A few weeks ago I shared that I was in the middle of writing a book about my father—Wallace Hebert, aka Preacher. He was not a preacher, having acquired the nickname in elementary school soon after his family moved to Lake Charles after the 1918 storm blew away everything they owned.

I’ll be sharing parts of the book as I go along. It’s titled From the Bayou to the Big League and is divided into three parts. Part I. Born on the Bayou. Early Years 1907-1930. Part II. Leaving the Bayou. Baseball Years 1930-1943. Part III. Back to the Bayou. Later Years 1943-1999.

My goals are: first draft finished by end of July. Book ready to sell at Flea Fest in November. That means I need to bear down and try to write every day. It also means I need someone to demand accountability from me. If you see me at Market Basket or the post office or just wandering around somewhere, ask me how many words or how many pages I wrote yesterday.

Many who read this blog have seen some of my dad’s stories. Some of them will be in the book and I have many more to add. I’ll be sharing some of them with my readers as well as sharing my progress. I hope it will cause you to want to know more about the remarkable man who was in my life a long time.

The following piece of writing is the preface to From the Bayou to the Big League.

 

Preface

He collected nicknames like others collect coins or stamps. The Colossus of Clout; The Wazir of Wham; The Maharajah of Mash; The Caliph of Clout; The Mauling Mastodon; The Big Bam; The Bambino. His last name segued into an adjective—”Ruthian” describing performances of epic proportions.

Yankee Stadium was The House that Ruth Built. A rumor floated around that he had a candy bar named for him—a yummy chocolate concoction with a gooey middle full of nuts. He was, of course, George Herman Ruth, Jr., aka Babe. Scourge of American League pitchers and, for a time, American League batters. He was an outstanding left-handed pitcher for eight years until someone decided they needed his bat every game instead of every four or five days.

His early life was inauspicious. By the time he was eight years of age, he had chewed tobacco and drunk whiskey. Listed as incorrigible, he went to live at St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, a Catholic reform school. While there he was supposed to learn a trade, and the powers that be decided his destiny was to become a shirt maker. However, he proved them wrong when he signed with the Baltimore Orioles of the International League in February 1914. It took him less than five months to make it to the major leagues.

While with the Orioles, Ruth picked up his famous nickname. However, no one seems to know who first called him Babe. He made his major league debut with Boston as a starting pitcher at Fenway Park on July 11, 1914, pitching seven innings for the win but going 0 for 2 at bat. His first major league hit was a double at Fenway in October of the same year.

According to a noted journalist of the day, Ruth was the best left-handed American League pitcher of the 1910s. He did quite well pitching for the Red Sox from 1914 to 1919, winning eighty-nine games and losing forty-six. However, the bat was his forte. Even as a pitcher during his last year at Boston he hit twenty-nine home runs and ended the season with a .322 average. By 1931 he was still going strong for the New York Yankees even though he had been knocking baseballs out of the park for eleven years. He was the Home Run King, and hit homerun number 600 against the St. Louis Browns in August of that year.

Back in May of the same year, a tall southpaw for the Browns took the pitcher’s mound in relief. He was greeted by 40,000 screaming Yankee fans in Yankee Stadium. This was the young, dark haired Cajun’s initiation into the major leagues. His first major league pitch resulted in a single that advanced two runners. The next batter strolled to the plate and took his stance. Who stood some sixty feet away smiling and swinging his bat? The Bambino himself.

With the bases loaded the rookie was facing the most dangerous hitter in baseball. What a way to start a major league career. The pitcher tossed Ruth a curve ball and the Sultan of Swat hit into a double play to end the inning. On his way back to the dugout Ruth had some advice for his adversary. “You can put that slow curve right up your ass.”

The Browns went on to win that game, and the young man from Louisiana beat the Yankees three more times that season. In one game he pitched an eight-inning shutout against the World Champion Athletics. In another game against the Yankees he struck Babe Ruth out three times, and in one inning fanned Ruth and Gehrig back to back.

What follows is not a biography of Babe Ruth. It’s the story of my father Wallace “Preacher” Hebert and his journey from the bayous of Louisiana to the merry-go-round of professional baseball in St. Louis, San Diego, and Pittsburgh, and back to the swamps of home—a ninety-two year romp through the Twentieth Century.

(Previously published March, 2016 as Tetanus Shots And Water Moccasins)

Late May, 1953

One day it started to rain—and rain—and rain. Then the wind blew in from the south and the waters started to rise. Soon, for those of us living out of town, the two roads into Westlake were impassable. A section of both Westwood Road and Miller Avenue (aka Hwy. 378) looked like a lake, isolating everything north of John Stine Road from the town of Westlake.

