Growing up outside of Cleveland in the mid-seventies was a lot like growing up in Brooklyn in the mid-fifties. All except for the having three baseball teams in the same city and having any or all of them participate in the World Series on a regular basis. Oh, and in the suburbs there wasn’t a whole lot of famous or will be famous people living on top of each other in apartment buildings going on. But other than that it was exactly the same.
I am reminded of this every time I come around Dead Man’s Curve while taking I-90 West into Cleveland. Well, not every time. That may have been artistic license. Some of the times I come around Dead Man’s Curve I am singing on the radio, much like my mother would have had me do to show off to the neighbors in our cul-de-sac. That is, if she had been around during my childhood and not in the hospital in an iron lung and if we had actually lived in a cul-de-sac instead of on the east side of rural route 44, three miles south of the county hospital. Most times, however, I am reminded that Municipal Stadium, the site where DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak ended, no longer stands there. There is a cavernous gap in the Lake Erie skyline which harkens back to an earlier century. A century in which Rick Manning patrolled centerfield for the local nine.
Rick Manning was no ordinary centerfielder. I knew this before I had ever seen him play baseball. My father, who worked twelve jobs to support his two boys, was a stout man. One of his dozen jobs was as a deputy sheriff for Cuyahoga County. One of the perks of being a deputy was that he got to attend functions as a security guard in his off-time. One of the functions that he got to secure was the 1975 Cleveland Indians Winter Banquet. He pulled a few strings to get permission for me to attend. I sat in the back and did not make any noise.
Shortly after I sat down with my glass of ice water (he knew better than to get me a coke if he expected me to behave) three players were introduced and then came out on stage. I know that it is called a dais now, but to me it was stage. All three players, I’m sure my father would have said, needed a hair cut. All three players were greeted with cheers. The loudest cheers were for Manning. He was a rock star. The women shrieked and it put the tiny hairs on my neck on edge.
The only baseball games I had seen to that point in my life was the World Series from the previous year and only then because my mom, prior to her encapsulation in that iron lung, had grown up across the street from Sal Bando. My father, during the courtship of my mother made it clear in no uncertain terms, that – iron lung or not – she was never to mention the name “Sal Bando” again. So she never mentioned his name again. To him. During one or two of his twelve jobs, however, she had me tune into the World Series, so I could begin to watch baseball.
The way the women shrieked for Rick Manning must have been why my father prohibited mention of the swarthy third baseman for the Amazing A’s. But the way the women shrieked for Rick Manning also made me realize that this guy, who played for the right team and had no connection to my debilitated mother, that this guy MUST be worth following. So after the banquet ended, I begged my father to take me to meet Rick Manning. He apologetically took me to the stage and introduced us. I followed everyone else’s lead and asked for an autograph. Only I didn’t realize that I needed to actually have something for him to autograph. He laughed when I said I didn’t have anything to sign and he grabbed a napkin from the table and signed. I carried that little napkin in my hand until we left the venue, where I crammed it into my pocket because I was afraid the wind would blow it out of my hand.
The following spring, my eighth spring on the planet, the bicentennial spring, I was Rick Manning’s biggest fan. And it’s no small coincidence that our fleet of foot centerfielder had arguably his best year ever. Sure, all eyes in the American League were on a different left-handed hitting, belly-flopping centerfielder. Sure, Fred Lynn was the reigning American League MVP. But Rick Manning was our Fred Lynn, minus the home run power. Nobody had home run power in Municipal Stadium, which is one of the reasons that they tore that arctic mausoleum down and dumped it into the lake that clouds my vision as I drive away from town. Yankee Stadium may have been the House that Ruth Built, but Municipal Stadium is the House that Manning Demolished.
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