“Willie”  1966—1979

9 October 2007

CHICAGO – The Chicago Cubs’ quest for a World Series championship is now at 100 years and counting after they were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday.  But as disappointing as it was to watch the third and final game from the Friendly Confines, I reflect on more pleasant baseball memories from my youth.

During the late ‘60s and early ‘70s I had the privilege of witnessing and playing with one of the greatest shortstops of all time.  At a time when the nascent Civil Rights Movement was gaining momentum across the nation, it didn’t occur to us that this great shortstop was black.  We admired him for his athleticism, grace, competitiveness and passion for the game.  Although in the years since his passing, it pains me to think that we didn’t permit him to drink from our faucet or eat at our table.
I’m talking about our dog “Willie.”

Shortly after we moved from Chicago to Wisconsin, my parents accepted a half-Weymaraner, half Black Labrador Retriever puppy from friends.  When we first got the dog, he was so tiny that he was afraid to jump from our beds to the floor.

The dog had the silky black coat and stunning white chest of a Labrador.  But because he was half Weymaraner, it was exceptionally sleek and fit.  He looked more like a greyhound than a barrel-chested Labrador.

In what now may strike readers as politically incorrect, we named the dog “Willie” because he was so athletic and happened to be black.  In the ‘60s, the best athletes seemed to be black.  And many black athletes at the time were named “Willie.”  You had Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Willie Horton, Willie Davis, another Willie Davis, Willie Wood, etc.

Dog Days of Summer
To this day, my father maintains that “Willie helped raised you kids.”  Because against the backdrop of the turbulent ‘60s, with violent Vietnam war protests on our campuses, kids tuning out on acid, political assassinations scarring the American psyche, and the Woodstock generation emerging, we spent our summers swimming in Geneva Lake and playing baseball.  And you couldn’t play baseball without Willie.

My dad bought two wooded lots across from our home so that we could play baseball.  That is, when we weren’t playing organized ball.  The balls were rubber.  The bats were wooden.  And the oak trees across the desolate rural road in front of our house were dense and towering.

My brothers, old and enfeebled now, were robust, vigorous young men who could hit prodigious blasts high into the trees and deep into the woods.  And you needed a stellar dog to retrieve the shots, which Willie did with astounding regularity.

Willie didn’t bat because, as the joke goes, he couldn’t make one fist, much less two.  But he played defense for both teams.  And the position he played best was shortstop.

We were the first and only house on a street that has long since morphed into several subdivisions.  But back then, there was just our brick and aluminum-sided house with a 60-foot cemented driveway protruding from the garage, a gravel road no more than 10- or 12-feet wide, weeds and the woods.

A shot over the trees was a home run.  A line drive into the woods was a ground-rule double.  And a ground ball that got through to the weeds without first being caught by us or touched by Willie was a hit.

Through Skinnerian positive reinforcement, Willie quickly learned that if he got any part of his body on the ball before it crossed the road, the batter was out.  More amazingly, he realized that he couldn’t merely touch a foul ball to retire the hitter, but had to catch the rapidly spinning sphere in his mouth, which he did with surprising frequency.

About midway along the driveway, my dad erected a sturdy modern basketball hoop with the reinforced rim, metal pole and the then in vogue mushroom-shaped backboard.  For my no-neck inseam-challenged brothers from Humboldt Park, the basketball pole was like stilettos on a sow.  But it made for a great first base.

In order to reach base on a bunt, you had to bunt the ball and touch the basketball pole before one of the fielders caught the ball or Willie touched it.  And when you squared to bunt, Willie would actually charge the ball with the same stalking gait of a major league third-baseman, a la Brooks Robinson.

But the best thing about Willie was that, at a time when pro baseball players were making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, Willie would play his heart out every day—in the hot sun—for Milk Bones® and ice water.  (Like the Cubs at the time, all of our games were played in daylight.  Wiffle® ball, however, could be played on occasion at night with the aid of a flood light behind the hitter.)

