When I spied the black-and-white
notebook with COMPOSITIONS on the
cover, I immediately knew what it was. A
quick look through the pages of box scores
told the story of part of the Summer of
1962, at least as it looked from a backyard
in Linwood, N.J.
But the page that caught my eye was
the lineup for a game that was never
played: sort of a Wiffle Ball version of
Beethoven’s Unfinished Symphony
.
That summer, my brother Bob and I
waged a Wiffle Ball Home Run Derby
battle that pitted the Yankees (Bob’s
team) against the Phillies (my team). Our
Home Run Derby was patterned after the
TV version featuring major leaguers, which
meant it was all or nothing. If the ball
didn’t clear the string we had connected to
trees across the perimeter of the outfield,
it was an out.
Because my brother is 6½ years older –
at the time, I was 8 and he was 14 or
15 – it’s not surprising that the Yanks
won all nine games of the series, by an
aggregate score of 58-35.
The 10th game was to be a matchup of
aces (OK, one ace vs. one journeyman):
the Yankees’ Whitey Ford (now in the Hall
of Fame) vs. the Phils’ Cal McLish. We
kept a box score and statistics on the
games, and in checking them I discovered
that Ford already had three wins and
racked up 40 strikeouts in the process. My
brother always threw a little harder when
Ford was pitching, but I did manage to get
back-to-back HRs in one game against
him (Frank Torre and Bob Oldis, of all
people).
For the never-played game, my level of
desperation was apparent in the lineup I
had cobbled together: Tony Taylor, Ted
Savage, Roy Sievers, Johnny Callison,
Bobby Wine, Tony Gonzalez, Jim Coker,
Ruben Amaro, McLish. Wine hitting fifth?
Coker? Amaro? I must have been going
with lefty-righty percentages. But why had
I benched Don Demeter, a righty who had
power, and used both Wine AND Amaro,
two guys who predated the Mendoza Line?
I must have been desperate to sit out
lefty swinger Wes Covington, who had my
all-time favorite batting stance to copy –
hunched over, bat parallel to the ground,
right elbow pointing straight toward the
pitcher. Bob and I were both switch-
hitters, so we emulated each player’s
stance (short of Taylor crossing
himself before he batted). When my sons
were younger and I played ball with them,
I frequently used the Covington stance.
They, of course, looked at me as if I were
nuts.
The only lefties I had in the lineup were
Callison and Gonzalez, “Little Dynamite,”
whose bat waggle also was fun to copy.
Callison had five homers in nine games to
lead the Phils in our series, but still had
only half as many as Mickey Mantle and
Clete Boyer.
I’ve been trying to remember why the
10th game was never played, and I’ve
come up with some theories:
The loss in the ninth game was
especially heartbreaking: 7-5 in 13
innings. The Phils had fought back to tie it
in the bottom of the ninth on a two-out
homer by Roy Sievers.
They tied it again in the bottom of the 12th
on a blast by Covington (my man!). But
Art Mahaffey, who was apparently the
Phillies pitching staff’s sacrificial lamb,
surrendered gopher balls to Hector Lopez
and Bill Skowron in the top of the 13th,
and that was it.
I can remember running inside crying
after some defeats, but we usually ended
up back outside for another game.
Perhaps this time Mahaffey’s lackluster
performance had pushed me over the edge.
Another theory involves the string that
marked the home run line. I can recall one
night about dusk that my father was
returning from a visit with the neighbors
and he clotheslined himself on said home
run boundary. I think we put the string
back up, but maybe I saw his mishap as
my opportunity to bow out gracefully.
It could have been that Bob realized it
wasn’t cool for a teenager to be playing
Wiffle Ball with his kid brother, or else he
just tired of the lack of a challenge.
Looking back now, I realize it was
pretty remarkable for him to spend that
much time with me at all during his
teenage years.
Whatever the reason, when I found
the notebook I thought that playing the
game would be a good idea. But there
were a few obstacles, the biggest of which
is that the vacant lot where we played is
no longer vacant. That means no matter
where we played, it’d be impossible to
duplicate the conditions.
Another obstacle is distance. Bob still
lives in South Jersey, about 15 minutes
from where we grew up. But I now live
outside Atlanta. I usually make it to New
Jersey only one or two times a year.
To be honest, though,age may be the
biggest reason I haven’t continued
pursuing the idea. I’m now 55 and Bob is
61. Clearly, our best Wiffle Ball days are
behind us.
I found out several years ago that I have
arthritis in both my shoulders. My right
(non-throwing) arm is even worse than my
left. I can still throw sidearm with some
accuracy, but little velocity. But overhand
deliveries are out of the question. These
days, my pitches aren’t just fat; they’re
morbidly obese.
