No-Fun-Go
I.
I followed the other boys, climbing over the fence and then carefully looked both ways to make sure a train was not coming.
They were going from the veterans’ housing project, where we all lived, to the forest preserve on the west side of the railroad tracks to play baseball, as they did almost every day it was possible.
My parents had given me permission to join the games with the other boys in the forest preserve, but I was forbidden to cross the tracks. It was okay for me to go to the woods, they said, as long as I used the underpass.
The underpass, however, was about a half a block to the south, and I might miss out on some of the fun if I went that way. I also sensed that I would be called “chicken” if I didn’t climb that fence with the rest of them.
I was hoping to get to play, but I was the new kid in the neighborhood, and so I was ignored, and not included in the daily ritual of choosing sides.
I remained an idle spectator for almost a week. One reason for this, I finally realized, was that I didn’t have a baseball glove and sharing was out of the question, for the prevailing wisdom was that even if a glove were loaned once to a stranger, it would “spoil” the fit for the owner of the glove.
“I would like to get a baseball glove, and a bat and maybe a new baseball,” I told my parents, “otherwise they won’t let me play, and I want to play.”
This plea did not seem to move my parents, but after I sulked around the house for a few days, they got the message, and one afternoon my mother proudly presented me with a glove, a bat and a shiny new baseball.
My mother, alas, knew next to nothing about baseball. I am left-handed, and the glove (acquired in a local junk store at “a very good price”) was a ponderous right-handed catcher’s mitt. The bat, three inches longer than the boys’ regulation 33 inches (although I didn’t know that immediately), also came from the junk store.
The bat had the name of “Ted Williams” embossed on it, and that made it very dear to my heart, for he was a great left-handed hitter who played for the Boston Red Sox, and I had seen him hit two home runs against the White Sox in Comiskey Park.
The new ball was, I believed, a sure-fire means to acceptance, for baseballs were in very short supply. A ball was used until the horsehide covering was knocked-off, and even then, if another ball was not available, the game halted until the ball was “fixed” with a new cover of black friction tape.
At the very next opportunity, I followed along with the boys as they climbed over the railroad fence. I followed their lead, too, and tossed my glove and bat over the fence before I proceeded to climb over it. The baseball I stuck inside my shirt, however, for I was afraid that even that shiny white baseball could get lost in the weeds.
There were no white chalk lines to mark out our baseball field, and the bases were old rags, held in place by stones. Home plate was cardboard, however, measured and cut to the correct dimensions and artistically covered with tinfoil. Behind home plate was a rickety backboard that did not always stop wild pitches or foul balls, for there were gaping holes through which the balls sometimes disappeared.
The field had obviously been neglected, perhaps forgotten, although there were still bald patches of dirt around the pitcher’s mound and the bases that at least suggested the outlines of an infield.
Mike McClendon and Wade Gutkowski, the captains for the day, were conducting the daily ritual of choosing sides at home plate. It was done quickly, with very little discussion and hardly any hesitation, and chosen players quickly went to the side their captain.
There were thirteen of us that day, including the captains, and only Hector, who wore thick glasses, and I, were left.
Mike, the taller captain, looked me up and down asked my name.
“Joe,” I replied humbly.
He asked if I had played catcher before, looking at my catcher’s mitt, which seemed to dwarf my hand.
Before I could reply, Wade interrupted—
“Hey you,” he said pointing his finger at me, “are you a Jap?”
“I am an American,” I replied firmly.
“Oh yeah? Then why do you have those slanty eyes, and why are you yellow? What’s your name anyway?”
“Joe.”
“Joe what, you dumb head. You got a last name?”
“Fung.”
“That doesn’t sound very American.”
“Well, it is just as American as Gutkowski.”
“Don’t get smart. If you are not a Jap, then what are you?”
“I told you, I am an American.”
“But what’s your nationality, then?”
“I am half Chinese, half Irish. Both my parents were born right here in Chicago, and my father was in the First Marine Division and fought in every major battle in the Pacific, and he has plenty of medals to prove it. If he wasn’t an American, we wouldn’t be living in veterans’ housing.”
