700 Sundays Page 5

  He wound up, and as it whistled toward me, Dad whispered loudly, "Wait on it . . ." I watched it curving away through the falling flakes . . . CRACK! The ball sailed into right field and buried itself in the snow. I looked at it in wonder, my red nose running, my hands tingling with excitement. I looked at Dad. He smiled. "Now you're getting it. Now you're getting it."

  Rip retrieved it, and threw it to Joel, who tossed it to Dad. "Okay, let's do it again." He started his windup and threw me another beauty . . . "Wait on it." CRACK!

  Baseball became a huge part of our lives. Joel, Rip and I would always head out to the mall in front of our house. It was a grassy island in the middle of Park Avenue, about seventy-five yards long, with some trees on it, traffic moving in both directions on either side of it. But to us, it was our stadium. We would always be out there, playing ball. Traffic would slow down to watch us. We'd practice double plays, play "running catch," which meant you had to throw it over someone's head so they would have to make a difficult play. Sometimes drivers would honk their horns in appreciation. We would fungo hard grounders at each other, and if you could field a grounder on that mall, you could field anywhere. We always played with a baseball. There was no organized Little League in Long Beach, and the schoolyard games were always on concrete, played with a softball. That's why those Sunday batting sessions with Dad were so important, because we were playing good old-fashioned hard ball.

  I did everything I could to make myself a better player. To practice, I took a golf ball, and my glove, and I would go to our tiny backyard and throw it off the concrete wall of the garage so it came at me at great speeds. I'd catch it, and I'd throw to either side, harder and harder so my reflexes got to be really fast. Then I would move closer. It was like pulling a bullet out of the air. I could catch anything, and I learned not to be afraid of the ball. When I started to play baseball in ninth grade for Long Beach High, no matter how hard a ball was hit to me, I had seen faster.

  Imitating players also helped me develop skills. The Yankees had a second baseman named Bobby Richardson, who had great hands, and could get rid of the ball very quickly. I would study him, his feet, his posture, where he held his hands before the pitch, how he made the pivot on the double play, and just as I could imitate my grandfather, the musicians and other relatives, I would "do" Bobby Richardson. Eventually, like a good impersonation, you put yourself into it so it becomes a blend of the best of you and the best of the person you're imitating. And I became a really good-fielding second baseman and shortstop with my own style.

  Just because your dad takes you out and tries to teach you how to play baseball, doesn't mean you have to like it. I loved it, because he was so patient with us. He loved the simplicity and the beauty of baseball, and because of that we loved it too. I would go on to play and become the captain of our high school team. I also played basketball and soccer for Long Beach High, but baseball was really my sport. All those years playing with Joel and Rip were some of our best times. We weren't competing for laughs or attention, or having our occasional fights. Baseball was the great equalizer. All we had to do was throw the ball to each other and say, "Nice catch," or sometimes, nothing at all.

  Joel was a graceful player, tall at six foot two, and lean. He played first base and the outfield, and was a strong power hitter. Rip was left handed, so he played outfield and pitched. Rip was a nickname; we're still not sure how he got it--Richard was his given name--but some claim it was because he loved this player named Rip Ripulski. Others say it was because he kept ripping his pants. Only two years older than I, Rip was a very charismatic kid. He was handsome, a talented musician and singer, great personality, girls loved him. His legacy at school was a tough one to live up to.

  He had amazing energy, always walked ahead of us, sometimes by as much as a block, which drove Mom and Dad crazy when we were in Manhattan with its crowded streets. We shared the room in the back, and he could drive me nuts. Too much energy, even for sleep. He'd kick his leg, like a metronome, over and over into the mattress. He'd keep me up, and, I'd yell, "STOP WITH THE LEG," and he'd be fast asleep, still kicking. Today he'd be on a Ritalin drip. That's one of the few things we would ever fight about, kicking that damn leg.

