Walter Johnson Had No Idea: A Life with Baseball

By Robert McCammon

A dirt farmer in Southern Indiana in the year 1924 chose to name his son after a famous baseball player who would someday enter the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Little did anyone know at the time, including that famous player, just how much that decision would mean to that son and the generations to follow. That was the beginning of a love affair with baseball that would identify this family, a love that would begin with the Washington Senators and move on to Minnesota in 1961. Now five generations in, this family allegiance is still very much alive today.

This is a story of the son of that son with the famous name and his love of baseball that was handed down to him. He in turn has passed that love on to his son, who now has a daughter who will hopefully understand this love of the game. Memories are made with the game of baseball, and so many are worth sharing.

As the pages of this book are turned, the reader will begin to recognize many of these memories and hopefully be reminded of memories that are part of their lives. Hopefully, the reader will have a better understanding of how generations of a family can be connected by the threads of a baseball.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685265298

Robert McCammon

Robert McCammon is the New York Times bestselling author of Boy’s Life and Gone South, among many critically acclaimed works of fiction, with millions of copies of his novels in print. He is a recipient of the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award, the Grand Master Award from the World Horror Convention, and is a World Fantasy Award winner. He lives in Alabama. Visit the author at RobertMcCammon.com.

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Walter Johnson Had No Idea

A Life with Baseball

Robert McCammon

ISBN 978-1-68526-528-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88644-948-8 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-68526-529-8 (Digital)

Copyright © 2022 Robert McCammon

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction: Walter Johnson Had No Idea

Walter Johnson Had No Idea

Charlie's Gift

My Dad and the Big Train

Change Is Inevitable

The World Series Comes to Minnesota

My Best Friend Pop

Two Wonderful Blessings

People I've Met along the Way

When the Elevator Door Opens

A Prized Possession

There Was More than Noise in the Dome

I'll Be Back

Two Empty Seats

A Foul Ball Catch

Torii… My Five Guys Friend

We Owned It for a While

A Pregame Surprise

Thank You, Joe

A Baseball Signed

The Voice

Rusty and Wrigley

He's More than a Bear

Cory and the Hawk

My Pitcher Friend

The Early Birds

An Unforgettable Baseball Swing

March 12, 2020—Change Never Imagined

That Was Just the Beginning

My Closing Thoughts

About the Author

For a kid growing up in the 1960s smitten by the game of baseball, I realized there were players who attained the status of hero to their fans. For me, that first and forever hero was Harmon Killebrew, a great player for my favorite team during his career. As I got older, that respect I had was not only for Harmon the ballplayer but Harmon the man. He once said that life was precious and time a key element. Let's make every moment count and help those who have a greater need than our own. Thanks, Harmon, for settling an example for us all.

—The Author

My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, You're tearing up the grass.

We're not raising grass, Dad would reply. We're raising boys.

—Harmon Killebrew

When I learned the news about Harmon today, I felt like I lost a family member. He has treated me like one of his own. It's hard to put into words what Harmon has meant to me. He first welcomed me into the Twins family as an eighteen-year-old kid and has continued to influence my life in many ways. He is someone I will never forget, and I will always treasure the time we spent together. Harmon will be missed but never forgotten.

—Joe Mauer

To God, to my friends, to those who have crossed my path in many different baseball settings, and especially to my family, a heartfelt thank-you for helping make this endeavor possible.

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

—1 Thessalonians 5:16–18

Foreword

Baseball. Our game is, at once, beautiful in its simplistic symmetry (three strikes and you're out, three outs in an inning, nine players to a side, nine innings to a game) and glorious in its majestic complexity. (The batter is tasked with squarely hitting a round ball with a round bat, while that ball travels at terrific speeds and with gravity-defying movement.) Ours is a game that embraces and rewards the daily grind—a game that is with us from the first sunset of spring to the last sunset of fall; a game that delivers exhilarating joy (1987 and 1991 need no further explanation) and crushing heartbreak (yes, postseason losing streaks happen); and a game that, while stakes may change, is essentially the same from T-ball fields to major league diamonds, from coast to coast and everywhere in between.

In those ways then, baseball is a lot like life itself—simple yet complex and full of highs and lows but with powerful commonalities and new opportunities always right around the corner. Perhaps that is why baseball, for more than 150 years, has been the tie that binds generations. Its narrative is woven through our collective fabric like the stitches of a baseball itself, connecting us all and keeping us together, no matter what, through a shared love of our game.

