Sentimental Journey: Kansas City, 1963
Sentimental Journey: Kansas City, 1963
By Kenny Likis
The photo is fuzzy. Black and white, 3 ½ x 3 ½.
It takes a certain knowledge to recognize the figures.
For most it means nothing, a botched snapshot
ripe for oblivion. One man’s trash . . .
***
Everyone lights up at the mention of Gus’s name.
His mother and my yiayia are sisters. They came
from Greece to Birmingham, where all our family lives.
But Gus lives in Philadelphia. Even at five, I sense
he’s our family celebrity. The first time he shakes my hand,
I see his World Series ring. I know nothing of baseball
or the Yankees or what a catcher is, but I see the diamond
in that ring. Gus lets me gawk and then starts in on the trick
where you hold the top of one thumb over the bottom
of the other and move the top one up and down so it looks like
your thumb is coming apart. I know a magician when I see one.
***
In my father’s sock drawer lives a baseball autographed
by the 1949 World Champion Yankees. He teaches me
to hold it touching only the threads. I learn to read
the names: Phil Rizzuto, Ed Lopat, Hank Bauer.
Whitey Ford, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra. Gus Niarhos.
***
My mother and father stand with me on the boarding
platform at the train station in downtown Birmingham
just before noon on a summer Saturday. They walk with me
into the passenger car, settle me into a seat, and kiss me
goodbye. Mother has packed me sandwiches and snacks,
and baklava for Gus. Gus is now the Bullpen Coach
for the Kansas City A’s. I am 12. In April I wrote Gus
a letter asking if I could visit him in July when the Yankees
are in town for a double-header on Sunday and another
game on Monday. These will be my first live Big League
games. This will be my first train ride, 19 hours to Kansas City.
I read The Hardy Boys, The Missing Chums. We get to Memphis
at sunset and on a high trestle I cross the Mississippi River
for the first time. Late in the night, I can see the land outside
my window has gone flat. I look for prairie dogs. I see them.
***
Gus meets me at the train station at 7:00 a.m. My memory
says he’s glad to see me but nervous. I’m his for three days!
We take a cab to the hotel where Gus lives. He tells me
he needs to get to the park early so why don’t I take a nap.
He puts my ticket and cab fare on the nightstand and says
I’ll see you at the ballpark. I am 12. I am alone in a hotel
in downtown Kansas City. Somehow I sleep, wake up
in time to bathe, dress, grab a cab and get to the park
before the game starts. I’m sitting in a box seat
along the first-base line, just past the dugout, five rows
above the field. Gus stops by on the way to the bullpen
and hollers Stay put. I’ll meet you here after game two.
The sun’s so bright I think I must be on national TV.
The Yankees pound the A’s. Every at-bat, Elston Howard
knocks the ball off the scoreboard or out of the park.
***
The next morning I go with Gus to the ballpark. I go with him
into the locker room. I go with him onto the field. Gus
takes pictures of me with Jerry Lumpe, Norm Siebern,
Dick Howser, 19-year-old rookie Tony La Russa.
He takes my picture with the A’s manager and his old
battery mate, Ed Lopat. Soon the A’s and the Yankees
come out for batting practice and infield. Players stretch
and play pitch. Mickey Mantle, who is injured and out of
the lineup, clowns around throwing knuckleballs to Yogi Berra.
Yogi sees Gus and laughs. They swap wisecracks. Gus
introduces me and asks Yogi to take a picture with me.
Yogi grins and shakes my hand. Then he turns to Mickey
Mantle and waves him over to join us for the picture.
I’m standing between them in Bermuda shorts.
Mickey Mantle speaks to me, but I can get no words
out of my mouth. I look up at Mickey and I’m looking
straight into the sun. Yogi and Mick put their hands
on my shoulders. Gus grins proud: Smile!
***
Years later Gus tells this story like a stand-up comic.
First try, my finger is on the shutter. Mick and Yogi giggle.
I grin, “Smile again!” Just then, for whatever reason,
I get the jitters. My hands are shaking like I’ve got DTs.
I snap anyway. Damn thing comes back blurred.
***
Blurred in the snapshot. Perfect in my memory.
Gus Niarhos caught for the Yankees, Red Sox, White Sox, and Phillies (1946–1955). He later coached for the Kansas City A’s and managed in the minors for the Oakland A’s. He was the first Greek American to play in the World Series.
Kenny Likis grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, watching the Double A Kansas City/Oakland A’s play at Rickwood Field. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, taught English at Bunker Hill Community College, collects baseball gloves, and pulls for the Red Sox. His poems have appeared in Caustic Frolic, Riddled With Arrows, Paterson Literary Review, and Birmingham Poetry Review.
Elliot Lin is a college student who spends their free time musing about sports and how they shape or reflect identity. You can find their other baseball-related illustrations here, or on Twitter @hxvphaestion and Tumblr.
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