“I still don’t like your looks, so Joe Fung, you can take your stupid catcher’s mitt and your fungo bat and go. No fun go, get it No-Fun-Go, no wanted here, so go, I’m taking Hector.”
The laughter was loud and raucous, and I retreated in tears, using the underpass to go back home.
II.
Those were the last tears I shed on the baseball field. When I got home and described what had happened, my father gave me a marine drill sergeant lecture on courage, concluding with what he said was a Chinese proverb: “A winner never quits, and a quitter never wins.” (Later, much later, I learned that ancient wisdom came from a baseball manager, Gabby Street.)
I went back to the field the next day and, fortunately, there was an even number of boys, and I was chosen—last, of course, by captain Mike, who, looking at that incongruous catcher’s mitt, assigned me to right field.
I muffed the first fly ball hit to me (it bounced right off that awkward glove), and my teammates assaulted me with a string of racial epithets for my fumble. This was standard practice, I discovered, for we all committed errors, and every one had a nationality and was well acquainted with the hurtful words associated with national stereotypes.
Eventually, I learned how to catch fly balls and grounders with that catcher’s mitt and also used my 36-inch bat to good advantage. I was no longer called “Joe.” however, for on the baseball field I was, forever after “No-Fun-Go,” often contemptuously, but occasionally with affection and respect. I was no longer the last one chosen.
III.
By the next season, I had leaped up in the picking order and was often chosen captain, a testament to my experience, a new glove (purchased with money earned on my newspaper route) and the fact that I had grown some eight inches in one year and, as my mother said, “filled out nicely.”
I earned a new nickname too. I was no longer, No-Fun-Go, but was identified with a respectable baseball name: Fungo.”
When I wasn’t the captain doing the choosing, I was usually among the first three picked, for I was almost a match for Mike in hitting, fielding and running, although I was not quite as good a pitcher as he was.
The captain of the winning team was always captain for the next game. The players on the losing team could select anyone on either team to be the rival captain.
Not everyone got to be captain, of course. There were some players who went a whole summer without ever getting the chance to be captain.
I liked being captain because it was like using strategy in checkers. I sized up players like a jockey sizing up horses. I knew what they could and couldn’t do, and I used that to my team’s advantage. My favorite weapon was speed, which was overlooked by most captains. There were games that we won strictly on speed, and it was like suddenly triple-jumping a row of kings in a checkers game, just when your opponent thought he was sure to win.
There was another factor, too, in my success, one that seemed to be overlooked by other players. I intuitively understood something about the psychology of the other players, even though the word “psychology” was not a part of my adolescent vocabulary.
Take Wade Gutkowski, for example. He was a natural athlete, certainly better than me, and more talented even than Mike McClendon. The teams Wade chose when he was captain lost more times than they won, however. It was not that his baseball sense was deficient, but it was his temper that often brought about defeat. Yelling and cursing were second nature to Wade, and he did not hesitate to turn his anger against his own teammates. That would put his players on edge, and they would make more errors, mental and physical, as his screaming intensified.
It was true, too, that some captains would always pick Wade first, more out of fear than because of his baseball skills. That, generally, was not helpful to the captain, for Wade dominated the diamond—and often not in a good way. He was particularly cruel to Hector, whom he mercilessly derided for his lack of skills. “Four eyes” was surely the mildest epithet Wade applied to him, and he often continued to badger him, long after the other boys could even recall the particular blunder Hector had committed.
The order of picks, for the wise captain, was crucial, for that often seemed to be a clear indication of which side would win.
We always played to win, but losing once in a while wasn’t so bad as long as the game was close enough to make it a real contest. We had wild scores—42-38, 35-34, 29-27—because even when we were short-handed (which was most of the time), we no longer designated one field as an automatic out. That was my idea: I argued that it was unfair to lefties (of which I was one) to make a ball hit to right field an automatic out.
More houses had been built in the veterans’ project, and that also meant more kids. On most days, now, we had enough players for nine on each side. But then, on a hot, steamy day, where even the ball seemed to move in slow motion, two new kids showed up at our forest preserve baseball diamond. The new kids, Jimmy and Phil North, were brothers, the first Negroes to move into the veterans’ housing project.