For more than thirty years, I have had the privilege of living my personal dream by working in baseball for my childhood team, the Minnesota Twins. Since November 2002, I have had the honor of serving as club president. One of my greatest delights is, and always will be, going to the ballpark every day and seeing baseball connect us. Whether it be first at the Metrodome or now at Target Field or be it at Fort Myers for Spring training or any stadium I've traveled to, I always take a moment to cherish the true meaning of our game—to watch as fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, grandparents and grandchildren revel in the singular joy of baseball.

Our game is why a dirt farmer in southern Indiana named his newborn son Walter Johnson McCammon in the fall of 1924; why more than ninety years later, in the spring of 2015, that farmer's grandson Bob McCammon came to work for us during Spring training in Fort Myers; why those three generations of McCammons—plus two more and counting after that—are forever connected not just by their love for each other but also their love of baseball.

If you're not already, this book will help you share in our love of baseball, and hopefully, the Twins along with it! From grandfather to great-great-grandchildren; from the Big Train and the Washington Senators to the Killer and the Minnesota Twins; from Kirby, Herbie, and Homer Hankies to Torii, Mauer, and outdoor ball at Target Field; from T-ball practices to high school games, Bob's is a true baseball life, and he has the stories to match. I know you will enjoy these wonderful tales as much as I have.

I am forever grateful for baseball. Our game has been a powerful bond for my own family like it has for so many others. Our game has also connected me with so many amazing people—people like Bob, whose love of baseball has enabled him to enrich the lives of his family, his former students, his folks across the Twins organization, and now our Twins fans at Hammond Stadium.

Really, there's just one thing left to say before you dive into this book—something I know that Bob wholeheartedly agrees with: Win, Twins!

—Dave St. Peter

President and CEO

Minnesota Twins

Introduction: Walter Johnson Had No Idea

Walter Johnson Had No Idea

If you have chosen to read this paragraph, then I can assume you are one of two groups of people. Either you are a member of my family, or you are a baseball fan. This endeavor may only serve as a reminder to my family of my love of baseball, or who knows…it might become a book that baseball fans could identify with. Baseball fans who truly love the history of the game as I do would surely recognize the name in the title. It was that man who has made this attempt at writing possible for a person like me.

I am a retired middle school teacher who has spent his entire life in the countryside of Southern Indiana. For quite some time, I have harbored the idea of writing a book before my days were over, certainly a huge task for someone who has never written seriously in his lifetime.

When Tom Brokaw wrote the book The Greatest Generation, it reminded me that we all take our story to the grave with us, never to be heard again unless we make the effort to somehow leave it behind with others. Now please don't think I'm comparing my story to the heroes of World War II. My story will never be as important as theirs. Yet with my retirement a few years ago, the idea of writing had become something of a challenge for me.

You might think that a retired social studies teacher and coach would surely borrow from his experiences with young people in his classroom. I could definitely testify to the fact that there were many situations I had that could fill the pages of a book. I will admit that this idea had been in the back of my mind for years…but undoubtedly way, way in the back.

If I ever made the decision to write, I assumed that those school and classroom experiences would dictate the final product. But as it turned out, that was not the influencing factor for my decision to write.

I will tell you that I have had a baseball life for as long as I can remember. I'm not that involved when it comes to hobbies. I've always looked at my profession not as a job but rather something that brought joy in my life much as a hobby often does. Please believe when I say there were days when teaching was far from enjoyable, but as I look back on my forty-one years, those days were few. For that, I have always been thankful.

That baseball life that I have enjoyed would just about cover any discussion of hobbies for me. My love of baseball and what it has meant to me and my family has been on my mind since my retirement. Anyone who knows me or has spent time in my classroom has some idea about my love for the game. It is that love that I want to share in this book.

Things have happened for me since my retirement almost ten years ago, things that I would only have dreamed of several years ago. Many times, I have found myself in situations related to this wonderful game that I will always remember, times that I think might be worth sharing, especially to that baseball fan.

Again, I need to say that much of this might not be understood by someone who doesn't think America's pastime is important, exciting, or worth writing about—someone who might feel that a simple game could never mean that much to anyone with any sense at all. Let me add at this point for all of those who believe that baseball is no longer America's game, you will never convince me of that. Now that we have that out of the way, I will continue.