In his later years, when he was eight or nine years old or so (that’s 56-63 to you, me and Lorne Greene), we had to bribe him with the biscuits and water and, regrettably, may have tossed a ball or glove in his direction to get him back out of the shade and on  the field.

Everyday Was “Ladie’s Day”
Before Jim Bouton came out with the book Ball Four and the media scrutinized every move a ballplayer made on and off the field, Willie, like many talented young ballplayers of his or any era, had an eye for the ladies.

We didn’t walk Willie on a leash because, well, he was one of us.  And we certainly weren’t going to walk around with a plastic glove and pick up after him.

Once or twice a week during his walks, randy Willie would get a scent of some bitch in heat.  On those occasions, he’d take a token leak before taking a Lou Brock “walking lead”—and he was gone!

That night, I’d sleep with one eye open praying to God that Willie got home safely without being rendered road kill or shot by an irate homeowner.  Amidst howling winds and thunderous storms, I’d wait earnestly for that muted whine on the patio beneath my second-story bedroom window.  It was Willie’s way of getting me to let him in the house without waking up my dad who would surely make him pay the price for his carnal transgression.

Part of me would be furious at Willie for putting us through such torture.  Part of me would be so grateful to see his smiling, panting face that I couldn’t help but hug and kiss him.  And part of me would be proud that he’d knocked off another piece.

Willie was playing “Golden Paw” ball in the day and getting more ass than Mickey Mantle at night.  And he never tested positive for steroids, HGH, or H.I.V.  What a stud.

One of his favorite bitches was the Wild’s dog, one of those trampy, dishwater blond mix-breeds.  I don’t remember her name and, frankly, I doubt Willie even bothered to ask her for her name.

To this day when I see the Wild boys, they accuse Willie of taking indecent liberties with their dog.  I tell them that Willie must have been drunk to nail that beast and suggest that she wanted it more than he did.  (Willie did, indeed, get smacked drinking the runoff beer that accumulated on the rim of one of our high school graduation party kegs.  He sat in the corner of the basement staring at the wall for about a day-in-a-half without moving.  That day’s game was called on account of “rain.”)

Like an astute defense attorney, I pointed out that both dogs dug on each side of the trollop’s pen until there was a semi-circular tunnel below the fence through which Willie could enter her abode.  After pitching her up and in, Willie would slink on to greener pastures without so much as offering her a drink or dinner or returning her howls.  (Willie, they tell me, was kind of  kinky for the times and actually preferred it “human style.”)

Several litters allegedly ensued and the Wilds still detest Willie for not living up to his familial obligations.  But I maintain that the cost of neutering and Alpo® notwithstanding, they should have paid him a stud fee.  Willie was the best thing to happen to that bitch since the flea collar.

Cooperstown Nixed By Scandal
Try as I might, I’ll never forget the time when I was a sophomore in high school studying biology at the kitchen table when I realized that Willie was missing.  I put on my coat on a cool, dank autumn evening and began walking the quiet, dark streets within a mile radius of our house.

Up and down the hilly streets I searched and listened for Willie with only an intermittent lamppost for light.  I was about to give up when suddenly I heard a lot of commotion and saw the silhouette of two dogs intertwined in back of the Lovell house.

When I got closer, I could hear everybody screaming at Willie and watched in horror as Mr. Lovell, clad only in his “Dago-T” and boxer shorts beneath a bare light bulb, threw cold water on the dogs in a desperate attempt to separate them.  They were yelling at me to intervene and I tried to physically pry the dogs apart with my hands to no avail.

Willie would not be deterred.  The poor squealing little Terrier would try to run up a step or two of the stairs to their porch.  But Willie would just give her a little “line” and reel her back like an angler hauling in a muskie.

Horrified, I raced the half-mile or so to our house and begged my parents for help.  “Mom, Dad, Willie, the skinny lady…”  Nearest my folks could tell, Willie was banging the matriarch of the Lovell clan.  So they were relatively pleased to find out that he was merely defiling their dog.