The brothers arrived, just as we were choosing sides and asked if they could join our game.
Game captain Wade, in a clearly hostile voice, asked where they were from.
“Mississippi,” Jimmy said.
“No, stupid, how did you get here? Where are you from?”
“We come across the tracks, just like you,” Phil said. “We live in the housing project. So, can we play, or not?”
“Hell no,” Wade said, “we got enough players.”
“It ain’t up to you, Wade,” game captain Mike said, “It’s my pick, and I’m taking Phil, so go ahead and make your pick so we can get on with this game.”
Wade, one could see, was furious at this defiance, but he said nothing. The choosing of sides continued until only Hector and Jimmy remained.
“I’ll take Four Eyes,” Wade said.
That was surprising, for Wade had only chosen Hector in the past was when he was the last player left.
Mike called us together to announce our lineup.
“Jimmy,” he asked, “what position do you like to play?”
“Infield, like number 42.”
“You mean like Jackie Robinson?”
“Right,” he said, as he smiled for the first time.
Mike turned to Phil.
“Outfield, like Larry Doby.”
“Okay, number 14, you play center.” (This esoteric knowledge was no doubt derived from baseball cards.) And let’s try this for a lineup: Jackie Robinson leads off, Doby second, Fungo third, and I’ll bat cleanup...”
IV.
Wade Gutkowski appointed himself as the pitcher for the home team (always the Cubs), while Captain Mike decided that we (the visitors) would be the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Wade had been strangely silent during these preliminaries, but his first pitch made his feelings quite clear. It was way inside and hit the dirt, causing Jimmy to skip out of the way. The second pitch, obviously intended to do harm, was fired at the batter’s head, but he belly-flopped under it.
“Keep it up, Wade,” Mike yelled, “two more like that, and we’ll have a man on first to start the game.”
All Wade could manage, in response to the taunt, was “Shut your damn trap!”
Jimmy walked to first after those four wild pitches.
Wade’s first pitch to Phil, aimed at his head, flew behind the batter and banged harmlessly off the backboard.
Phil, before stepping back into the batter’s box, shouted to Wade with an ironic, exaggerated southern accent that was quite unlike his normal speech, “Oh, Captain Wade, if you cain’t get any closer to the plate than that, you gonna half to send yoself to the showers.”
The next three pitches were wild, angry attempts to bean the batter, but Phil dodged out of the way, laughed them off and slowly trotted to first.
The Cubs’ shortstop called timeout and the whole infield gathered on the pitcher’s mound, urging Wade, in a variety of ways, to get back to playing baseball.
I was up next and on the first pitch, called a strike, the runners executed a double steal without drawing a throw, for Wade, still furious, forgot that there were runners on base, and went into a windup. On the next pitch, just above the knees and perhaps a little inside, I dragged a bunt down the first base line. (Bunts were always effective, for the grass was high.) Jimmy scored easily from third, and when Gutkowski threw wild to third, attempting to get Phil, he scored. I wound up on third.
McClendon, batting cleanup, took a few practice swings, suggesting that he was aiming to hit the ball out to distant Cicero Avenue. He then dropped a sweet squeeze bunt down the third base line, and I scored easily.
Three batters up; three runs in, and that was the way the game went: Wade was too angry to concentrate on baseball, and the more we fed his anger, the more runs we scored.
That game also made it apparent that the presence of Jimmy and Phil changed the balance of power among the players, for Jimmy was definitely as good as Wade, Mike or me, and Phil was, no doubt about it, above us all, in a class by himself. It was like having Babe Ruth on your team, for no one else could hit and pitch the way he could.
There was another change, too. The ethnic slurs seemed to diminish, and no one, not even Wade, used the epithets against Jimmy and Phil that were used to describe Jim in Huckleberry Finn. But even Hector could see that something was going on. I would like to think it was out of respect for the talents of our newest players, but fear perhaps, more than anything else, kept them silent. The brothers played a bold, aggressive brand of baseball that suggested they would never back down from a fight.
After that day, Wade did not show up on the baseball field for almost a week, and it was much more pleasant and a lot more fun without him. When he returned, he said he had been on a fishing trip with his dad up in Wisconsin. He claimed to have caught a lot of fish, but he couldn’t remember the name of lake where he caught them.
