My professional baseball career happened entirely inside my head. What went on in there may or may not interest you, but for me it—both the career and the brain-picture of it—was marked by an unforgettable encounter with a retired pro and a great pianist.
This will take some explaining, though.
My dad, Grauman Marks, was born in Louisville in 1903. I don’t know how much baseball he played in Georgetown, Kentucky, where he grew up, but by the time I came along, when he was 43, he had long ago moved to Cincinnati and rooted avidly for the Reds on the radio, and sometimes even went to games at Crosley Field; but I only remember him tossing the ball with me a couple of times.
Even my big brother Eddie was pretty old: born almost a year before Pearl Harbor, while I didn’t come along until a full year after Hiroshima; so the entirety of World War II fit comfortably between our births. He would gamely toss with me now and again, but I’m sure he eventually lost patience with my ineptitude.
I also had three sisters, but they couldn’t advance my career. Mary, the firstborn child, was so old that she was employed as the teacher’s aide when I went to nursery school. And I couldn’t discern any justification for my younger sisters, the twins Peggy and Helen, who threw like girls. (Please forgive me; you’re hearing from my mid-1950’s brain.)
At school and summer day camp the