  Joel, six years older than I, was quieter than Rip, but who wasn't? Really fast and funny, he always had a great line for any situation. Joel also had a natural ability to draw. Sketching and painting came easy to him. When Mom and Dad would be out together, he would invent games for us to play. He took his first baseman's glove, a plastic golf ball, and Mom's three iron. He'd sit in a chair, in one corner of the living room, and Rip and I would take turns hitting the ball at him, as if we were hockey players, and Joel was the goalie. You would get ten shots "on goal," and then we would rotate. The one who saved the most shots was the winner. Our hallway became a bowling alley, complete with minature pins. He made a small basketball hoop, like those Nerf ones that are so popular now, which we would hook over his bedroom door, and with a tennis ball, his room became Madison Square Garden. The best game, and one that would become important to us, was "Bird." This was our version of stickball.

  Our little backyard had the same physical layout as Yankee Stadium--short right field, which was where the garage was, and deep left center, which was the back wall of the house. There was a cement patio, which simulated an infield, and a small diamond-shaped patch of grass, ending in a dirt patch, our home plate.

  Joel fashioned a strike zone out of some kind of drywall material, and attached it to a painting easel, and that stood at home plate. We used a badminton shuttlecock as a ball, and a Little League bat, and we played a "baseball" game back there, with our own intricate set of rules. If the shuttlecock hit off this window it's a double, the higher window it's a home run, et cetera.

  And not only did we play, we also "broadcast" the games. I was Red Barber or Mel Allen, two of the greatest Yankee announcers, and we would call the game as we played it. Houses were on top of each other, so the neighborhood would hear the action. We would pick teams. I was always the Yankees, Joel was the St. Louis Cardinals, Rip was the Dodgers. We had a pregame and postgame show in the garage "studio." Neighbors would call Mom, saying, "I fell asleep, who won the game?"

  There was a newsletter, and we even played an "Old-Timers Game," imitating the former Yankee Greats, playing a few innings as old men. We played night games by taking all the lamps out of the living room, removing the shades and with the use of a few extension cords, placing them around the backyard. We played doubleheaders and, of course, the World Series. Our home was a two-family house. There was a one-bedroom apartment upstairs, where Abe and Estelle Marks lived. They weren't happy with us.

  After all, they lived over Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden, and a bowling alley. She was English, and during one of our more spirited "Bird" games, she yelled down to us from her bedroom window (the left field bleachers), "I know it's the World Series, but Abe just had surgery."

  We played "Bird" until I moved to California. I was twenty-eight years old.

  Remember that program Mantle signed in 1956? Well in 1977, I was on Soap, playing the first openly homosexual character in a network show, and ABC had me appear on every talk show. I called it the "I'm not really gay tour." Mickey was a guest on the Dinah Shore show, and I brought the program, and he signed it again, 21 years later. We became good friends, with Mickey sometimes telling me very intimate stories about his life, usually over too many drinks. I always wanted to pick up a phone and call Dad when I was with Mickey. When Mickey died, the night before the funeral, Bob Costas and I spent the night in a Dallas hotel, writing his eulogy, which Bob would so eloquently deliver.

  In 1991, the Anti-Defamation League named me the entertainer of the year, and gave me an original seat from Yankee Stadium. It was given to me at the premiere of City Slickers. In the film I talk about my "best day" being that first game at the stadium. Mickey signed the seat for me. It reads: "Billy, wish you was still sitting here, and I was stil
l playing." When Mickey died, I thought my childhood had finally come to an end.

  CHAPTER 6

  Around 3:00 on a Sunday, Dad would take out his mandolin and he'd play. He'd sit in the living room, at the end of the couch, the afternoon sun would come streaming through the Venetian blinds, making him look like he was playing the mandolin in prison. We always gave him this time, even if it ate into our day. If it was an hour out of our Sunday, what difference did it make? He worked so hard all week. He deserved an hour to do what he wanted to do. So as soon as he picked up the mandolin, everybody left him alone . . . except me. I would come down the hallway, and I would sit at the edge of the living room where he couldn't see me, just out of sight around this column, and I would watch him play the mandolin at three o'clock on a Sunday. I don't think he ever saw me, but I always like to think that he knew that I was there.

  He was a fascinating man to me. He was a St. John's University Law School graduate, class of 1931, but he never practiced. He gave it up because he fell in love with two things: Dixieland jazz, and my mother.