Besides, I hate to burst my older
brother’s bubble. I can remember how
much joy I got when I got taller than him
and was finally able to defeat him at
basketball. I thought that suffering a
Home Run Derby loss after a winning
streak that had spanned 40-plus
years would be too much for him.
The notebook didn’t have any dates
listed, but I turned to The Baseball
Encyclopedia to figure out the games were
played in 1962. That was the only year
that the two teams had some of these
players on their rosters.
In real life that year, the Yanks went
109-53 and won the World Series over the
Giants. The Phils went 81-80 and finished
in seventh place. Mahaffey did much
better than in our back yard, leading the
real-life Phillies staff with 19 victories.
I guess it was better we played our
series in 1962 than 1964. If I had been the
Phils that season, the end – just as in real
life, when the Phillies collapsed down the
backstretch and lost the National League
pennant to the St. Louis Cardinals —
would have been even more painful, I’m sure.
Spending a few days as a movie extra is a fun diversion and a source of a little income during a job search. But I don’t see myself pulling up stakes and moving my family to Hollywood to launch a new career on the big or small screen.
Besides, if I did establish a foothold in Tinseltown, I’d probably be typecast as an overweight, middle-aged, bald guy and not have an opportunity for meatier roles.
I worked on a TV movie called “My Fake Fiance,” about a couple who stages a fake wedding in order to collect the gifts. Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence are the stars. I didn’t have to audition, only to e-mail my interest (and a photo) in response to a posting on Craig’s List. The movie debuts Sunday, April 19, at 8 p.m. on ABC Family Channel.
I spent three days on the set, the first in an outdoor restaurant/park scene in Buckhead, the last two in a wedding scene at Peachtree Christian Church in Atlanta. The movie was shot last fall in a number of locations around Atlanta.
My wife encouraged my acting debut and even endured my jokes about hiring an agent and joining the Screen Actors Guild. My teenage sons were, I think, mildly embarrassed by the idea. Of course, teenagers are routinely embarrassed by their parents, so this was no surprise.
When extras are confirmed to work a particular day, they are given a call time and some directives on wardrobe. Those include, depending on the scene, the types of clothes and recommended colors. Also, they include colors you should not wear (in our case, white, red or black). And the emphasis is on NO LOGOS. When I was sitting at the table in the restaurant scene, one of the assistant directors even turned my inexpensive watch so the logo wouldn’t be visible.
Extras are supposed to bring several clothing options, and when the wardrobe person checks you over, she or he tells you what works and whether you need to change. Sometimes nothing you have is OK, and you have to get some clothes from wardrobe. This happened to a lot more people in the church wedding scenes, but I passed muster.
My call time for the first day was noon, much more palatable than the next two days for the wedding scenes (6:30 a.m. and 7 a.m., respectively). We assembled in the Lenox Square parking lot and were taken by van to a nearby business park, where a fake restaurant had been set up in front of a small park.
I quickly discovered that much of an extra’s time is spent waiting – for a scene to be set up, for lighting to be moved, for just about everything. They tell you to bring a book, for good reason.
For this movie, extras were paid $100 a day, and workdays last 12 hours on average. Breaking that down to an hourly rate left me depressed, so I chose to look at it in terms of being paid for the amount of time I was actually in front of the camera. I estimated that the first day, I was in a scene for about three minutes; at $100 for three minutes, that works out to $2,000 per hour. Much better, and I’m not even a SAG member.
I was seated at a small restaurant table with three other extras (in real life, an Agnes Scott law professor, an AirTran flight attendant and an aspiring actor). In the scene, we pretended to look at menus and make recommendations to one another as the stars talked at the bar.
Along with all the restaurant patrons and workers, extras in this scene included people in the park – joggers, cyclists, children playing soccer. We were all background and were set in motion when the assistant director called “background!”
After about five or six takes, we were done, and they moved some tables, cameras and lights around for the next scene. Our table was gone, so we had to watch and wait. There were snacks such as animal crackers on hand for the extras, but we weren’t supposed to approach the table with the better food (the sign said CREW ONLY: NO EXTRAS). For all I know, the table was surrounded by one of those invisible electric fences that keep dogs in a yard; if we got too close, we might get zapped.
After a few hours, we were reseated, only to be ousted again as the camera filled the spot where our table had been. It turned out we were “wrapped” (done for the day), after I had worked only six hours.
The next morning, I got up before 5 a.m to make my 6:30 a.m. call time at Peachtree Christian Church. I had to wear wedding attire for these scenes, and after waiting in a long line for wardrobe, I was told to change into my second option for a shirt. Fortunately, the rest of the clothes I brought were OK.
There were about 200 extras for the wedding scene (many more than the previous day), so preparation took a lot of time. We all went to the makeup artist, who spent a few minutes taking the shine off my forehead and face.
