CHAPTER 15
ATHLETIC FIELDS
Late August 1980
And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, I stand amidst the dust o' the mounded yearsMy mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have cracked and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
James Lawrence, Hound of Heaven
Mexican-American softball leagues took root in Kansas towns such as Newton, Emporia and Chanute, each hosting nearly as many Mexican-Americans as Kansas City did. With the United States’ entry in World War I, every ethnic group was enlisted into its armed forces Mexican-Americans from Rosedale, a Kansas City, Kansas hamlet, dominated the Sunflower state’s 42nd Infantry Division and the 117th Ammunition Train. The wartime departure of more than two hundred residents there created demand for replacement meat packing, railroad and warehouse workers, many of them originating in Mexico.
With war’s end, the Rosedale community welcomed returning it returning heroes. On May 12th 1919, Kansas City, Kansas and Rosedale officials designated nearly a mile of Westport road as armistice-inspired Rainbow Boulevard.
Both the Missouri Pacific and the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe railroads employed multiple generations of similarly-named Conejo, Cruz, Cordero, Díaz, Duran, Garcia, Gonzalez, Guzmán, Hernandez, Herrera, López, Martínez, Montoya, Morales, Pérez, Pineiro, Quiroga, Ramirez, Reyes, Rios, Rodriguez, Sanchez, Sosa, Torres, Villanueva and Zaldívar family members.
Similar to Door County dairymen, railroads were early adopters of refrigeration technology permitting distribution of boxed meat products. Firms like Cudahy and Wilson packers joined Boyle’s, a corned beef specialist. Division points along both those railroads also designated meatpacking towns, communities where Mexican-American baseball (male) and more recently created softball (female) leagues flourished. Consuelo Guzman had spent adolescent summers outfitted in a softball uniform featuring screen-printed cardinals perched on opposite ends of a bit.
The American GI Forum, a Mexican-American veteran organization Leagues often sponsored leagues that molded adolescents into more thoughtful adults. A southeast Kansas player might define loyalties along four axes, the American GI Forum and its El Charro fast-pitch team practicing on , St. Patrick’s Church fields in Chanute, Kansas.
Game nights witnessed fan cars wedged against outfield fences, moderately effective as shields against windshield-breaking fly balls. While males’ greater upper body strength generated fence-clearing homeruns, females were often infield all-stars. Gee and Leo were known as softball girls, a term possessing multiple connotations.
Perhaps anticipating a baby boy, Gee‘s Rosedale-based parents considered names like Jorge or George But with the arrival of a baby girl, George transitioned to Georgina before
nine letters were shortened to four, Gigi and later, Gee. Leo’s birth certificate announced baby girl Leonor but by her second grade year a similar three-letter shortening yielded Leo.
Barring car issues or hospitalization, neither woman missed games or practices. While only Gee ran onto the field, Leo served as the team statistician, carefully noting hits, runs and outs.
Relatives, co-workers and neighbors adjusted to a new entity, the rapidly pronounced Gee&Leo They had recently added a newcomer to a three dog kennel, adopting a Belgian shepherd they renamed as Hound who didn’t miss games either, Hound’s long torso aligned with Leo’s right foot.
While officials likely considered scheduled female play at Argentine, Rosedale or even Penn Valley’s diamonds, male leagues dominated those larger fields. The smaller Northeast athletic fields, located east of the Montgomery Ward warehouse, better accommodated their more compressed league.
On a season-ending Wednesday evening, powerful lights reflected off the Ward warehouse wall onto northeast Kansas City’s diamonds The 1980 championship game featured Gee’s team, the Jalapeño Hattie’s matched against west-end’s Disco Niña’s. Both were scoreless through eight-innings, although in the bottom of the ninth, a Hattie scraped out a hit, advancing the lead runner to second base.
The count stood at two-and-two when Gee sent a line-drive past the Niña short stop’s left ear, scoring the winning run. Shortly, three clerk-typists, an apprentice auto repairer and two construction laborers, in fact the entire Hattie bench, jumped to their feet, hugging and high-fiving.
Post-game Gee&Leo dominated the 1963 Studebaker Lark’s front seat while Hound shared his seat with a gaudy tournament trophy. The Lark first sped west on St. John before careening southward onto Hardesty and cruising past Budd Park. They shortly rightangled onto Independence Avenue just ahead of Harold’s drive-in where Gee picked a head-in parking slot outboard of a conversion van.
The season should have concluded at an after-party refreshed by two cheeseburgers, a shared order of fries and a light-on-the-ice Doctor Pepper although it did not.
