1989 ALL-STAR GAME PREVIEW : Memories of ’67 Linger Even Behind the Scenes

Leonard Garcia was a 17-year-old clubhouse boy the last time the All-Star game came to Anaheim Stadium. He was stationed inside the American League locker room when New York Yankees slugger Mickey Mantle burst through the doors shortly before the first pitch was thrown. Mantle put on his uniform, took his place in the lineup, promptly struck out, showered, dressed again and then made his way toward those same doors. As he prepared to leave, Mantle looked at Garcia and said, “Here, kid, you want these bats?”

Garcia was stunned. These weren’t just any bats; they were the great Mantle’s bats, made especially for the All-Star game by the Adirondack company. Carved in the thick barrel were the words, Mickey Mantle, 1967 All-Star . Only four such bats were made and here was Mantle offering him two of them.

Garcia couldn’t say yes fast enough.

“Well, here you go,” said Mantle, handing him the bats. And then, as abruptly as he had arrived, Mantle was gone.

Twenty-two years later, the pair of bats occupy a special place in the Garcia house. “It’s one of the few things I really have as a keepsake,” says Garcia.

Garcia is the Angel equipment manager now, has been for the past three seasons. Before that, he spent 16 years as a minor league trainer and before that, he worked three seasons as a bat boy and clubbie (clubhouse boy). He has a soft, soothing voice and a disposition to match. Sitting in his makeshift office two hours before a recent Angel game, surrounded by large cartons of bats, assorted luggage, a golf bag here and there, Garcia talks about how much the 1967 All-Star game meant to him and how he can’t wait for Tuesday evening’s game to begin. After all, it’s been a long time between memories.

“I remember the losing pitcher,” Garcia says over the rattle of the nearby ice machine. “He was just a kid and he was standing there and I felt sorry for him. He seemed like the only one in the whole locker room that was upset about losing. And I said to myself, ‘I hope this guy has a good career.’ I mean, I felt sorry for him.

“The kid was Catfish Hunter.”

Garcia chuckles at that one. Hunter, it turns out, had a career for the ages.

As he did back in 1967, Garcia will welcome American League players to the Angel clubhouse. He will make sure they have the shoes they want, the batting gloves they need, the proper uniforms. He is a baseball valet of sorts, concierge to the stars. He will feed them. He will wash their baseball clothes. He will clean up after them. It is his job and he wouldn’t trade it for anything. Especially on Tuesday night.

“If you work in this business and you don’t get excited thinking about where you are once in a while, then you shouldn’t be here,” he says. “To be a part of the All-Star game, well, people like to grumble and I, like anyone else, would like to have three days off, but this is exciting. I don’t know if it will happen again while I’m working here.”

Garcia will have help, plenty of it. The Angel minor league equipment manager is here for the occasion, as is the usual complement of four bat boys and one clubbie.

In the National League clubhouse will be David Howells, who usually takes care of the Angel opponents during their stays at Anaheim Stadium. Howells, 36, worked his way up from right field ball boy to visiting equipment manager. He was 18 when named equipment manager, not even old enough to buy beer for the players. “I had to get my brother to buy the beer,” he says.

Howells knows the little touches that will make the American League All-Stars happy and has since passed the information on to Garcia. For instance, Kirby Puckett loves catfish. Mike Greenwell prefers to chew Levi Garrett or Copenhagen tobacco. Cal Ripken Jr. likes a couple of cold beers after the game. Mickey Tettleton smokes Marlboro Lights, but doesn’t drink alcohol anymore. If the superstitious Wade Boggs is on a hitting spree, he wants his sanitary socks washed separately. “So they’re not washed with socks that don’t have hits in them,” Howells says. Steve Sax? “Avoid Sax,” he says of the hyperactive Yankee second baseman.

Meanwhile, Howells has called various National League equipment men and scouted the All-Stars. Already he knows that Mike Schmidt chews Skoal and that he had better not misplace Schmidt’s Philadelphia Phillies uniform, the last one the future Hall of Fame third baseman will wear. He knows who wants what and when. “That’s how I make a living,” he says.

By the time Howells restores the clubhouse to proper shape after Tuesday night’s game, he will have spent four nights and about five days there. A clubhouse couch has been his bed. Workdays that last 16-18 hours have been his routine. Crazy, special, exciting times. And it sure beats his winter job as a UPS delivery man.

Upstairs in the press box is Ed Munson, one of three official scorers for the All-Star game. Munson has scored Angel games since 1981, when good friend Don Drysdale called him up and asked if he would be interested in the opening. Munson, who owns a Brea advertising firm, considered the request about as long as Garcia did when Mantle offered a pair of bats.

Munson has scored a no-hitter. He has witnessed Reggie Jackson’s 500th home run. He has seen Rod Carew’s 3,000th hit and Don Sutton’s 300th victory. But he has never scored an All-Star game.

“I feel very honored,” he says. “I feel kind of good about it. I feel like I’m being recognized as a good scorer.”

On occasion, Munson still reads the rules of baseball--just to keep sharp. When he watches a baseball game on television, he finds himself viewing it as a scorer rather than as a fan. Force of habit.

“It’s not an exact science,” he says carefully. “It’s not a statistical job. The official scorer determines the value of play.”

Munson is talking but his eyes are on the game below. Someone lines a single past Angel second baseman Johnny Ray. Munson records the pitch, the hit, the location on a perfectly organized score sheet with a felt-tip pen. Then he resumes the conversation.

“I think that I’ve grown a little more confident the longer I’ve done this,” he says.

Munson is 44. As fate would have it, he turns 45 on Tuesday. Happy birthday, Ed.