Albaugh Strikes Out
A Bench Warmer Memory from Bob Cairns
Okay, I’m thirteen, the backup catcher for the New Windsor, Maryland, Babe Ruth League team. Frankly just out of Little League, I’m a bit overweight and undersized for the challenges of the official major league diamond. I’m spending my evenings riding the pine and watching Jimmy Albaugh, a one-handed wonder behind the plate who’s leading the league in passed balls.
Jimmy doesn’t hit much, can’t throw that well, but he’s a hell of a lot better than me. So, I’m curled up in the corner of the dugout, spitting seeds, and as usual, throwing my voice, working the umpires, a ventriloquism act I’d perfected in school to drive teachers nuts.
Because I was so focused on the infield umpire, a college kid who’d blown about three calls at second base, I almost missed one of the great moments in my baseball career. What I heard was the home plate umpire scream, “One more &%*%ing word out of you, and you’re out of here!”
What I saw was Baily Jenkins, a man whose stomach pushed the umps old inflated chest protector out so far that it looked like someone sticking out a huge bloated blue tongue. Baily had thrown the chest protector off and was following it as it bounced along toward our bench. “If that kid catching says one more word, if I hear him one more time on a called ball, he’s out of this *&%#ing game. Is that understood?”
My father, one of the coaches, pops out of the dugout, walks right past Jenkins and his bouncing blue balloon protector and strolls up to Albaugh. I watched them talk for a second, then begin eyeballing around the dugout for my catcher’s mitt just in case. My dad, who was a high school shop teacher and used to handling boys, walked past Albaugh, said something out of the side of his mouth and as he stepped back into the dugout he turned to George Schlee, our other coach, and said, “I gave him the word and told him he’d better keep his mouth shut!” George nodded, Jenkins bellowed, “Play ball!” and my moment was gone, no action for me tonight.
And then it happened. I think that I mentioned that Jimmy Albaugh wasn’t a gifted athlete. He was bigger than me, but he didn’t run well, didn’t hit with any power and again, there was that thing about the passed balls. But the boy did have another talent.
It wasn’t just balls he passed.
Now. all of a sudden, we hear the scream of “Ball four!” Right behind it we see Jenkins’s balloon chest protector airborne again. “You’re outa’ here!” he shouts, pumping his right fist at Albaugh like he’s just won the freaking Lotto!
Albaugh calmly takes his catcher’s mask off and just stands there grinning, a look of abject innocence. Now, my dad and George Schlee are on the run for home plate. Our entire dugouts behind them. We’d all been watching. Albaugh hadn’t said a word. Now, Daddy’s in Jenkin’s face screaming, “He never opened his mouth, didn’t say a word!”
“The little son of a bitch farted on me on that last call!” Jenkin’s hollered. “Now get his ass out of here!”
My father, who passed away in 1984, was a great laugher. In the forty one years that I was blessed to be around him, I never saw him laugh harder than that. We all knew the reputation. You see Albaugh wasn’t just a pull-my-finger guy, he led the league in farting, could do it on command. So bad or good was his reputation that when loading up to go to away games his fellow players ran over each other with their spikes to get in to any vehicle that didn’t feature the talents of Jimmy Albaugh.
Oh, there was one other time that I may have seen my dad laugh harder. That night as we rode home from Taneytown in defeat, we saw the guys in the car in front of us rolling down and hanging their heads out of the windows.
“Albaugh,” my dad said blowing the horn, “Been teaching shop for twenty-five years and never seen anyone as good as him. The *&%&ing kid doesn’t even have to swallow air!”
