached for the ball and the ball flew past his glove. The runner from first rounded second and came in for the winning run.
At the end of the game Murray apologized to me for not catching the ball. Did it really matter? I saw the team was at the beginning of a downward spiral.
The following Tuesday I received a post card informing me that practice will be held on Thursday at Crotona Park, Bob Banker, mgr. I had no phone to inform him that he would have to replace his right fielder. Sunday softball was my game.
During the Korean War, Murray and I ended up in the same infantry company. I was a rifleman, Murray was with the 60mm mortars. On the MLR (frontline) he was stationed behind the riflemen’s defensive trench line. The few times we met he was happy to avoid going on patrols or raids, and to receive a .45 cal. pistol as his sidearm. Murray and his platoon leader were killed by an incoming mortar round on November 25, 1952.
For the complete story, read Cold Ground’s Been My Bed: A Korean War Memoir
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