What a dilemma. That meant people like my dad and Mr. George and Mr. McGuire were cut off from their jobs at Firestone. My grandmother and my mother were—horror of horrors—cut off from Rue’s Store. I was cut off from my job at Budge’s Drugstore, but my friend, Mozelle, solved that by inviting me to stay at her house so I could walk down the street to the drugstore.

The intrepid citizens of Westlake, however, didn’t sit around bemoaning their fate. Several motorboats were brought to the two “lakes” to act as ferries. Cars were parked on either side to accommodate the ferry passengers. Volunteers ran the boats and drove the cars. Two-car families found themselves luckier than those with only one. If they were able to get one of their cars to the south side before the waters got too high they had transportation on both sides—just a short boat ride away.Continue Reading

Once upon a time—not all that long ago—there was no television. There were no phones, either, in the countryside outside of Westlake’s town limits, but that’s another story. Back then, no one had television, in or out of town.

“But…but…what did you do?” a Gen-Xer might ask.

Well, we played outside long after the sun went down, chasing fireflies, chasing each other, playing Hide and Seek and Red Rover. And then there were the books. I had gone through the whole set of Zane Grey westerns by the time I got to high school.

Let’s not forget the radio. When we finally came inside from playing or when the weather was bad, we listened to our regular radio programs in our grandparents’ bedroom with Granddaddy. “The Lone Ranger,” where we got our weekly dose of culture listening to the William Tell Overture at the beginning of the broadcast. Who can forget “Hi-yo Silver, away” or “Get-um up, Scout?”

Two of our favorites gave us our weekly dose of the creeps. “The Shadow”—a disembodied voice intoned “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.” Eerie laughter followed those lines. “The Inner Sanctum” opened and closed its broadcast with the sound of a creaking door and a story guaranteed to keep us awake or give us nightmares, especially when I slept in a room next to an attic that creaked and moaned all night.Continue Reading

In the summer of 1942 San Diego baseball was in full swing. My father was in the middle of one of his best years ever, finishing up the year with twenty-two victories against fifteen losses, a .594 percentage, and a 2.37 ERA. In June, however, the season was still young and the Hebert family was ensconced in San Diego. I was five years old that June—soon to be six in August. My little sister Hillene was just barely one, having had her first birthday on June 1.

I had heard the grown-ups talking about war, but I had no idea what war was and frankly didn’t care. I never asked why we had ugly black shades on all the windows or why we had to turn the lights out at midnight. I asked my mother once why we had to go into the hall at kindergarten earlier that year and pull our sweaters over our heads until the all-clear bell rang. She told me those were air raid drills so we’d know what to do in case the Japanese ever bombed San Diego. I didn’t know why the Japanese wanted to bomb us, but when school let out for the summer vacation I soon forgot all about the Japanese and their bombs. I was having too much fun with my new friend across the street.

Meanwhile, out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean at a small, little-known island, unbeknownst to the residents of San Diego events were unfolding that would determine the fate of the California coastline.

My mother had a cousin who was a civilian worker at the large naval base in San Diego. He was a frequent visitor to our house, especially around suppertime. He had a standing invitation to drop by for a home-cooked meal any time. One night in early June—about three or four days after Hillene’s birthday party—he came over for supper. When we finished eating I went in to the living room with my book. The grown-ups, as usual, sat around the table talking.

Our cousin was telling my mother about the ships that were coming in from the Pacific for repairs. “They’re really banged up. I don’t know what’s going on out there.” He went on to say the ships had been coming in since the second badly damaged. His coworkers didn’t know any more than he did about the state of affairs. This was definitely not normal, he said.

However, life went on as usual at the house on Oregon Street. Air raid drills were no more since kindergarten was out for the summer. We still had black shades and a curfew, but I couldn’t care less about all that.

I rode my tricycle all over the neighborhood with my friends. My father still went to the ball park every day, or left for road trips every now and then. My mother still went to the home games—especially when Daddy was scheduled to pitch. Sometimes I would go with her and sometimes I would stay home with whatever relative or friend happened to be visiting us from Louisiana. The house always seemed to be full.

I don’t know about the adults, but my friends and I didn’t worry about banged-up ships limping into the naval base.

