You say, 'Half-Rubber'?

Photographer Jack Leigh (1948-2004) was part of the Biograph Theatre’s staff in late-1973/early-1974 (I managed the place in those days). While he worked at the Biograph as an usher, Leigh taught me to play Half-Rubber, a game he said came from his home town, Savannah. Half-Rubber is a three-man baseball-like game that is played with a broom handle and half of a red rubber ball.

Probably Jack’s best known photograph was snapped in 1993, when he shot the photo in a Savannah cemetery that would appear on the cover of what became a bestselling book -- “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” by John Berendt. Later the same image was used to promote the movie with the same title.

When I knew him, Jack (pictured right) was earnest and quick-witted. He liked to play chess and talk about movies, and of course -- photography. In his Biograph days he was already a very good photographer. At one point we had a show of his hanging in the lobby.

Once, when we went out to wander around shooting pictures together, he snapped his shutter maybe twice. He was using slow black and white film. Maybe Verichrome Pan? In the same amount of time, a couple of hours, I went through a couple of rolls of fast Tri-X.

Yes, the quiet style Jack would use throughout his career was already evident. He eventually authored six books of photographs, including "Oystering," which featured a foreword by James Dickey.

Back to Half-Rubber: To kill time one pleasant afternoon, at Jack's prompting I cut a ball in half, cut the sweeping part off of a broomstick and crossed the street with the Half-Rubber instructor and the theater’s assistant manager, Bernie Hall. At the time there were a couple of vacant lots on Grace Street, across from the Biograph. With the alley behind us, it was a good spot to play the new game.

Berine and I soon learned the key to pitching was to throw the half-ball using a side-arm delivery, with the flat part down. That made it curve wildly and soar, somewhat like a Frisbee. Hitting it with a broomstick or even catching the damn thing was quite another matter. Oh, and hitting the ball on a bounce was OK, too. In fact, it was better to do so, from a strategic standpoint.

The pitcher threw the half-sphere in the general direction of the batter. If the batter swung and missed, and he usually did miss, the catcher did his best to catch it. When the catcher did catch it on the fly, providing the batter had swung, the batter was out. Then the pitcher moved to the catching position, and the catcher became the batter, and so forth. Runs were scored in a similar fashion to other home run derby-like games.

But the best reason to play, other than the laughs stemming from how foolish we looked dealing with the crazy, flat-sided ball, was the kick that came from hitting it. When we connected with that little red devil it left the broomstick bat like a rocket. Smashing it across the lot, completely over the theater and halfway to Broad Street was a gas!

Click here to read more about Jack Leigh.

Satchel Paige at Parker Field

Satchel Paige as a Cleveland Indian

Missing Major League Baseball I can’t help but think of what was a temple of baseball in my youth, Parker Field, which was located where the Diamond is now.

Parker Field opened in 1954 to serve as home for a new International League club — the Richmond Virginians. The Baltimore Orioles (formerly the St. Louis Browns) joined the American League that year, leaving an opening in the IL for the Richmond entry.

A couple of years later the V’s became one of the New York Yankees’ Triple A farm clubs. Accordingly, in those days the Bronx Bombers paid Richmond an annual visit in April. Just before the Big Leagues opening day, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and the other great Yankees of that era played an exhibition game in Richmond against V’s.

It was always a standing-room-only affair. I wish I hadn't lost track off the photos I shot of a few of those Yankees stars with my Brownie Hawkeye at one of those games. When it ended I climbed over a low wall, to get out on the field, Then I fired off a few closeup shots before I was shooed away.

Other than the pinstripe-clad hometown V’s my favorite club of the IL in those days was the pre-revolution Havana Sugar Kings. They played with an intensity, bordering on reckless abandon, that made them a lot of fun to watch, especially for the kids.

One of my all-time favorite players I saw perform on that ball field was Leroy “Satchel” Paige (1906-82). Yes, the legendary Paige, with his windmill windup, high kick and remarkably smooth release still working for him, plied his craft on the mound here in Richmond.

In 1971, Paige (pictured above, circa 1949) was the first of the Negro Leagues’ great stars to be admitted to Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame, based mostly on his contributions before he helped break the Major League color line in 1948, as a 42-year-old rookie. The statistics from his pre-Big League days are mind-boggling. It's been said he won some 2,000 games and threw maybe as many as 45 no-hitters.

Furthermore, long before the impish poet/boxer Muhammad Ali, there was the equally playful Satchel Paige, with his widely published Six Guidelines to Success:

• Avoid fried meats that angry up the blood.
• If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
• Keep the juices flowing by jangling gently as you walk.
• Go very lightly on the vices, such as carrying-on in society - the society ramble ain’t restful.
• Avoid running at all times.
• Don’t look back, something may be gaining on you.

Long after his days as the best pitcher in the Negro Leagues (and maybe any league), following his precedent-setting stint in the American League, Paige was on the roster of the Miami Marlins (1956-58). Like the V’s the Marlins played in the International League. When I saw him Paige was in his 50s. Not a starter, anymore, he worked out of the bullpen.

In the late-1950s live professional baseball in Richmond was mostly a white guys’ scene. Which meant the boos would start as soon as the crowd noticed Paige’s 6-3, 180-pound frame warming up in the middle of a game. When he’d be called in to pitch, in relief, the noise level would soar. Not all the grown men booed, but many did. That, while their children and grandchildren were split between booing, cheering, or embarrassed and not knowing what to do.