  They were so different. Dad was a very quiet man. He was very witty. Everybody loved him. He was a very charming guy, and kind. But as kind as he was, he also could be quick-tempered and he could look dour a little bit, sad sometimes. He had Duke Ellington eyes. My mom had a smile like Times Square. She could light up a room with her big personality. For all of her bravado, however, she was also very sentimental. She was a wonderful singer and dancer, a natural performer. I think she could have been a terrific actress. Together, they were both very athletic. Dad was good at anything, and Mom was a strong golfer, bowler, and a graceful swimmer.

  They met at Macy's in 1935. They both worked there. Dad was in the legal department and my mom was in notions. She had this little notions counter where she sold stray thoughts, concepts and ideas. Mom was in the Macy's theater group, which did plays and musicals, and for a few years was the voice of Minnie Mouse in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Those big forty-foot-high floats would come down Broadway, and Mom would sit inside the float with a microphone and sing Minnie Mouse's favorite song, "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles," with thousands of people lining the boulevard.

  They were very affectionate with each other. Always holding hands in front of us, a kiss on the cheek, arm around each other. It was always nice to feel that your parents were still in love.

  When he was done with the mandolin, he'd put it down and pick up this book by Will Durant, The Life of Greece. He was fascinated by the Greeks. He thought they were the greatest civilization of all. Everything about the Greeks interested him--the mythology, the democracy, the plays, the tragedies, the comedies, Euripides, Socrates, Aeschylus, Plato. He knew the islands, Mykonos, Santorini, and Crete, like the palm of his hand. He talked about them like he had been there several times. So when it came time for us to take the one family trip that we would get to take together, there was really only one place for us to go . . . the Catskills.

  We jumped in the Belvedere, made three left turns, and headed north. I grabbed the camera and started taking pictures of the countryside on our way to the legendary Catskills, the only mountain range in the world that if Osama bin Laden was hiding there, somebody would say to him, "Oh, so you're single!"

  We got to Kutscher's. My first hotel. That huge pool . . . so much room for me to hang on to the side and pee. And they had this gigantic dining room. The energy was astounding, a thousand Jews fighting over end cuts. In that week there were things that totally changed my life. That's when I first rode a horse, becoming a real city slicker. I saw my parents taking mambo lessons in public, and I saw Wilt Chamberlain wearing the uniform of the Harlem Globetrotters. That's the team he played with the year before he came into the NBA. Wilt, a former bellboy at Kutscher's, was there playing with other pros in a basketball clinic.

  But on Saturday nights in the Catskills, the comedian is the king. I had never seen a comic in person before. Holding on to my pop's hand, we walked into the Kutscher's nightclub, and that's when I saw my very first comedian. He was introduced, the combo played him on, and there he was, in a spotlight, doing a funny walk, cigarette in one hand, looking so confident, and almost regal.

  "Good evening, ladies and Jews. What a night. Oh, I had a rough night. I came home and found my wife in bed with my best friend. So I said, 'Lenny, I have to, but you?'"

  My first rim shot. The combo onstage laughed, I saw them looking at each other. Somehow I thought that was cool. It was all so exciting.

  "This guy goes to the doctor. He says, 'Doc I have five penises!' The doctor said, 'How do your pants fit?' He said, 'Like a glove!'"

  Rim shot! Screams from the crowd. Mom and Dad looked a little uncomfortable, I was giggling like crazy because he said Penis on stage, Joel and Rip were going nuts.

  "This little boy is playing with his testicles. He says, 'Mommy, are these my brains?' She says, 'Not yet!'"

  I watched him prowl the stage like a panther in a sharkskin suit. His timing was unbelievable. He wore the audience down. The audience was six inches shorter when they left the show. And as I'm sitting there at nine years old, watching this comic, I have this epiphany. I say to myself, I could never play baseball like Mickey Mantle ever, but this I could do. I memorized his act instantly.

  The next weekend, all the relatives were coming over to the house. There could be thirty-five or forty of them sitting right there in the living room, which to me meant: Show time. I took the comic's act that I'd just seen, and I changed it just a little bit to suit my crowd.

