Strasberg’s Baseball Klediment Tales

kled-i-ments | noun, plural:  belongings you just can’t throw away. A
keepsake. An artifact. A memento. A possession of great personal
worth often unrelated to its intrinsic monetary value.

Why I wrote the book:

After I visited a privately owned collection of significant baseball memorabilia, my wife Patti noticed I was upset and asked why? I explained that the baseball collector had 10 times the size of my collection.

Patti quickly pointed out the difference between our two collections is each baseball item I have has a deeply personal backstory while the recently viewed collector’s items’ backstories are cashed checks.

Here’s an excerpt:

My Almost Yankee Ballboy Story

Being enamored with baseball, I decided I was going to make my career working for a Major League Baseball team in the front office. I realized the entry-level position to get my foot in a baseball team’s front door would be as a ball boy, which is one step beneath a batboy. Ball boys are the guys who sit down the foul line and retrieve foul balls or carry in a relievers’ jacket from the bullpen.

My first and only choice of team was the New York Yankees. So, when I was twelve, I composed a letter to the Yankees requesting the opportunity for an interview for the position of ball boy. A few days later, the Yankees sent back a letter explaining I had to be at least eighteen to be considered for the job. I knew that, but I had a plan, and this was my first step in putting the plan into effect.

The next year I sent another letter to the Yankees for the same position and got the same response. I sent a letter requesting the opportunity for an interview for the position of ball boy on an annual basis for the next six years. Every year I got the same response: “Thank you for your interest in the position of ball boy but you must be eighteen years old to be considered.”

Finally, six months after turning eighteen in 1966, I received a letter from the Yankees’ Bill Ackman indicating a December date and time for the club’s ball boy interview. I was convinced the same secretary had opened my letter each year for the previous six years. My vision was that after a couple years she would recognize my name, hold up my letter, wave it in the air over her head and ask the women in the Yankees’ typing pool with a thick Bronx accent, “Hey, ladies, guess who’s looking for an interview for dat New York Yankee baall bouy job?” And then in unison, like those musicals from the 1940s, the typists would sing-song my name, “An-dy Stras-berg.”

I walked into Yankee Stadium wearing my Bar Mitzvah suit. Not really. But it was the suit I wore just after my Bar Mitzvah suit — yet everyone in my family still called it my Bar Mitzvah suit. In fact, my family referred to every suit I wore until I was thirty-two years old as my Bar Mitzvah suit.

Once I secured the interview, my second step was to get something custom-printed. Keep in mind this was at a time when there was no such thing as instant printing. If you wanted something printed, you had to go to a printer. It was there that they would hand-set the type, letter by letter, a process that would take a few days. And if you wanted a logo, well, they had to make the logo by having someone custom design a mold.

I went to a printer with a calling card design layout. The printer was incredulous that an eighteen-year-old wanted something that was expensive and would take almost two weeks to make and asked, “Are you sure you want to spend that much money on this?” Once I said yes, the printer needed to be paid up front in cash.

I had fifty calling cards made, which was the minimum print order, but I only needed one. On the day of my interview, I drove to Yankee Stadium and parked a couple blocks from the ballpark. The closer I got to the Yankees executive offices door, the more excited I became.

I walked into Yankee Stadium wearing my Bar Mitzvah suit. Not really. But it was the suit I wore just after my Bar Mitzvah suit — yet everyone in my family still called it my Bar Mitzvah suit. In fact, my family referred to every suit I wore until I was thirty-two years old as my Bar Mitzvah suit.

I checked in at the switchboard and was told my interview would be with Mr. Bill Bergesch, the Yankee Stadium manager. Within a few minutes, Mr. Bergesch came to the reception area to escort me to his office. At that moment, I stood up and introduced myself in a professional manner while handing him my custom New York Yankees Ball Boy calling card. Bergesch looked at the card and was startled. He exclaimed, “What the hell is this?” I said calmly, confidently, “Mr. Bergesch, with all due respect, that will be a valid calling card at the conclusion of this interview.” I followed him back to his office and noticed he kept shaking his head. During the interview I got the sense I was impressing Bergesch. I was right. Some thirty minutes later the job was mine. He escorted me down to the Yankees locker room and introduced me to Pete Sheehy, who was in charge of the equipment. Pete gave me a Yankees cap and showed me where my locker would be.

The location was not with the players but rather in a separate room around the corner from the players’ locker room. I calculated my locker would be a mere three feet from Mickey Mantle’s locker — had there not been a wall separating the two rooms.

Bergesch finished by telling me to call him in the first week of March as I would need to come in for orientation, sign some papers and get fitted for a Yankees pinstripe uniform. We shook hands and I’m thinking, that’s it. My baseball career has officially begun.
On Wednesday, March 1, 1967, at 9:01 a.m., I called Yankee Stadium. I told the operator that I wanted to speak to Mr. Bergesch. The next voice I heard was from a gentleman with a southern drawl who identified himself as Colonel Stallings. I will never forget that name. “Colonel Stallings speaking. How can I help you?”

I explained that I had been hired as the new Yankees ball boy back in December for the upcoming 1967 season by Mr. Bill Bergesch and that he had told me to call him in March.

Stallings coldly responded, “Bergesch doesn’t work here anymore and neither do you,” and abruptly hung up. I was stunned, devastated. I stared at the telephone while slowly returning the handset to its rotary dial cradle.

Being pissed yet ever-resourceful, I tracked down Bergesch at his home and got him on the phone. Once he said hello, I identified myself and told him what had happened. I then began ranting. “You gave me your word, you have no idea how important this job is to me.” I challenged him by asking, “What are you going to do about it?”

“Hold on a minute, Andy, let me ask you, do you live with your parents?”

“Yeah, I live with them.”

He then asked me, “Andy, do you pay rent?” to which I replied, “No, I don’t pay rent.”

“What exactly are your financial responsibilities?”

By now, I was confused. I had no idea where he was going with these questions. “Well, after my car insurance, gas money and the money I use to go out with friends, I have no other financial bills.”

Bergesch enlightened me: “Andy, I have a daughter and a son. One’s in college and the other is about to go to college. I have a mortgage on a home and I have two car loans and I’m no longer working in baseball.”

“Oh,” I said sheepishly. “I get it.”

I apologized, saying that I was sorry and that I understood. I finished by wishing Bergesch well and hoped that he found another job in baseball.

Bergesch said to me, “Andy, I wish you well and hope you find a job in baseball.” Eight years later in 1975 it happened. I was hired by the Padres to work in their ticket office.

Fast forward to the 1977 Padres season when I overheard someone saying Bill Bergesch had returned to the Yankees and was now the director of scouting. During that season, Jerry Coleman, who had heard me tell my ball boy interview story, mentioned Bergesch was in the San Diego Stadium press box for a Padres game. I decided now that I was gainfully
employed in baseball I should reintroduce myself.

I found Bergesch walking into the press dining room. I went up to him and stuck out my hand to shake his and said, “Mr. Bergesch, my name is Andy Strasberg and you probably don’t remember me but in the winter of 1966 you interviewed me for the Yankees ball boy job and …”

Bergesch interrupted me and said slowly with what appeared to be a slight grin, “Oh, Andy, I most definitely remember you.” We had dinner that night in the press dining room and laughed about what had happened and how we had both recovered and were now working in baseball.

Andy Strasburg’s new book: Strasberg’s Baseball Klediment Tales is out now and can be ordered here.