Arthritis Didn’t Rob Bass of Competitive Instincts

Norm Bass started as a pitcher for the Kansas City Athletics in 1964 and wound up as a defensive back for the Denver Broncos the same year.

Bass was trying to be Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders before there was a Nike around to make Bass a millionaire or cultural icon. Bass was just a tall, muscular, quick, strong, talented athlete who was, it turns out, competing at only 60% efficiency.

That’s what a doctor told him in 1964, when his arm would lock up whenever he threw a baseball and his ankles would do the same when he tried walking to a football game.

You have rheumatoid arthritis, the doctor told Bass. You’ve had it for a while. Your body hasn’t performed at anything close to peak efficiency for a very long time. The doctor also wrote these words, typed them out, the black print a slap in the face that hurt worse than any smack Bass had taken on a football field.

“All I’d ever wanted was to play sports, and now I couldn’t,” Bass said. “For the next 15 years, I’ll tell you what, I was a very bitter man. I was not a good man. I was hard to live with.”

Bass is 60 now. He is still tall and strong. His hair holds some white but not too much. Bass lives in a tidy house off Manchester Boulevard in Inglewood. His two Akitas bark like the dickens and seem fearsome, but Bass says they are sweethearts, his buddies he takes every so often out to the mountains to let run.

There is never a time when Bass wouldn’t love to run with them, but he can’t. He looks trim and firm, but his hands are swollen and misshapen. He can’t straighten out his left arm and his ankles are frozen, unbendable. That is what the arthritis has done.

Besides robbing Bass of fame and fortune, that is.

If the name Bass is familiar to Southern California sports fans, it is probably attached to the first name of Dick. Dick Bass, Norm’s older brother, was a stalwart member of the Los Angeles Rams for a decade. Dick, shorter than Norm by about five inches, and squatter, nonetheless made a living as a professional athlete.

But it was Norm who was a four-sport star at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, a college freshman who competed in baseball, basketball, football and track and field. It was Norm who was signed by Charles O. Finley after his freshman year at Pacific to pitch for Kansas City. It is Norm whose name is in the major league baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. “I gave up home run No. 27 to Roger Maris in his big year,” Bass says. “Didn’t think that was the way I’d get in, but that’s the way it is.”

It seemed unfair to Bass, this robbing of his physical skills. After all, as a 10-year-old growing up in Vallejo, he already had been knocked down by illness. He contracted spinal meningitis, which caused him temporary paralysis and blindness and some permanent hearing loss.

His one-year stint as a two-sport professional happened because of his arthritis. In 1964, after three years with the A’s, Bass couldn’t throw the ball, without knowing why. He never got into a regular-season game. “My elbow would just lock up,” he says. “I was so mad, and I wanted to play sports so bad that I went to a tryout for the Broncos. Understand, I hadn’t played football for almost seven years, since I was a freshman at Pacific.”

Shoes had changed, equipment had changed, the Bronco players laughed at Bass in his high-topped footwear and old, dirty pads. They laughed until Bass made the team. But four games into the season, having had himself shot up with cortisone to try to dull the pain in his knees and ankles, Bass had to quit again.

“It about killed me,” he says. “Reading that doctor’s report, it about killed me. I was mean. My kids and my wife would be afraid to come out of their rooms sometimes. I couldn’t watch baseball, it hurt me too much.”

A friend helped Bass get a job at McDonnell Douglas, a job Bass kept for 30 years until he retired five years ago on disability.

Which leads us to now, to a weekday morning in Inglewood. Divorced, Bass lives with one of his sons and his Akitas. He is also an athlete again.

Despite his arthritis, Bass is ranked No. 10 nationally among table tennis players 60 and over. Even better, and much to his dismay, Bass discovered that he also was eligible for disabled table tennis competition. Playing against men 20 and 30 years younger, Bass has already qualified for the 2000 Paralympics.

“At first I was kind of embarrassed,” he says. “I was at the nationals in Las Vegas and saw some guys in a corner playing in wheelchairs. I went over to find out what was up and somebody told me I could qualify.” Bass plays in the stand-up handicapped division. He can’t move well because of his ankles, but Bass has learned about spins and chops, about the use of different padding on the paddles and how to annoy his opponents into impatient mistakes.

“These young guys see me, big and strong looking,” Bass says, “and they expect me to hit the ball as hard as I can. I don’t do that. I do all sorts of junk. They hate that.”

Bass is getting ready to head off to a Las Vegas tournament again. He proudly shows his USA jacket and some of his medals. He will not get rich playing table tennis, but Bass is competing again. He is an athlete. Again. Forever.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com.