  "Well, good evening, family of Jews. Boy, Grandpa had a rough day. I mean, rough. He came home and found Grandma in bed with Uncle Mac. He said, 'Mac, I have to, what's new?' (I then made two fart noises and coughed three times. They roared.)

  "Uncle Barney came over and said, 'I got a new pair of pants.' I said, 'How do they fit?' And he said, 'I don't know, I can't get them on, I have five penises.'"

  The rim shot went off in my mind. I did a take and held it, just like the comic had. The room was alive to me, the relatives laughing.

  "Grandpa went to the doctor. The doctor said, 'Julius, we'll need a sample of your urine, blood and stool.' He said, 'Fine. Take my underwear.'"

  Pow! Huge laugh. I was out of jokes. "What a family. You've been a great family."

  Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I ran to my room. The laughter went right into my soul. Oh, it felt so good. Destiny had come to me. I was only nine years old, but it's clear what I was going to be. I was going to be a comedian. There was no confusion. This is what I was going to do with my life. I had never been happier.

  Until. I heard my parents in the next room in their bedroom through the paper-thin walls.

  "Jack, you're going to have to talk to him. Five penises? What the hell was that?"

  "Helen, he took the comic's act and he changed it."

  "I know. But take my underwear, urine, blood and stool? That's my father."

  "I know. Helen, he just did the comic's act, and he--"

  "I know, but my mother is crying. Schtupp Uncle Mac? That's her brother-in-law! She doesn't even like Uncle Mac. That's my mother he's talking about."

  "I know. I know."

  "I mean, you have to talk to him."

  "I will talk--"

  "I want you to talk to--"

  "I will talk--"

  "I want you to talk--"

  "I'm going to talk to him, but I'm not going to talk to him tonight, Helen. He was so happy. Did you see how happy Billy was? I'll talk to him tomorrow."

  I heard that whole thing. And it taught me a very important lesson. Live in a house with thicker walls. Who needed to hear this shit? I was funny.

  The next day Dad took me aside. "Billy, Bill--" He stared at me for a few seconds, and then he burst out laughing. "You were really funny. But listen. You got to know your audience, kid. Know your audience."

  "Pop, listen. I want to be a comedian. Is that crazy? I loved it. I just loved it. I want to be a comedia
n."

  "Billy, it's not crazy because I think you can be one, and I'm going to help you."

  The next day, Dad brought home something from the store that really started to change my life. He brought home a tape recorder. A Webcor reel-to-reel tape recorder. It was profound for us because then there was no videotape or anything like that. This was the only way we could hear ourselves back. We could make up our own TV shows and radio shows, practice our imitations. We would do our shows in the living room for the relatives, and hear them back. This was the way to develop our own timing.

  Then Dad started taking the time to show us the really funny people on television to inspire us. He would let us stay up late on school nights, to watch Ernie Kovacs, the great Steve Allen with Tom Poston and Don Knotts and Louis Nye, and the greatest comedian ever to grace television, Sid Caesar. The first time I saw Sid's show, I remember they were doing the "This Is Your Life" sketch. And Sid, playing the man whose life was being honored, was having a tearful reunion with his "Uncle Goopy" (Howard Morris). They would wrestle each other, crying and overcome with emotion. Every time Sid would leave the embrace, Uncle Goopy would leap at him, and mighty Sid would carry him around the room.

  It was breathtakingly funny. Our whole family roared with laughter as we watched. That's how I went to sleep every night for months afterward. I was Uncle Goopy and Dad was Sid, and he would carry me, laughing hysterically, to bed. He'd put me in bed, only to have me leap on him and start all over again. Watching Sid with Carl Reiner, Imogene Coca, and Howard Morris made me want to be a comedian. I was just a little boy, but it was hilarious to me. No wonder, some of the writers were Larry Gelbart, Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Carl Reiner.

  Every Sunday night, Ed Sullivan would have a comedian on, and that comedian was always Alan King. There was Bilko, and The Honeymooners, Red Skelton, even a funny game show in the afternoon hosted by a hilarious young man named Johnny Carson.