My buddy Miller ran into Herb Caen at the Saloon in San Francisco some years back. He (Miller) had a tendency to “project” back in the day, and seeing Herb on the town flanked by two thirty year-old hotties was more than he could resist. “HERB — you NUT!!” he yelled, two feet away from the famed scribe and loudly enough for the packed bar to take note. Herb smiled calmly and without breaking unhurried stride replied “You’re pretty crazy yourself ..” Miller’s Cubbies are in the playoffs again, beginning tonight against the Giants. Herb, for the record, was from Sacramento .. no more a “San Franciscan” than Miller. “Sometimes we’re all hypocrites,” to quote Meadow Soprano talking late-night in the kitchen to a drunken Tony. So in this spirit and that of three-dot journalism ..
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How about that Conor Gillaspie, replacement third baseman for a guy (Eduardo Nunez) already replacing a traded favorite Giant (Matt Duffy.) The guy made an incredible catch in their final regular season game against the Dodgers, flipping over both railing and massive TV camera. And then he squares one up in Queens the other night — over the right field fence — in the ninth inning of a do or die wildcard match as the team rode Madison Bumgarner’s formidable shoulders into the playoffs. If you can’t appreciate this moment in a world of chaotic nonsense, then I can’t help you. (Except, of course, if you aren’t a baseball fan, which is perfectly acceptable and would account for your indifference.) “Enthusiasms” as DeNiro, playing Al Capone, notes in DePalma’s “Untouchables” before punctuating his point over some guy’s head with a baseball bat. They call it “squaring one up,” I believe, because it aptly describes what’s necessary to hit a round ball — traveling an unknowable path at a hundred miles an hour — with a round bat. Which reminds me of another get together around the same time as the Miller-Herb story and at Vesuvio, a bar just down the hill from the Saloon. There was a group of us, including three-time Academy Award Nominee Tom Myers. Tom and I were discussing the Ted Williams – like swing of Giants first baseman Will Clark. Another young woman, typical of the type who moved to San Francisco back then, interjected with “Yeah .. but you know it’s just baseball. I mean if you got a hundred people together who were pretty good at sports, one of them could hit the ball like that ..” I’m not sure what my facial expression reflected in that moment .. all I recall is Tom grabbing me with two hands and saying “OK .. steady big guy .. steady ..”
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While I’m on the bar theme and writing in this non-sequitur, stream of nonsense fashion, here is a short list of names I’ve created over the years for the assortment of regular characters frequenting Specs’ tavern at 12 Adler: Monkey Boy, Forrest Whittaker Junior, WSM (World’s Saddest Man) and J’sus Christ the Lord. (Actually that last one is credited to Paul Tognotti .. as it relates both to the guy’s appearance and, I think, the speech Linus gives toward the end of “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”) I’m sure there are several more I’m missing but those four, and the individuals so assigned, are novel-worthy.
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This is where Herb would throw in an anecdote about something one of his oft-quoted San Franciscan buddies heard while waiting on line in Safeway, or drop a restaurant owner’s name to assure he continued his well-known tradition of never picking up a tab. I know no such luxuries, though I certainly know a few others. That said it’s been a hard summer and into the fall, and I’ve seen some shit. Enough to know that, as my buddy Dave (as well as Iggy Pop and several others) once noted “I don’t want to take any more.” Or any more than necessary, I suppose. Here’s to Conor Gillaspie, Joe Panik (native New Yorker,) Brandon Crawford, some other dude and an early Thursday morning NYC pizza slice shot that’s bound to bring back a few smiles in years to come. Enjoy it while it lasts boys and well beyond. Here’s tae us; wha’s like us? .. Damn few, and they’re a’ deid.
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