Pete and Gordo

Original story here.
This is a picture of Gordon Smith. Below it is Pete Smith's baseball card with the Boston Red Sox. From 1964, a season he never pitched in. Pete Smith made his major league debut as the starting pitcher against the Detroit Tigers in front of 2734 fans in Tiger Stadium on September 13, 1962.  

Mgr. Pinky HIggin's Red Sox were in eighth place, 17.5 games behind the eventual pennant winning New York Yankees. Smith was matched up against the Tiger's future hall of fame pitcher, Jim Bunning.

Pete Smith gave up 3 home runs to 3 different Tigers before being pulled in the fourth inning.The three were not chumps: Al Kaline, Norm Cash, and Rocky Colavito. Smith's line for the 1962 season was 19 batters faced and era of 19.64. Not unusual for rookies. It was still a thrill

In 1963, after a pretty decent showing in the minors, Smith came back to the Red Sox to start a game on September 15, against the A's in Kansas City, in front of a little less than 7000 fans. He started, pitched 6 innings, gave up 3 earnies, no homeruns and was pinch hit for in the top of the seventh. It was what is by today's standards a quality start. It would be his last. He made 5 more relief appearances as the Red Sox played out the string of another dismal losing season finishing 28 games behind the Yankees again. But ever the silver lining in an otherwise dismal season his last game in the majors was in relief against the Los Angeles Angels. From Wikipedia:

"On September 28, 1963 at Fenway Park, Smith started a triple play against the Angels with the last ball he fielded in the majors. With Charlie Dees running on second base and Lee Thomas on first, Félix Torres tried to advance both runners with a bunt. Unfortunately for Torres, Smith fielded cleanly the ball and threw to 3B Frank Malzone, who tagged Dees out before throwing the ball to SS Eddie Bressoud, covering second to double out Thomas. Bressoud then threw to 2B Félix Mantilla, who covered first and completed the 1-5-6-4 triple play."

So Smith kicked around the Red Sox minor league system for a couple more years, before finally hanging it up after the 1965 season; done at the age of 25.

And this is where I lose track of Smith until he pops up on radar in 2007 as a volunteer coach at Sonoma State. Only this time going by  Gordon, not Pete. (I asked him once how that came about, he told me and I promptly forgot). Sonoma State like most successful college baseball programs relies on experienced volunteers to help out with any number of little chores that most folks don't think about. And finding guys who know what they're doing and are smart enough to know when to chirp-up and when to dummy up is harder than one might think. Charting opponents pitchers/hitters. Getting materials donated for field upkeep, equipment, even somebody to raise and lower the American Flag before and after games, which is what Gordon would like to do. This came after he personally rebuilt the foundation for the 30 foot pole with his own money, and with a little help from a couple of players in the off-season.

February and March are prime baseball months in college baseball; by the calendar it is still winter. Though Sonoma County's image is one of summery days of wineries and vineyards, it is often cold, damp and windy, in the first half of the season. And for a couple of seasons, while friends and family would collect outside the gates, huddled up against the dusk chill of late winter waiting for their players to exit, one could look out on the other side of the park and always see Gordon trudging down beneath the line of redwoods, out behind the left field fence to lower the flag, in his own private ceremony, and fold it into place, to await the next game.

Unlike far too many coaches who run college and high school programs, Sonoma State's Head Coach for the last 26 years, John Goelz, is not particularly overly impressed with himself. He has collected so many awards and honors that he can't even remember them, so its not for lack of accomplishment. Neither does he exude false modesty or project a public persona that is different than his private self. He does not embellish nor shade stories or events to solicit praise or recognition. He is exactly who appears to be in that moment; engaged 100 percent with the person or persons to whom he is talking. Whether it is a 6 year old kid with a whiffle bat, a Division I transfer, parent of a high schooler, or an 87 year old with a heart condition, John Goelz genuinely makes that person feel like he/she is the most important person in that room. 

Much has been written in the last 4 years about Goelz, due mainly to two Division II College World Series appearances. Bob Padecky (the same one who had the notorious run-in with Kenny Stabler's hometown friends 30 plus years ago in Alabama.) has covered Goelz on and off for a number of years and, like Joe Posnanski, never writes to embarrass his subjects, and has the graciousness borne of an earlier era to leave out irrelevant facts or innuendos if they are harmful. He writes mainly about local athletes and their environs as if they were real people, not cartoons nor fodder for the celebrity sniffers. One might think these are merely puff pieces, and only of interest to those who know Padecky's subjects, but they aren't. Padecky has a serious journalist background that goes back more than 30 years when he was a beat writer for the Sacramento Bee covering the Raiders, Giants, Superbowls, and World Series and right on up through his tenure with the NY Times owned Santa Rosa Press Democrat. He is a serious journalist and he writes serious pieces; he just doesn't feel a need to immerse himself and his subjects in the ooze of sports gossip.

I suppose I could give you my own version of the relationships or personal stories of Gordon and John, but there's enough self-serving scribbling going around these days, and Padecky does such a great job of painting a great picture of two of college baseball's greatest friends.  Padecky's article starts here:
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The Sonoma State baseball program received a staggering $1.3 million donation, and coach John Goelz is still getting his mind around that number and Gordon Smith's generosity, almost as if the news came out of nowhere. It didn't. He was told eight months ago. But it passed him by, like a jet. Didn't stick.

Last fall Smith, who had returned to SSU as a volunteer coach after a two-year absence, told Goelz he had cancer, it didn't look good and he would like to make a donation to the program before he died. What do you need, John?

Goelz said lights and a turf field would be great. How much would that cost, Smith asked? About $700,000 for the lights, about $600,000 for the field. Give or take.

“I have enough in savings for that,” Smith said simply, casually.

OK, Goelz said, and let it pass in one ear and out the other. After all, the largest donation Goelz had ever received in his 26 years at SSU was $10,000, courtesy of Chuck Collett and Ralph Emerson. So $1.3 million? Yeah, right. And why not build a dome while we're at it? For years Goelz had been asking the university for financial help to upgrade the facilities and after years of fund-raising he had accumulated only $137,000. Drawings were rendered. Plans were ready. And that's where it stayed. Seemingly forever......(continued)