A Town Divided
Okay, it wasn’t REALLY divided. Not like Berlin after the war, or anything. But Main Street split my hometown of El Segundo right down the middle. Even in a small town (never more than 13,000 residents), geography is everything. Neighborhood kids went to one of three public grade schools, and Main Street was the line of demarcation, the Mason-Dixon Line, or the line that settled Portuguese versus Spanish settlement in the Americas (by the way, the Portuguese got screwed on that one). Main Street separated west El Segundo from east El Segundo in the most important of ways, to a 10-year old: kids living to the east of Main joined the American Little League and played at Standard Stadium, near the aerospace industry. Kids to the west were in the National Little League and played at Candlestick Park, hard by the sand dunes separating El Segundo from the ocean and the sewage treatment plant. This line was hard and fast. Yes, it WAS Spain versus Portugal. No exceptions. My brothers and I played in the American League with Rick, Joe, Deane, and John; our Catholic school classmates Larry and Bob were in the National League.
Baseball was big in El Segundo, which had produced several major league players – the Brett brothers, Ken and Hall of Famer George, and Orioles pitcher Scott McGregor. Its high school baseball team had always done very well, especially under longtime coach John Stevenson, winning the CIF championship several times. Baseball season in El Segundo kicked off every year with the baseball parade, in which all the baseball and softball teams marched down Main Street, ending up at their respective ball parks for opening ceremonies. The parade was led by a baseball notable – one year it was Ken Brett, who kissed my sister Katie on the cheek that year; Katie, a great softball player in her own right, had been selected as one of the baseball princesses for the parade.
Although we marched in the same baseball parade, the East-West divide was not broached; we never played those teams from the other side of town. Until the end of the season, when the champions of each league would face off against each other. Our version of a world series. When I was a 12-year old, my last year of Little League, my Tigers won the American League, earning the right to cross Main Street and play the Giants, National League champs, at Candlestick Park. Rick and my brother Terry also played on the Tigers; we comprised most of the infield: Rick at third, Terry at first, myself at second. I had never played the guys from across town, and not only was it a bit of an unknown, but they had a reputation for being better. They had more lefthanders, for crying out loud. And they had Bob Helsom (and if those syllables sound a bit like “Scott Farkus”, the villain from A Christmas Story – he had yellow eyes! - then so be it).
Bob Helsom was a year above us at St. Anthony’s grade school, and he and Lenny Briese were the undisputed kings of the school, absolute fucking studs. Anchored our football, basketball and softball teams. I was in awe of those guys. Tough as nails. Some gang members showed up at St. Anthony’s one afternoon, as our softball team was practicing. They watched us from the “pavilion” (where all grades ate lunch) as we practiced on the asphalt field down below. They had come looking for Helsom and Briese, and it was well-known there would be a fight afterward. It didn’t happen; our coach (and seventh-grade teacher) Mr. G., a tough Italian-American himself, made sure of that. But I remember having full confidence in Helsom and Briese to kick those guys’ asses.
Helsom was a great athlete, the real deal. After starring for El Segundo High School, he went on to Pepperdine, where he played on the 1979 team which placed third in the College World Series, and then five years of A and AA minor league ball. Even has a baseball card, from his 1984 stint on the Arkansas Travelers. And in 1971, as a Little League pitcher, he threw curveballs. I had never seen a curveball before. He pitched against us in that crosstown game, which I approached with a sense of dread, and we could do little against him. His curveballs had me bailing out of the box; I’m sure I whiffed every time up there. Our dyspeptic manager, Mr. Nichols, was thoroughly displeased with our performance, and let us know that in no uncertain terms.
Yes, we had gone across town and gotten our butts kicked. By the Other Guys. Who were really no different than we were, but I remember thinking, at that time, that kids on the west side of town were maybe a little bit wilder, a little more dangerous and edgy. More likely to be making out on the sand dunes west of town (where would we have gone to make out? In the parking lots of the aerospace factories?). This, perhaps, was my first experience with thoughts of The Other; that there were differences among people, that it was tribal, when you came down to it. These concepts have dogged humanity from our beginnings, when clans thought ill of and feared outsiders from beyond the river or from the other side of the mountains. It has produced our worst characteristics, this Us and Them mentality, and we fight this instinct all our lives. I hope we are getting better at this. And I wish I had been better at hitting curveballs.
