What good news to receive from Herby Parsons, my friend of many years, clippings from The Working Waterfront/ Inter-Island News and The Courier-Gazette heralding the return of the national pastime – hardball, that is – to Vinalhaven [WWF, March 2004]. These brought back many memories of more than 50 years ago when, proudly sporting my Chiefs uniform – with AA Parker Fruit Company on the back – I played for the Chiefs.
The names and photos of my teammates brought it all back: Sonny Oakes, Brud Carver, Woody Bunker and, of course, that master of spicy chatter Ducky Haskell, whom I had a hard time recognizing under that chin of kelp. In 1948, I had returned from the Navy to coach for the Princeton (University, not Maine) ball team. That summer I was a tutor for Herb and Margot Parsons, watching out for Herby, Marnie and Peter (David was born the following fall) at the Parsons’ cottage in Seal Cove at the mouth of Mill River. Proud of my athletic accomplishments, I often wore my Princeton baseball cap. One of Herby’s chums was Freeman Robinson, a Vinalhaven boy who often came out to stay with his mother, Nellie, who helped out at the Parsons. My ball cap stimulated the expected (by me) questions from Freeman and Nellie, which, as a true catcher, I liberally embellished.
One day, much to my surprise, as we were returning from a dinghy race, I saw Freeman and to me a stranger standing on the dock. It was Freeman’s father. He asked if I would like to try out for the Chiefs. The Parsons’ were agreeable and one afternoon the Parsons kids and I met Freeman and his dad at the Vinalhaven “ball field.” The passage of time may have clouded my memory, but I think I remember the sacred ground rule double off the church, circling the bases after a dinky hit, which had buried itself in the tall grass and other terrain adaptations. Nonetheless, I made the team.
Brud Carver and I became good friends since we were battery-mates and about the same age. Brud was a very good pitcher. As I remember it, Brud’s dad ran a store on the main street, but most of the team were lobstermen and watermen. Clyde (or was it Morris?) Bickford was a particularly important member of the Chiefs. He was a pitcher and had a dazzling assortment of pitches: slow, slower, and run-for-the-fence. But the Bickfords had, as I recall, a large lobster-carrier with a side, open well deck. This was the Team Boat, which took us to the mainland where we played most games. We often played the Rockland Rockets and other teams in the Knox County League. We had a large fan following – men, women, children and sometimes babies – all of whom could squeeze aboard the Team Boat. We were good. I can’t remember losing a game – selective memory at work. I remember our ultimate goal was to play – and beat – the Augusta Millionaires, I think a Red Sox farm team, but we seemed never to be able to schedule them.
We played many of our games off-island, even several night games. These were tricky. In the late 1940s, the best the Rockland municipal department could muster were several large-diameter beam parking lot spotlights and two jury-rigged multi-bulb panels that more or less lit the field. These were sighted and adjusted during infield practice. As the technicians teetered on ladders, the first baseman, as he fielded warm-up throws, often dove for cover, throwing his arms over his face, blinded by the light. Adjustments were made until he had a better chance. The big spotlights sent strong beams into the sky (sometimes into the fog). As a catcher, I often watched a fly ball disappear into the gloom of night. The outfielders, though hearing the crack of the bat, stood flat-footed, peering up into the void, hands spread apart in anticipation, not being able to see where the ball had gone, but knowing it must be right up there somewhere and that what goes up must come down. Finally, they lunged desperately as the ball re-entered the arc of light. Games were often high scoring, unless Brud or our other hurlers could induce grounders, themselves chancy on the high school field.
And then there were the trips home to Carver’s Harbor. By the time the game ended and we loaded up the Bickfords’ Team Boat, most of the kids were either asleep or bawling. But we didn’t mind. They were our fans! It also didn’t hurt that Ducky or Sonny or one of the Bickford boys not driving the boat would disappear below, to the bow, the fantail compartment, to the head, soon to reappear with an ample supply of brews and a bottle or two of wickwack. We often had a very slow return trip. That is, when it was foggy. Then the Bickfords, conservative seamen and having so many in their care, would idle along at maybe five knots (no radar, no loran, no GPS). Navigation was by dead reckoning: time, estimated speed corrected for often substantial tides. When we approached Brown’s Head light and The Fiddler monument and Drunkard beacon, navigation shifted to the color markings of the lobster pot buoys familiar to the island boys. I well remember one particularly thick trip in which we didn’t reach Carver’s Harbor until dawn was breaking. Looking back from the pilothouse to the deck below, covered by our players and fans in various degrees of sleep and exhaustion, reminded me of the escape from Dunkirk!
At the conclusion of the Chiefs’ season, the “family picnic” was memorable: a large family seaweed steamer of clams, corn and lobsters. To prepare for this grand affair, for some time, my lobsterman teammates had gathered “just legal” lobsters. All washed down by cold beer, spiced by tall tales, wrapped in good fellowship. The party went on well into the night. Lobsters were never better.
Harry Gratwick’s article brought back memories. What a wonderful summer. And what wonderful, colorful jokesters we had on our Chiefs. Who knows, perhaps in a few years these Babe Ruth youngsters will be the heroes of the resurrected Chiefs! I’d relish hearing Ducky, Brud, Sonny, Woody, Clyde and others tell them what they were doing wrong!! Choke and Poke! And…PLAY BALL!!
A self-described “summer boy of ’48,” Buzz Merritt lives in Reading, Connecticut and is a regular visitor to Vinalhaven.