Naturally, some of the kids (like me) liked seeing the grownups getting unraveled, so Paige was all the more cool to them. Sadly, for some white men in Richmond, then caught up by the thinking that buoyed Massive Resistance, any prominent black person was seen as someone to be against. So, they probably would have booed Duke Ellington or A. Philip Randolph, too.

The showman Paige would take forever to walk to the mound from the bullpen. His warm-up pitches would each be big productions, with various slow-motion full windups. Then the thrown ball would whistle toward home plate with a startling velocity, making some of the kids cheer and laugh ... to mix with the boos.

Paige as a Miami Marlin

Paige, from Mobile, Alabama, must have understood what was going on better than most who watched him pitch then. He was a veteran performer, who knew perfectly well there wasn’t much he could do to change the boos; they were coming from folks trapped in the past.

So, Paige played to the cheers, as experience over time had surely taught him to do. Of course, as a 10-year-old I lacked the overview to understand that what I was seeing was an aspect of the changes the South was going through, to do with race.

My guess is few knew the reaction to Paige, largely being split on generational lines then, was a sign of how America’s baseball fans were going to change -- one day Jim Crow attitudes would have no place at baseball temples.

Now, with the benefit of decades of reflection, I understand that Satchel Paige was a visionary. He was seeing the future by following his own advice -- Don’t look back.

– Images from satchelpage.com

Rams Team Statement

Yesterday afternoon (July 14) Brent Bettinger was at the site of Richmond’s famous/notorious Lee Monument (some now call that location “Marcus-David Peters Circle”) to shoot pictures. The next thing he knew, VCU’s basketball team, with some coaches and associated personnel, showed up. He was told they had planned to gather on the graffiti-adorned pedestal of the statue for a photo.

Accordingly, that‘s what they did. Apparently Bettinger, who has a photographer’s eye, knew an opportunity when he saw it. So he snapped off a photo of his own. By the way, he said the members of the VCU group were wearing masks when they showed up. Then, in the heat, they took them off briefly for the shoot.

Not surprisingly Bettinger’s powerful image has been viewed and shared quite a bit in the last 24 hours. I haven’t seen what pictures the VCU team’s photographer shot, yet, but right now Bettinger’s is getting a lot of play.

Photo credit: Brent Bettinger Media.

Accordingly, My Favorite Bars

Was talking on the phone with a pal. It seemed we both needed to confess that 2020’s accumulating sense of despair is taking a toll. Like me, he’s a geezer who’s been struggling with the lack of sleep … the vexations thick in the air we breathe … the no-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel bleakness ... the goddamn indignities.

We talked for a good while. Between the aforementioned confessions we shared some familiar laughs from hearing old stories recounted, again. In hard times I suppose that's what longtime friends do for one another. Facilitating momentary escapes to a joyous time has always been a good thing. 

Accordingly, we also laughed at the grim and daunting notion that folks may never again crowd into live music shows, or go to cinemas, or to ball games. At least, not like they used to. After we got off the phone it dawned on me that for the time being the natural conviviality of a happy hour -- something I’ve experienced countless times -- can’t be found in reality.

Instead of answering the beer-thirty call, we must settle for reading magazine pieces like this one. And, of course, watching old movies. Especially those with bar scenes in black and white. 

OK, I freely admit that up until I was about 50, I probably spent way too many hours bellied up to the bar. In my favorite bars, I generally preferred to stand as I drank my bottled beer.  

Now my septuagenarian eyes can see that maybe, in the future, America will be better off with less of its social life centered around saloons. Maybe. But right now I’m thinking about my all-time favorite watering holes. Not favorite places for lunch or dinner. Not popular live music venues that served food and drink. Bars.

After that intro, that’s what this piece is about -- my favorite Richmond bars.  

To be continued…

When Donald Cooper got what he deserved

With the temperature now in the 90s maybe it's a good time for a snowball story.

Maybe the best snowball shot I ever made was in the early '80s on West Grace Street. Rebby Sharp and I were across the street from the Biograph Theatre, ducked down behind some parked cars. It was after dark but I can't say how late it was. There was a snowfall underway and it was sticking. Rebby and I were battling some friends, who were in front of Don's Hot Nuts, next door to the cinema that I managed in those days.

Rebby and her band, the Orthotonics, used to practice sometimes in the theater's large auditorium during off-hours. Some fans of Rebby's music and art might not know it, but she was a decent athlete; she pitched for the Biograph's women's softball team had a pretty good throwing arm.

When some snowballs thumped off of Donald Cooper's peculiar bright green candy business storefront, he came out on his porch to command the snowball fighters to scram. As everyone associated with the Biograph knew Cooper to be an utter pest and the worst next-door neighbor in the world, Rebby and I had no need for a plan ... we knew what to do.

Rebby threw first. My throw left with dispatch a split second later. Both were superbly well put shots. When Cooper extended his hand to block Rebby's accurate incoming snowball it shattered to shower him. Then, my righteous throw hit him square in the face ... boom!

Cooper promptly quit defiant his stance and retired for the night.

-- Words and art by F.T. Rea