He Coulda Been a Contender

He Coulda Been a Contender

by Bill Russo

Because the virus has interrupted the baseball season, I've been presenting a series of flashback articles of the National Pastime.  Here's a tale from the 1950s that will bring us right up to 2020. 

The rookie outfielder in the Georgia-Florida league was hitting 353 - and at the time, it was the highest batting average in both the minor leagues and the major leagues. He had been a star for the St. John's University baseball team in New York City and was easily transitioning to professional baseball. 

Okay, okay, it was just Class D ball in 1952, but this kid, signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates for a bonus of two thousand dollars, looked like the real thing.  He was an aggressive center-fielder with fair speed.  Not too much power,  but he was only 20 years old and at six feet tall and 190 pounds he'd pack on the weight and gain power after plenty of good old Georgia-Florida cookin'.

He reminded lots of people of Ted Williams.  He was a little more rugged than Teddy Ballgame, and about the same height.  The rookie had ten doubles, two triples and a home run in his first 20 contests.  He had a good eye too, obtaining 55 walks in just 81 games. He was on a sure path to the 'Bigs', until a nagging wrist injury slowed him down. 

He tried to play through it, never once opting for a seat on the bench.  Dragged down by the pain in his hand and wrist, the kid's play dropped off dramatically.  Near the end of the season his batting average had dropped more than 100 points to 244.  But the coaches knew he'd be okay by the 1953 season.  

What they did not know was that a few weeks before the end of the season the rookie would suffer a severe injury when hit in the head by a pitch.

He spent two weeks in a hospital and when he got out he knew his baseball career was over.  He went back to school and graduated with very good grades.  After graduation he decided on a law career and finished in a first place tie at the top of his class. 

As a young lawyer he had very few opportunities.  He was a member of the E-I-E-I-O's and sometimes A; people with names like Clemente, Gianni, Matrone, Jovani, Russo, and Alocca. 

Opportunities were limited for such people in the 1950s when it was thought that all E-I-E-I-Os and sometimes As should be pizza cooks, warehouse workers, or plumbers, and not doctors or lawyers.

But the kid persevered.  He was turned down by over 50 law firms until finally hired by a New York City group which had as its main client, Fred Trump, father of future reality star and President, Donald Trump. 

The kid, with the help of his wife Matilda (for whom he had bought a ring and arranged his wedding with the $2,000 baseball money) did well as a lawyer.  

He wasn't too shabby in politics either - as proven by the fact that the kid, Mario Matthew Cuomo, was elected the 52nd Governor of New York State. 

Proving that the apple does indeed not fall too far from the tree, his son Andrew is the 56th Governor of New York State.  Another son, Chris, is a major figure at the TV news outlet CNN.

-0-

So, I guess the moral of this story is; a Knock on the Head can be a good thing.  It's up to each person who has been bonked on the bean, to make it so. 

-0-

Bill Russo, a writer who splits his time between Cape Cod and Lake Worth Beach, Florida, is probably best known for his appearance in the Bridgewater Triangle Documentary, currently playing on Amazon Prime.

Bill is a former Disc Jockey, Radio News Writer, News Editor at publications in Massachusetts, as well as a former Iron Worker and President of Boston Local Union 501. 

Bill's works are for sale on Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble and many other sites.  He also has over 40 books and short stories available for free on Smashwords as well on his Season One of Short Story Theater, which offers 39 episodes of dramatizations of some of his books and short tales.