Stories my Father Told

A Life in Baseball

"All the Piton boys, George and Victor, Phil and Teddy, sang in the Paulist Choir when they were little. This would have been around 1910 for a few years. It was a world-famous choir ranging from small boys to grown men and people used to come from miles around to hear them. I remember Kate and I went down several times to St. Mary's Church on 9th and Wabash for the noon Mass on Sunday. 

The boys' mother used to take them down after school for practice to get them out of their tough neighborhood. Phil spoke of singing with Schumann-Heinck. George even went on tour with them all around the country. The experience left your father with a lifelong love of classical music.

Phil talked a lot about his father. He called him "the old man." He worked for a real estate firm and on payday Grandma would often go downtown to meet him. Otherwise, he would often come home happily drunk, always carrying something unusual, a big basket of out-of-season fruit or a big watermelon over his shoulder, and not much money left. I guess he never really grew up; his mother spoiled him. He was her baby, and she bought him a house from her earnings as a milliner. He would take Phil over to the neighborhood bar, put him up on the bar and have him sing. One day Phil saw his mother pour a whole bottle of whiskey down the sink. 

There were many baseball stories. When Phil was President of the minor leagues, Sam Smith was President of the Southern League. He always wanted your father's job, so there was no love lost between them. The last time I saw him was at the Los Angeles or San Francisco convention--I don't remember which-- and he looked dreadful. He died that winter in Knoxville and many baseball men went down for the funeral. When the church service started the baseball men marched in with Phil in the lead, and the organist started playing "Take Me out to the Ball Game" in funereal time.

Phil could always get a rise out of George Trautman (his boss in the 1950s,) by mentioning the Notre Dame -Ohio State game of 1935--the last game they ever played. George was a rabid Ohio State fan. I believe he had been a football coach there at one time.  I think it was one of those classic games with OSU leading till the last few minutes, when the Notre Dame team knelt down on the field and prayed. Notre Dame won, and George didn't think it was fair to pray like that. (I wonder what he would have thought of Colin Kapaernick.)

For several years there was a hitting contest in baseball, open to Major and Minor leaguers alike. The prize was a silver bat for the man who could hit the farthest. They discontinued the competition after a few years of Mexico city winning every year--because of the high altitude.

When the Cuban revolution broke out in January, 1959, there was great consternation among the Major Leagues because they had several players there for winter baseball. By that time there was a Mexican minor league, which Phil had been instrumental in establishing. He volunteered to go down and see what he could do to help get the American players from Cuba to Mexico. Through a couple of his friends who had influence with the Mexican government they were able to bring them first to Mexico and then back to the U.S. Two of the Mexicans were Alejo Peralta, president of the Mexican League, and a banker named Barbachano.

During the Pete Rose episode, I remembered that your father had two similar instances. One involved a player in the Southern League, who in his youth committed a felony and served time but never told his employers about it. He was a very nice chap and understood when he had to be banned for life. Phil said it was one of the hardest things he ever had to do.

The other incident involved a Seattle game when Seattle was still in the minor leagues. The batter claimed the pitcher had deliberately hit him, walked out to the mound and hit the pitcher over the head with his bat. The pitcher went down like a stone with a bad skull fracture, and was unconscious for weeks. Phil immediately put the batter out for a year, and maybe for life depending on the condition of the victim. Then the telephone calls started and went on for weeks, all trying to get the attacker back into the game. It was very hard on your father--I can hear him shouting still-- so I can understand what Bart Giamatti was going through before he died of it." 

Note by Margaret: Bart Giamatti was the Baseball Commissioner who banned Pete Rose for life because of his association with gamblers. I remember being on a plane over Lake Erie when the announcement of his sudden death was made. How times have changed--now Mitch Garber, who made his money in Las Vegas, is one of the leading men trying to bring major league baseball back to Montreal.

Another note by Margaret: One story I remember from my dad's career was when he was sued in federal court for sex discrimination. One of the managers in the New York-Penn League had hired a woman umpire, and my dad voided her contract, claiming it was in violation of baseball rules for women to officiate. (I disagreed with him, one of the few times I ever did.) When the case went to trial in New York, my dad said he knew he was toast when the judge walked into the courtroom. She was a black woman, Eleanor Holmes Norton, who would later serve in Congress for many years as a non-voting delegate from the District of Columbia.