The Homer

Long bus rides to play baseball are an American phenomenon. It is the ultimate “guy time”. Barriers are lifted, inhibitions eased, and time and space can seem distorted. The droning sound of the engine is mesmerizing. This steady hum can hypnotize and if you are lucky can induce sleep. However, if you try to force yourself to sleep it is impossible. The sound can also provide a cover for private conversations. The serious students use the time to study. Nearly every bus ride I took at SMU was broken up by a stop at a Dairy Queen. Coach Finley knew the locations of these in all four directions, and had a hard time passing them by. Coach would always pound down a full quart of ice cream on the bus. If our travels took us near Corsicana, TX, rookies had to stand in the aisle and face the town and sing Varsity, SMU’s alma mater, in homage to it being Coach Finley’s home town.

Please realize that this was long before DVD’s and portable music other than transistor radios. We had to find other ways of amusing ourselves for all those hours. Clint Brown, Mark Hammond or Mike Mayes occasionally entertained us on their guitars. There was plenty of time for endless hands of liar’s poker, studying, sleep, or playing “Stump the Glasser”. Senior left-handed pitcher John Glasgow, a free spirit from Southern California, knew everything about every recorded song from 1960 to the present. He even knew producers, album names, and record labels. If you could come up with a pop or rock and roll tune from this era that he did not know, you had stumped the Glasser. We never did. It was on another baseball bus trip that I witnessed my one and only live fart ignition. It was impressive (and oddly, green).  I’m just glad his polyester pants didn’t catch fire.

Texas is obviously an enormous state. I didn’t realize how huge it was until I sat in a bus all day and never left the state. The drive from Dallas to Lubbock in a lumbering bus is mostly west and slightly north, following the sun for 6+ hours. No turns and nothing to look at for that matter, save a few thousand oil pumpers. Texas native and writer Jim Corder named the central part of this long drive “The Big Empty”.   Lubbock is located on the plains of northwest Texas, north of the Permian basin, and just south of the panhandle. It is named after Thomas Saltus Lubbock, a former Texas Ranger. Buddy Holly is another famous native son. The geography of this area is essentially flat, and the area immediately surrounding Lubbock is the largest contiguous cotton producing area in the world. It is commonly very windy. In late March, a cold wind in Lubbock can cut right through you.

This is what happened one bone chilling windy grey day with SMU playing an early spring game against Texas Tech in Lubbock in 1973:

For the first game of the series, the weather was dismal. To say it was cold did not adequately describe the weather. It was cold, OK, but the wind……that was what gave the cold its teeth. It was a raw 40 degrees with a constant 30 MPH wind coming in from left field. It was so cold it hurt. So cold that your spine and back muscles seemed to be somehow permanently and painfully clenched. I remember I lost the feeling in my feet and ankles somewhere around the sixth inning.

The first game of our scheduled double header was a classic pitcher’s duel. Our hurler, senior Art Widen, was masterful. We were still using wooden bats in 1973, and time after time he was jamming the hitters, causing them to continually shake the “stinging” sensation out of their hands. No Red Raider batter hit the ball hard all game, and up until the last inning Art had given up only two hits. Through six innings, he already had 10 strikeouts. We were no better at the plate that day, and going into the bottom of the last inning, there was no score. The bitter wind continued to blow in from left. Art had been so good that no one had been asked to warm up during the game. I was glad. My legs felt like useless stumps. A few of us were hunkered down watching the game from behind a wooden clapboard fence beyond the dugout, peeking over, just to keep out of the wind.

With the game still in a scoreless tie in the bottom of the last inning, the leadoff batter for Tech, Bobby Lewis, hit a twisting fly to right-center, and the wind made it take a near 90 degree turn toward the right-field line. It bounced all the way to the fence. Our right fielder, Jon Astroth, after having been completely turned around on the play was able to get it back to the infield, holding him to a triple. Without the wind this is an easy out. Ouch! This runner on third with no outs caused us to pull our infield in to cut off the run at the plate. We also pulled in our outfielders significantly, knowing a long fly ball could end the game.

The next batter hit a sharp one-hop ground ball right at our shortstop, Snake Hanson. Snake fielded the ball cleanly and deftly fired a strike to Mike Mayes, our catcher. The runner Lewis was out by more than ten feet, no exaggeration. In fact, from my perch behind the fence, it appeared to me that his slide in the damp dirt came to a stop several feet in front of the plate. Mike emphatically tagged him out.

What happened next helped amplify the concept of ‘homer’ umpires in the Southwest Conference. A homer is obviously an umpire that makes calls to favor the home team. There were many of them in our league.  “Safe!” called the home plate umpire, and he immediately–at a dead run–exited through a gate near the Tech dugout. The game was suddenly over. Really? By the time Coach Finley got out of the dugout to protest the call, both umpires were nowhere to be found. We didn’t even have anybody to argue with, which was kind of comical, actually. In fact, we never got to express our displeasure with either umpire, because the umpires– from the safety of their heated cars–called off the second game of the double header due to “excessive cold temperatures”. (Actually, the umps made a good call on that one.) It was my first of many ‘homer’ umpire calls in the Southwest Conference, and certainly not my last.

Epilogue:

There was an indoor rodeo on the Tech campus that weekend, featuring Walt Garrison, former Dallas Cowboy and Skoal spokesman. Heavily promoted, the arena was nearly full. I tagged along with several of my teammates. Of course, Garrison was the big calling card, and his appearance was scheduled for later in the evening. Garrison was in the bulldogging event on this particular day. You have no doubt seen this event in person or on TV. Bulldogging is the one in which a frisky steer is released simultaneously with the horse and rider. It is a timed event where the cowboy leaps from his saddle, jumps on the longhorn’s neck and by twisting the steer’s horns, attempts to flip it on its side and off its feet. Whoever accomplishes this in the shortest amount of time is the winner. The event is a test of timing, excellent horsemanship, strength and athleticism. You only get one shot at it, also. Alas, the bovine deked Garrison and his mount by not leaving its stall immediately when released. Garrison made a good call by staying in his saddle. The poor timing may have caused his vault to land directly on the steer’s horns. The crowd, although disappointed, gave Garrison the Cowboy legend a standing O anyway.