| 71 | ORLEANS FIREBIRDS 2017 YEARBOOK OrleansFirebirds.com reunion at Williams College. I asked John Sargent what he was doing for the summer, and he said he was playing in the Cape League. John put me in touch with Buzzy Wilcox, the player/ manager, and I became a Cardinal. It was in 1963. That was before Eldredge Park was renovated, reconfigured. It was basically a hard scrabble diamond back then. Home plate was over by the police station. They had snow fences in the outfield. You know how dangerous those are. You didn’t want to catch a ball and fall into those sharp wooden shards. Nobody sat up on the Hill, as Freddy Perreault hadn’t terraced it at that time. The crowds were smaller. What is the first thing you remember about playing at Eldredge Park? The crowds would support both teams. I’d never seen that before. They’d clap for good plays, they loved the game. They were supporters of the Cardinals, but they wouldn’t go crazy. Chatham was the complete opposite. Their fans were really tough on the opposing players. I played for three seasons before the league became an official NCAA summer league. I then began playing in Quebec, Canada in 1967. During your playing career in Orleans (1963-5) did you play for manager Dave Gavitt? I did. Yeah. He was a great guy to play for. After our first loss at Cotuit on opening day in ’63, he pulled us together and called us “the raggedy-ass cadets.” We knew he meant business. Terrific game manager. (Gavitt went on to help form the Big East Conference and served as the Boston Celtics CEO from 1990-94) For a time you were a “summer cop” in Orleans. What do you recall about those days? At one point, Chief Landers was on a big kick about cars without mufflers or those with faulty mufflers. He hated the racket. I had a Porsche with a bad muffler, so I used to hide it in the woods behind the Police Station. When we came into work, we used to put our keys on a board by the front door. At lunch time the Chief would grab a rookie and tell him to grab some keys off the rack, take someone’s car and take him home for lunch. One day I’m out on patrol, out on Brick Hill Road, waiting to go out onto Beach Road, and I hear this roaring coming over the hill from town. I thought “OK, that guy is getting as ticket!” Then I see it’s my Porsche, with a rookie driving, and the Chief in the passenger seat, hiding under the dashboard. I went to NAPA the next day. They didn’t give me a gun in my first year. I used to keep candy bars in my holster, and I had a whistle, but no gun. So the second year I go to my locker and there’s a shiny .38 pistol, with six extra bullets lying on the shelf. For the first three weeks I’d get into the cruiser gingerly, trying to avoid shooting my foot off. And one day I decided to open the bullet chamber and see how many bullets I had in the thing. Well, it was empty. Those six bullets were not extras. After your playing days conclude, you become head coach of the Orleans Cardinals (1974-80). How did that come to be? I think Russ Ford had a lot to do with it. I was working with the outfielders one day and noticed a man standing on the side, listening to my spiel. I thought he was a tourist with nothing better to do than watch practice. After I was done, he came over and said ‘I like the way you handle those players, the things you say to them.” That was Russ. Having just moved to the Cape, he became fascinated with the brand of ball and was named president of the Cardinals and eventually the entire league. He backed me for the Orleans head job. Later you served as an assistant coach for Orleans, first for Jack Donahue, then John Castleberry. Yeah, I threw BP seven days a week for Jack and loved every minute of it. It was also a great workout.. It was a great workout. My arm survived, but that was a lot of BP for the summer. I loved it. For Castleberry, I was up on the “deck” (band shell stage), by the bullpen with a walkie-talkie. It connected me to the dugout, but it also connected me to the fishing boats in the Bay. John would call out to get so-and-so to warm up, and you’d hear this voice - “What’s that? We’re in the inlet, got a full load of blues comin’ in.” Over those years you coached many great players in Orleans, including Frank Thomas. Do you recall anything special about Frank? Well, Frank was good friends with Bo Jackson, when he was at Auburn, I think they were roommates. Bo signed with Kansas City, Frank, a year younger, came to Orleans. Bo gave him a couple of Louisville bats. Frank kept them in a flower box, with tissue paper and everything, as if they were trophies or something. He wouldn’t use them. But then late in August, the last week of the season, he said he’s going to use one of those bats tonight. If he broke it, Frank would get another one from Bo the next day when KC came to play the Red Sox. He’d hit only one home run up to that point, this huge guy. With that bat he hit three home runs, at Wareham, a huge field. The first ball sailed far over the left field bleachers into the parking lot, the next over the center field fence into the mist, and the third about fifty feet over the right field fence. Frank ended up hitting only four home runs that summer. Another superstar was Ben McDonald (selected first overall in the ’89 MLB draft), who played a short time for Orleans over the ’89 summer while his agent Scott Boras was negotiating with the Orioles. What do you remember about Ben? He waited quite a while for Boras to do his job. I think his dad said why don’t you go up and pitch in the Cape League. So he came up. I remember the first night he showed up, at Yarmouth. He was throwing a bullpen session and would tell me every pitch and throw it exactly where he wanted. I just remember his control was perfect. The next night, he was going to go a couple of innings. The crowd around Eldredge Park must have been in the thousands, including two hundred fans who watched him warm up in the bullpen. He went 4 innings, gave ��Orleans Cardinals, believed to be 1963. Bottom row, far left - Dave Gavitt (manager); Middle row, third from left - Tom Yankus QUINN STUDIO OF PHOTOGRAPHY - BILL QUINN ��Tom throwing batting practice
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