In the Pacific Ocean a little northwest of Pearl Harbor the Battle of Midway is what was going on. The battle between U.S. and Japanese air power raged for three days—June 2 through June 4. By the time it was over the Japanese had lost four aircraft carriers, 300 aircraft, and around 3,000 sailors and aviators. U.S. losses stood at the aircraft carrier Yorktown, about 150 planes, and 300 troops. The battle crippled the Japanese navy and stopped Japan’s advance in the Pacific. The tide had turned and the mainland was safe.

I, of course, knew nothing about this until I was older and heard about it along with other family stories. 1942  was my father’s last year to play for the Padres. When the season started in 1943 we would be up north in Pittsburgh making new friends and having more adventures.

Lefty Hebert Plays Hero In Thrilling First Game

Youthful Southpaw Silences Big Bats of Joplin Club

Preacher Hebert Won First Tilt For Springfield

Hebert Hero Of 15-Inning Mound Duel

These were some of the headlines about my father’s professional debut in 1930. It was opening day and the Springfield Midgets (my dad was 6’1″) took the field against the Joplin Miners. The Midgets scored two runs in the first inning and went into a trance for the next thirteen innings.

In the meantime the Joplin Miners tied it up in the sixth and sent Springfield’s starting pitcher to the showers. Enter the young man from Louisiana. He shut Joplin’s bats down for the next nine and two-third innings—a full day’s work and then some for any ballplayer, but especially the pitcher. The Midgets were equally unproductive, however. This was definitely a pitcher’s duel.

According to the write-up, young Hebert struck out five Miners, allowed six hits, and walked two. With darkness threatening to stop the game the Midgets bats finally woke up and they hit the Miners pitcher for three runs which brought the score to 5-2. Not only did my father pitch Springfield to a hair-raising victory, he also scored one of the three runs in the top of the fifteenth inning. He stymied the Joplin bats in the bottom of that last marathon inning and held on for the victory. An auspicious beginning to his professional career, I would say.

During that 1930 season he pitched thirty-six games, winning fifteen and losing sixteen. One newspaper reported some of the losses were more the fault of erratic playing on the part of teammates rather than sketchy pitching on his part. For example, in one of those losses he allowed only one base hit, but five fielding errors proved costly and led to defeat, for which the pitcher always gets blamed in the stats.

At any rate, he spent one season playing for Springfield and in 1931 he was on his way to St. Louis and the big leagues.

Here’s a short blog post to wish my faithful readers a Merry Christmas. I want to take this opportunity to talk about a Christmas present I got in 1943 when I was seven years old. Would you believe I still have it? How many of my readers, I wonder, can say they still have a present from their childhood? (I’m assuming most of these folks are of a certain age.)Continue Reading

This is a repeat blog post from August, 2015.

Winter of ’48

Dog Days on steroids and still a month to go. How about some relief from triple-digit temps and humidity out the wazoo? How about my recollection of the winter of 1948—the coldest winter down here that I can remember? I was twelve and Hillene was seven.

First it snowed a lot, then it froze—hard. We could actually skate around on the snow. Then it snowed again and the temperature stayed down for days. Mommie, our great-grandmother, in her eighties, got outside with us and helped us roll the snow into a giant snowball. We proceeded to roll it around the yard where it continued to grow.Continue Reading

Once upon a time there was a bag swing on Carlin Drive in Westlake. What, you might ask, is a bag swing? A long rope was attached to the top branch of a tree—undoubtedly a cypress—on the edge of the swamp at the north end of Carlin Drive. The tree was a lofty one—fifty or sixty feet—and about halfway up someone’s father, or maybe some of the neighborhood boys, had built a small wooden platform just large enough to hold two Junior High kids.

Said kids got to the platform by climbing up a series of wooden slats nailed to the tree at twelve to fifteen inch intervals. Did I mention this platform was twenty-five feet or so  off the ground? At the bottom end of the rope a ten-pound flour sack filled with sand had been tied.

The object was to straddle the bag and swing out over the swamp—cypress knees, water moccasins, and everything else the swamp nourished. That wasn’t too dangerous. Junior High kids don’t weigh that much. Trouble was—it got boring with just one person flying out over the murky water. Why not see how many could jump on every time it made a pass back to the platform? I think six was our limit. The last two to jump on were hanging on by their fingernails (pardon the cliche.) Did I mention we were twenty-five feet above the swamp? Oh, that’s right. I did.

I’ll dispense with calling out names here to protect the guilty, but I remember those Saturday and Sunday summer afternoons when we could experience the freedom of the birds—when for a brief moment we could defy gravity and soar with the eagles. Dangerous? Not that bunch. After all, we were twelve years old. We were going to live forever. I guess some things never change.