The last day, along with makeup, I actually had to pay a brief visit to the hairstylist. “You need a little control,” he said as he brushed the few remaining strands I have. Tell me about it, pal. He obviously knew about my job search.
The two days at the church were mostly spent shooting the wedding scenes from several different camera angles. I was in the next-to-last row the first day, but had an aisle seat as the actors came down the aisle for the processional.
Extras were told not to bring cameras on the set, although I saw a few people sneaking pictures in between takes. I’m also told extras aren’t supposed to speak to the actors; the actors certainly didn’t speak to us.
For the second day of shooting at the church, we had to wear the same clothes (my wife washed my shirt) and take the same seats. But they ended up moving everyone in our row to the same row on the other side of the church as the scene was shot from the back. I’m eager to see the movie to find out if I’m visible in two places.
Shooting the wedding scenes went on until 8 p.m. the first day. Someone talked about how we get time-and-a-half for anything after 12 hours. I got excited until I realized that was still short of $13 an hour for that day. Fortunately I was able to nod off in the pew a few times in between takes. Nothing like getting paid for sleeping.
The end of the wedding called for all the extras to stand up and cheer. By 8 p.m. I would have stood on my head in order to be “wrapped” for the day.
At 7 a.m. the next morning, the guy in charge of extras greeted us this way: “Hey, background…I read somewhere that if you’re operating on four hours’ sleep or less that it’s equivalent to a .2 blood-alcohol level. I know we’re all a little drunk this morning, but it’s gonna be a good day.” (I actually got about seven hours’ sleep, so I didn’t qualify.)
I ended up seeing the same wedding about eight times. The second day at the church ended for me at 3 p.m., before I even had a chance to get sleepy.
In our copious down time, I learned that some extras do this kind of work extensively. There are a lot of movies, TV shows, videos and commercials shot in Atlanta, so I imagine that one could stay reasonably busy. Of course, some people see it as a chance to get discovered. I don’t count myself in that group.
The movie “Get Low,” starring Robert Duvall, has been shooting recently in locations around Georgia and using a lot of extras. My wife made her own extra debut by spending a day on that set. Other local movie opportunities for extras of late included “Zombieland” and “The Preacher’s Kid.”
I learned a little about moviemaking in my brief visit to the land of extradom. I was amazed at how many people work on the set. There’s even someone to bring in slippers for the star to wear between takes so she can take off her high heels.
I found out about a lighting trick that I guess is used in locales with high ceilings, such as the beautiful interior of Peachtree Christian Church. Lights are put inside these huge fabric cubes that are floated up by helium balloons and controlled by pulleys. They can be moved around with relative ease, although I was nervous about the church’s real lights when I was watching this process.
In the middle of my 13-hour day, I was certain this would be my one and only extra experience. But a few days later, I was calling the casting office and telling them I’m available if they needed me again.
I really had no choice but to go into newspapers. I grew up in Linwood, N.J., next door to the editor of the local weekly paper. The neighbor on the other side owned and operated a service station, so clearly I picked the less lucrative career. Good thing I didn’t grow up next to an ax murderer, I guess.
Perhaps it was through some form of osmosis, but by the time I was in elementary school, I knew I wanted to make newspapers my career. At age 10, I started a neighborhood paper with one of my friends. Gary and I one-finger-typed it on portable typewriters (you know, those things that are all in museums now), using a carbon, and went door-to-door in the neighborhood, selling them for a nickel. I actually did this for a few summers; we were responsible for our own amusement a lot more in the pre-Playstation days.
Our paper contained “news” you wouldn’t find in any other publication (with good reason, I suppose). When my mother had a tooth pulled, it was front-page news in the Crestlea Park Press. When Gary’s dog, Taffy, had an operation, we reported it without the indelicate details. We lifted riddles from a book (c’mon, who would sue a child for copyright infringement?) and included several. Here’s one I remember:
Q. Who is bigger, Mr. Bigger or Mr. Bigger’s baby?
A. The baby is a little Bigger.
People actually paid for this stuff! And a nickel was big money in the mid-’60s.
We included Little League standings, and my team was in capital letters, the same way big-city papers handled standings for their hometown baseball teams.
One time in July 1965, we actually had breaking news in the paper. Gary and I were busily churning out an issue when we heard that Adlai Stevenson had died. Along with the neighborhood news in The Crestlea Park Press was this: “Flash! Adlai Stevenson just died. They will perform an autopsy.”
Context wasn’t important to us at that age; besides, we probably didn’t even know who he was. We heard on TV that he had died, so we figured he must have been important.
I can’t remember if the breaking news helped our sales that week. Our customers were loyal, but they DID have other sources for news.
