The mighty Forklift has told me the story—at least 7 times by now—about Billy Williams’ 1972 season, and how he got hosed in that season’ MVP voting, which went Johnny Bench’s way. Fork has always referred to this as Billy’s Susquehanna Hat Company, meaning that mention of the 1972 travesty automatically, regardless of the situation, kick-starts Billy into a rant, which angrily increases in intensity until Billy, having laid out his case in passionate and eloquent terms, shakes his head and finishes,
“Now ain’t that some shit?”
Milt Pappas has his own Susquehanna, and most people know what is—that fat, arrogant, wad of rumpled blue laundry, Bruce Froemming, who for the first time in 36 years will not be making a name for himself on a big-league diamond. By now, the story is legendary. One pitch away from hurling what would have been only the ninth perfect game in big-league history at the time, Pappas threw a borderline pitch on a 3-2 count on which Froemming resisted ringing up the hitter, Larry Stahl. As a result, Pappas finished up the most disappointing no-hitter ever thrown and has proceeded to spend the next 35 years reminding everyone that he got screwed.
And so there I was last Friday, during another raucous meeting of the Hank White Fan Club. At one point, I was standing next to Kerm at that bar at Kitty O’Shea’s, about to get another round, when I suddenly remembered that the Cubs Convention coat check people only kept the coats until 10 PM. Normally, I would be unfazed. My material possessions have always been modest, to put it politely. My holes have holes in them. However, I did receive an upgrade over my typical winter schwag when I got one of them Columbia coats this past Christmas.
Shit what time is it?
Kerm looked at his wristwatch.
“10:55”
Sprinting out of the bar and hurtling downstairs, I was to find the coat check area totally abandoned, and my coat nowhere to be seen. There was, however, a note left behind saying that coats were being held at the “8th Street Coat Check”. So back upstairs I ran. I made it over to this coat check where an entire Mexican family had been impatiently waiting for that one yuppie douchebag who treats his finely-crafted Columbia jacket like some disposable piece of trash to stagger up and claim it. The woman retrieved my coat, I apologized to her and the rest of her coat-checking family and turned around to see a phalanx of people standing around an elderly white-haired man who had been signing autographs by the exit at 8th Street, on his way out the door.
As I approached the crowd I got a good look at the man as he calmly signed his name repeatedly. He looked somewhat familiar, and even though he threw his no-hitter in the same year I was born, I had a hunch. Just to be sure, I asked the guy next to me.
‘sat? Milt Pappas?
He nodded.
All right, I know it’s an obvious one, but this was my chance to jump up on that chair and beat that tired drum myself. Besides, I wanted to be sure that this animosity toward Froemming wasn’t just something that Pappas merely did because it earned him some cachet on the local media circuit, where he would play it up whenever he was interviewed. Shtick. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case, but I just wanted to make sure, so I stepped over and said, evenly:
Hey Milt. Let’s hope you don’t run into Bruce Froemming tonight.
Milt’s head didn’t move. He remained signing his name to a scrap of memorabilia. However, his right eye rolled up, peeking out from underneath a furrowed brow, and proceeded to drill a hole right through me, while an almost menacing half-smirk rolled up the right side of his cheek. It was at this point that Milt Pappas replied,
“That’d be bad luck for him.”
Some people in the group reacted and mumbled, and it was at this point that the emphysemic middle-aged woman in front of me tilted her head up, and craned it around to look at me, and she promptly asked me, in a creaking voice
“Is Bruce Froemming dead?”
Seemed like an odd question, but I was somehow ready for her.
Not yet, I said, as if to suggest that Pappas still had his chance. Pappas, however, didn’t hear my own answer on his behalf, and thought enough of the question to answer for himself.
“He should be.”
And with that, Milt Pappas left them laughing.