Dad, not one to trifle with when he was prone in his 22-degree Lay-Z-Boy®, grabbed a hockey stick from the garage and we retraced my steps to Lovell’s.  Fortunately, when we got back to Lovell’s, order had been restored.  The traumatized Terrier was presumably being treated for her physical and psychological injuries.  And Willie was off somewhere presumably boasting to his piers and smoking doggie cigarettes.

Branch Rickey He Was Not
Like many superb ballplayers of his day, Willie had an often contentious relationship with his owner, my dad.

For whatever reason, my dad seemed to resent Willie, I’m not sure why.  He was often scolding Willie or threatening him with the sole of his bulky black wing-tips.

Looking back on it, I think it may have had something to do with the fact that Willie could lick himself.  My dad couldn’t.  And my mother, bless her dear deceased heart, limited them both to feeding and petting.
Willie wasn’t supposed to be upstairs in our bedrooms for whatever reason.  And yet they let me up there.

When my dad would leave for work in the morning, and as soon as he closed the storm door to the garage, you could hear the pitter-patter of Willie’s feet as he climbed the two flights of stairs to our rooms.

It was almost as if Willie was saying “___ you old man.  Why don’t you ____ me?”

Mom would laugh uproariously at the daily ritual and why not?  When Willie wasn’t upstairs with us, he was with my mom at the kitchen table with his snout resting squarely on her lap while she did the crossword puzzle and drank her coffee.  That is, until we would emerge from around the corner en masse ridiculing Willie in unison with taunts of “Ohhh, look at the mama’s boy.  Mama’s boy!”  Willie would go nuts.  (Not as nuts as he got when my brothers locked me in the garage with him while banging on the doors and windows and screaming “sic him, sic him, go get him pup,” but pretty frickin’ nuts.)

More Than A One-Trick Dog
Willie was more than just an exceptional baseball player.  He was a great all-around athlete.

Despite being a mutt, Willie exhibited extraordinary instincts as a hunting dog as well.  He was especially adept at hunting birds, pheasants mostly, and rabbits.

One of the most  Niemanesque aspects of our new life in cheese country was that we could actually walk home for lunch from school.  And dad would drive us back to school on his way back to work.

Brother Greg, for whatever reason, would usually get home first and take Willie for his walk.  On the days when he wasn’t bolting for a little “afternoon delight,” he would wait for us to make the turn about a quarter-mile from our house.

In the winter, when the roads were icy, he’d stalk us and then drop to his haunches with his legs and paws extended in front of him as though we couldn’t see him, even though he was right there in the culvert or in the middle of the road.

Then, when you got to within about 40 yards of him or so, he’d take off like a dog out of hell and make a bee line straight for your knees.  Like a punt returner, you’d try to juke him and make him miss while negotiating the slippery iced road but, invariably, he’d end up smacking you right in your knee or shin and drop you on your back like a sack of  potatoes.

In hindsight, Willie would have made an excellent special-teams player.  And we actually got him to hold for field-goal attempts but, admittedly, that was more for photo opportunities because, like Tony Romo, he had trouble with the snap.

The gentleman who gave Willie to us always maintained that we should have chronicled Willie’s exploits for posterity with our 8-millimeter movie camera.  It’s too bad we didn’t, too.  Because Willie would have gotten on well in Evanston.

R.I.P., Willie
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I was leaving the Sig Chi House on Langdon, the one with the big white “W” in front of it, when the call came.  Though I was a border not a member, I was on my way out the door with some of my “Greek half-brothers” to see the movie “North Dallas Forty.”

I returned to the vestibule to hear the voice on the other end of the phone tell me that Willie had suffered internal hemorrhaging and had to be euthanized.

Willie rode proudly sitting up in the back seat of a Cadillac on his way to the kennel.  Brother Jeff, donning the hockey gloves required to get even an ailing Willie inside the kennel, said our final goodbyes.

That night after stoically sitting through a seemingly endless movie, I repaired back to my Spartan fraternity house room, hauled out a pair of baseball sanitary hose from my canvass-covered two-by-four framed closet, and wept into my socks.

Willie, the most prolific canine shortstop in baseball history, was dead at the age of 13.