I had been captain for the last three games (which we won) and Wade, who seemed a little subdued, was chosen captain for the other side. I won the bat toss with a two-finger pinch right up against the bat knob.
On my first pick, I chose Mike, for I saw that he was the player Wade was eyeing. I could see that everyone was surprised at my choice, for the natural and obvious pick would have been Phil North, our local version of Babe Ruth. I was testing to see if Wade’s baseball sense would triumph over his obvious racism.
It did not.
Wade passed over Phil and Jimmy for Danny Conway, not much of a hitter, but fearless and tenacious behind the plate. He had a nice catcher’s mitt and wore a face mask, but he did not have a chest protector or shin guards (no one did). It was not the shrewdest pick, but at least one could see some sense in having the best catcher on one’s team.
There was a stunned silence, however. We couldn’t have been more surprised if Wade said he was going out to the pitcher’s mound to put a bullet in his head.
I quickly chose Phil, before Wade had a chance to reconsider.
Jimmy was by far the best of the remaining players, but Wade continued to choose anyone (and I do mean anyone) but Jimmy. On his next pick, he chose, instead, an indifferent player whom we called “Mr. Slow Motion.”
Phil was jumping up and down, pulling me by the sleeve, yelling “Take Jimmy! Take Jimmy!”
I didn’t heed his pleas, however, and took, instead, the steady fielding, average hitting Tommy Doerr.
The choosing came down to the final two players, Hector and Jimmy, and Wade, as I suspected, preferred to have Hector, the almost blind Hector, over all-star Jimmy.
It was astonishing. Most of the other players must have thought that Wade and I had suddenly lost our minds, for passing up opportunities to have the North brothers on one’s team was akin to committing baseball suicide.
And baseball suicide it was, for in those pre-”slaughter rule” days, the teams Wade captained suffered humiliating defeats (69-7, 52-4, etc.), day after day after day.
The victories against Wade’s teams became as predictable as the nightly triumphs of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team over the hapless Washington Generals.
It was clear that Wade would rather lose by lopsided scores than to have Phil or Jimmy North, or me, on his side.
We rarely talked about it, never addressed the real issue, until one day in September, after school had started, Wade and I got into a little shoving match on the playground, and we both were sent to the principal’s office.
“So, boys,” the principal said rather wearily, “what is it all about this time?”
“He made fun of my name, and called me a cheater,” I blurted out.
“Now, Wade, is that true?”
“He is a cheater, that’s why.”
“And how does he cheat?”
“When we choose up sides in baseball, he always takes the best players.”
“Isn’t that the smart thing to do? I don’t see how that is cheating.”
“No-Fun-Go isn’t fair. He knows I don’t want no black players on my team, so he saves them up for the end.”
“I’m perplexed,” the principal said, “who, or what, is ‘No-Fun-Go?’”
“Him,” Wade said, pointing at me.
“He has a name and so do you. You address him properly, and I never want to hear you use that derogatory name again. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I think I know a thing or two about baseball, so tell me, Joe: did you take advantage of his racism to win baseball games?”
“I did exactly that, sir. I noticed that Wade would take any white player, even the worst, over Jimmy and Phil North—you know them—even though those brothers were two of the best players out there.”
“Wade,” the principal said, “let me ask you a hypothetical question. Let’s say you were the manager of the national league all-star team, and you had a choice between two second basemen, say, Eddie Miksis and Jackie Robinson, who would you take?
“Miksis,” Wade responded without hesitation.
The principal burst into laughter.
“You would take Miksis, who hit something like .212, over Robinson, who hit almost .300? Is that what you would do?”
“Yes, I would.”
“Wade,” the principal said in a very calm voice, “with the best will in the world, I can find no evidence to suggest that Joe was cheating. On the other hand, you have demonstrated that you have let racism cloud your judgment. If I see any manifestation of that racism in this school, you will be out faster than the Dodgers can turn a double play.”
I sat there smiling and feeling very pleased. It was almost as though the No-Fun-Go’s team, including Mike McClendon, Jimmy and Phil North, had just won the World Series.
~