So before I go any further with this…yes, I did have the baseball fan in mind when I started this project, the baseball fan who can appreciate these pages because he or she can understand my love, my excitement, my devotion to the game. That same fan who can understand a lifelong appreciation of baseball, a lifelong devotion to a particular team, and the understanding of the joy one has when he sees all of this passed on to the next generation of his family.

It is this passing on to the next generation that has truly inspired me to begin this journey in words on paper. It is more than just baseball; it is my family and the role baseball has played in our lives through generations. I hope that whatever I have written when this journey is completed will be a story that my family can continue writing for that next generation.

Chapter 1

Charlie's Gift

Eight years ago, I received the nudge that started me thinking more and more about this book. That nudge came after I secured a position with the Minnesota Twins during spring training in Fort Myers, Florida. Before you get too excited, let me explain. The job wasn't on the field as a starting second baseman, not even a job as a member of the ground crew. It wasn't a job in the scouting department or even in the front office. I would gladly have been open to any one of those positions, but at age sixty-four, I realized the odds were against me.

The job I landed was truly a gift that somehow fell in my lap. I would soon realize after my first year that it was, in my opinion, the best job inside the stadium. It was a job that allowed me to talk to many people—Twins fans, other baseball fans, and just people who chose to come to a baseball game in South Florida because that's what people do during this time of year.

This job placed me on the Skydeck at Hammond Stadium in the CenturyLink Sports Complex, the spring training home of the Minnesota Twins. How did this all work out for me? I have said from that day forward that the Lord was looking out for me as everything fell into place. Let me explain by starting with an idea that I had entertained for a long time.

My first experience at spring training came in the mid-eighties when we made our first trip to Florida during spring break. The Twins trained in Orlando at Tinker Field at that time. We were able to spend a couple of days taking in the activities at the ballpark. I realized just how special spring training was to the baseball fan. The closeness to the field and players and the access to all the activities going on stayed with me when we returned to Indiana.

I told myself that someday, when I am retired, I'm going to spend a month in Florida during spring training. That became my goal, and I often shared it with my students. I wasn't sure I could pull it off, but I was going to try. I retired, and we went to Florida that first year for three weeks. There was some shopping and sightseeing involved, but I spent every morning at the Twins' training facility that was now in Fort Myers. I was also able to attend four or five spring training games. My dream was being realized.

During the last game that spring before returning home, I befriended an usher by the name of Kenny. We hit it off almost immediately when we found out that we both were retired teachers and coaches from the great state of Indiana. In the course of our conversation, I asked him how he got his job working in the stadium. Having been in Florida for three weeks, I began to think about coming to Florida for maybe two to three months next year. At that point in time, I didn't know that we were going to purchase a little place in Florida before the next spring training season. I started thinking about being at the games every day and how I might be able to get a job at the stadium.

Thus, back to the question for Kenny. His reply: Talk to Charlie and fill out an application. Before we could end our conversation, Charlie came by, and Kenny introduced him to me. He told me to go downstairs to the office and pick up an application and get it back to him before we went back home. He explained that he would be in touch with me in December about a job. Simple enough. I did just that and returned home, wondering if all of this could come true.

I waited patiently for a call that next December that didn't come. Disappointed, yes, but I knew we were heading to Florida in early January, and I was going to enjoy another spring training. I ran into Charlie at the first game, and he said, Are you still interested in working?

After quickly telling him I was, he then told me he had tried to call me several times in December without reaching me. I was disappointed that I hadn't gotten the call but was heartened by the fact that he would have a job for me next year. I was to call him before Christmas if he hadn't reached me by then.

I received a call from Charlie the first week of December, asking me if I was coming back to Florida for the winter. I assured him that we were, and I was told to call him when we arrived. After the call, an interview was set up for the next week at the stadium. As I'm driving there, racing through my mind was the possibility of me working for my baseball team. My dream was so very close, and I know that the Lord is directing this.

View of the field from the Skydeck at Hammond Stadium. My workplace and the best venue from which to watch a game.

The interview was merely a get-acquainted session and a discussion of baseball. Charlie said, You have a job. We like to hire retired police officers, firemen, and teachers. He explained that there were three positions open, and I could have my choice. I could shuttle people in from the outer parking lot using a golf cart, I could be a bag checker at one of the gates, or I could work up on the Skydeck. After telling Charlie I was hoping to be inside the stadium because I love baseball and the Twins, he suggested I better take the