FIRST FLIGHT TO LOS ANGELES, AND THE JOYS OF THAT BIG LEAGUE LIFE

San Francisco
May 20, 1962

Dear Alice,
     I suppose you thought I was never going to write and I sure am sorry
about that.  But things are so hectic right now, what with the club having
lost eight in a row and me getting hurt, that I have been more confused
than Liz Taylor's ring finger.
     We were all sitting around the clubhouse the other day after getting
beat, just moping and refusing to take any food except for a bowl or two
of onion soup.  Suddenly Norm Larker got up and slammed the door to his
locker. Unfortunately my hand was inside it, as I happened to be looking
for some crackers to crunch up.
     Oooh, boy, that really smarted.  Broke two fingers, busted a knuckle
and spilled hot onion soup on Norm's silk underdrawers, which he was
wearing at the time.
     You know me, Alice.  If I had two guesses on which way an elevator
was going I'd guess wrong.
     Anyway, our goal now is to spend as quiet a week as possible in San
Francisco and get back to Houston alive.  We have been in a fearful slump,
sort of like the one Custer got in at Little Big Horn.
     But no matter how grim things get I have to agree with Pidge Browne,
who slaved for 13 years in the minors.  He says it was worth it, to get
this one year in the majors.
     You travel to cities that really swing and you go there first cabin. 
Like we came out West on a champagne flight and it was the first four-hostess plane I ever saw.  Harry Craft, our leader, still has a crick in
his neck from watching where the bottles of bubbly went.
     Along the way the pilot kept pointing out the sights of interest.  (I
think those guys must go to school to get that gravelly, frog-like quality
in their voices.)  "This is the captain speaking," he said, interrupting
my nap.  "We are now flying over the Old Spanish Trail toward San Antonio,
once traveled by the explorer Cabeza De Vaca."
     Later he said: "We are now over El Paso.  On your left is the Rio
Grande River and on the other side of it, next to the stockyards, you can
see the legendary Rosa's Canteena."  Alice, I'm going to get my eyes
examined.  I couldn't even see the Rio Grande.
     After a while we passed over Tombstone and Dead Man's Gulch and
Boothill.  But the most electric moment of all came when the captain said:
"We are now passing over the bachelor's paradise, Apache Junction,
Arizona."
     You know me, Alice.  I get choked up over old matchbook covers.  I
bawled like a baby.  Apache Junction...the scene of my first spring
training as a Colt .45.  Ah, what memories.
     The other guys reacted in different ways.  Bob Aspromonte and Merritt
Ranew, who are both single, booed and hissed.  A few cheered.  One guy
threw his boots out the window and mumbled something that sounded like
"Bayless Supermarket" under his breath.
     Well, we get to Los Angeles and it was a sight to behold.  The girls
there all have hairdos like Jacqueline Kennedy, and so do quite a few of
the boys.
     I did the town one night with Bill Giles, who is a great guy and also
our road secretary.  He not only knows all the main roads but a few of the
back ones.  We decided to conduct a survey comparing the habits and folk
music of eastern and western cabarets for the Smithsonian Institute (I am
planning to spring it on the Smithsonian as a surprise for Christmas.)
     We were walking down the street and we passed this club and the music
lured us in as if we were hypnotized.  Wow!  I've seen pretzels that
couldn't twist like that.  Naturally, we left at the first convenient
moment.
     Later we went to a club called The Encore, where they got a piano
player named Frankie Ortega who is so great he can play "Take Me Out to
the Ball Game" and you want to dance to it.  Frankie told us that he
sponsors a team in the Northwest Anaheim Little League and they just
expanded to eight teams.  Guess who the new clubs are?  The Senators and
the Colt .45s.  Ain't that cute, Alice?
     I could probably be a winner in the Northwest Anaheim Little League. 
I haven't pitched in two weeks now, since the Giants beat me in Houston by
15-1..darned umpires.  Mr.Richards had to ask the people at the space lab
to compute my earned run average.
     We had a meeting one night and Harry told all us pitchers that from
now on when he sends Luman Harris to the mound to take us out he wants us
to give him the ball and go.  You know, when Dick Farrell or Bob Bruce or
Ken Johnson gets pulled they sometimes make a scene, stamping their feet
and uttering the most unpleasant remarks.  Luman practically has to
Indian-wrestle them for the ball.
     So the other night Farrell gets bombed by the Reds.  I mean, they hit
six straight shots off him, and two or three were line drives right
through the box.  So here comes Luman out of the dugout, and as he crosses
the foul line Turk walks down to meet him and flips him the ball.
     He looks up kind of startled, and Turk grins at him and says: "Where
you been Luman?  I could've got kilt out here."
     It sort of reminded me of the story Frank Gabler, one of the Colt .45
scouts, tells about Casey Stengel.  Gabe pitched for Stengel in the minors
once, and 'ol Casey never would go to the mound when he wanted to change
pitchers.  "He just sat in the dugout and whistled," remembers Gabe, "like
I was ole dog Spot."
                                               You Know Me, Alice.
                                               Lefty