HOUND BEGINS TO SPEAK FOR HIMSELF HERE THE INNATE LANGUAGE OF SURVIVORSHIP
You don’t usually hear my voice but smarter humans recognize that it exists, a system that has served dogs for over twenty thousand years. I don’t know why Gee& Leo both went inside, perhaps they anticipated sharing championship news with Harold’s counter staff.
While inside, a noisy Ford Galaxy pulled outboard of the Lark, a Galaxy model containing trouble in the form of two young men. Its wheelman directed someone he referred to Dog Man to open my door. Despite my growl, this Dog Man snagged my leash and yanked hard. No, I wasn’t expecting him to do that, and, yes, I should have been more observant. Okay, I’ll admit the prospect of Gee&Leo’s burger crumble diverted my best instinct.
This Dog Man controlled any possible movement by lodging my lead through the front seat split. Short-leashed, I could neither see nor breathe there. Amidst a choked misery I heard newly-introduced Dog Man refer to the driver as Patch.
Dog Man’s word choice raised hairs. “This dog will be ideal for fights; hillbillies will pay plenty to see a pit bull half his size tear him apart, limb-by-limb. “
Dog Man sucked from an open Bud can before announcing “Let’s pull by the Greyhound station: Girls or weed, weed or girls.” As the Galaxy sped westward toward 12th and Troost I tested my ability to lengthen the lead.
Abandoning a bus station rendezvous, Patch proceeded east on Truman Road when the evening took a strange turn. He was likely ten miles-over when the Galaxy’s traffic light transitioned from yellow to red A young woman driving an occupied baby seat Cutlass with a green light proceeded southward on Brooklyn avenue.
Patch must have factored hitting the Cutlass as opposed to the street curb, fortunately selecting the latter. The men’s unrestrained bodies glanced off the dash before crashing into the windshield. I called a swing-and-a-miss on the mom-baby-Cutlass as I listened to the sound of the Galaxy’s right front tire deflating.
Dog Man’s trajectory created dual fractures, ones applicable to him and the windshield. My right shoulder crashed into the rear surface of the front seat but I sprang back uninjured, but perhaps more importantly, untethered.
Patch yelled “Get the dog back.” Too groggy or possibly too drunk, Dog Man deferred. I crouched low, arming my leap.
Baby seat lady had swerved, fortunately missing the Galaxy. Three teenage girls shortly stopped behind Patch’s damaged car. Manual car windows require three-and-one-quarter turns from fully down to the fully up-and-closed position. They were past two, nearer three turns, by the time Patch strode back to their car.
I recognized a window-escape scenario would necessitate a high arching leap, one sufficient to clear the lead’s loop. As I bounded free I overheard Patch’s triple-lie. “Ladies, our dog just got loose. Could you help me locate him while my partner here fixes the Galaxy’s tire?”
Somewhere between the loose and partner, the driver backed fast, cranking hard left, before grazing protesting Patch. I covered ground, risking a single backward glance.
Past Truman Road I crept through labyrinths created by hedges, shrubs and flower beds before identifying a broad lawn whose signage announced St. Paul’s Seminary. That place’s odors were mostly fresh, various kitchen and gymnasium scents, but others suggested a long-past era.
I selected a holly bush near a double-trunked box elder for temporary rest. Evaluating escape routes from there I notice a fenced cemetery to the lawn’s north. Its scents matched those of raccoon families, a mating skunk couple and a yearling deer.
The box elder tree was home to a pair of doves who served as a secondary alarm system. Near dawn I was hungry, settling for a sticky Tippin’s pie retrieved from a nearby waste bin.
My leather lead was a reminder of my good life but it might also trap me, maybe become a noose. Thus I chewed it apart, leaving only a collar-attached metal clip and six-
inch leather remnant. If a country person finds that amputated lead, they’ll recognize a creature escaped. Others will likely toss it, finding it useless minus its clip.
My collar and remnant remind me of a good life shared with my kennelmates, Max and Blaze there with Gee& Leo As dawn neared, I abandoned the box elder-holly in favor of something more secure.
A much sadder Studebaker later prowled Northeast’s Preservation neighborhood. KCPD’s Sgt. Vince penned a report pertinent to the dog-napping, hoping the girls’ shepherd hadn’t fallen into bad hands. Red, yellow and black posters appeared on street lights, park trash cans, and even at K-L-W, noting the disappearance, theft really, of a Belgian Shepherd taken form a Lark paused at Harold’s drive-in.