JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

Charlie Brown called the other day trying to scare up recruits for his

over-55 softball team called the Newport Peers. At 81, Charlie is the

world’s oldest third baseman with two artificial knees. I can’t prove

that, but it must be true.

Charlie made his living -- and still does -- as a Newport Beach Realtor,

largely I suspect, to support his baseball habit.

I thanked him for recognizing my obvious athleticism and seeking me out

for his team. A long pause followed, after which Charlie said: “I don’t

think you understand. We weren’t recruiting you. We just thought maybe

you would mention it in your column.”

Well, I could have told him that I don’t shill for just anybody -- unless

they let me play, of course -- but since baseball decidedly measures up

to my definition of a vital social resource, I said I would go along.

Besides, on reflection, I was sure Charlie knew that some leg trouble I’m

having makes it difficult for me to field a ground ball unless it bounces

up to my chest.

So I met with Charlie and his friend and co-Peer, Bo Bett (a longtime

former coach, retired from the Garden Grove school district), to discuss

the team’s needs. Bo summed them up pretty well when he said: “We’re

looking for bodies -- anyone over 55 who can walk and will show up for

the games.”

If you fit these qualifications, Bo would be overjoyed to hear from you.

Just call him at (949) 644-1523.

The game is slow-pitch softball, played every Sunday throughout the year,

mostly at Murdy Park in Huntington Beach. Games are seven innings with a

limit of five runs per inning until the last inning, when the sky’s the

limit.

There is no sliding and no tag plays at home plate. The runner follows a

line outside the base path and must beat the throw home.

Teams play in four over-55 leagues, rated by skill within specified age

brackets. Some of the players are pretty skilled. Former Angel outfielder

Jim Edmonds’ grandfather, at 71, for example, plays on one of the teams.

Bo says of him: “He’s a better fielder than Jim. He doesn’t have to dive

for balls. He gets them on the run.”

The leagues’ biggest problems are conflicts with church for the morning

games and family demands that divert the players.

“We play on Father’s Day,” said Bo by way of explanation, “but not on

Mother’s Day.”

A few years ago, the league had a team called the Kardiac Kids, made up

exclusively of players who had experienced heart surgery. No known crisis

occurred within this group, but Bo and Charlie remembered one heart

attack that took place on the field. Fortunately, two of the opposing

players were doctors, and they got the victim off safely to a hospital

before the game was resumed.

Charlie, who is a prodigious hitter and a respectable fielder with a

strong arm, has only one real problem: getting to first base. Outfielders

keep trying to throw him out there on hits to the outfield. Once he’s

safely at first, the Peers can use a pinch runner.

But that was not always the case with Charlie, who once played a year of

minor league professional baseball and might have had a shot at the bigs

under different circumstances.

Charlie was 26 and just out of the Army when he had a tryout with the

Pittsburgh Pirates in 1945. Charlie had been wounded as an infantry

platoon leader in Germany during World War II, and by the time he arrived

in Pittsburgh he had a wife and baby to support.

But American men weaned on baseball -- as our generation was -- don’t

walk away from big league tryouts. And Charlie didn’t.

He performed well enough that the Pirates signed him and sent him off the

next day to a farm team.

But after a year of minor league ball at starvation-level wages, Charlie

knew he was getting into the game too late and had to move on.

One vivid memory of that experience has stuck in his mind, however,

through the more than five decades since. Only on the day of his tryout

did he meet up with any of the major league players. And only one member

of the team took the time or made the effort to say hello to the rookie

just returned from the war. His name was Pete Coscarart, and he spent

eight years as a second baseman for the Pirates and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Charlie never forgot, so he was excited to see Coscarart’s name in the

newsletter of the Pacific Coast League Historical Society several years

ago. He wrote a letter to Coscarart in Escondido to thank him for that

long ago, small act of kindness.

It took Coscarart almost five years to reply, but a month ago he called

Charlie to say the letter had been lost and then found and to apologize

and profusely thank Charlie for his note.

A few weeks later, the two men met. And Charlie reports that Coscarart is

still “mighty trim at 87.”

Coscarart is also one of the several hundred major leaguers who gave

their whole working lives to baseball but have been denied the pensions

they richly deserve by the zillionaires who now play the game.

Some of these old-timers can now be found in over-55 leagues, alongside

the lawyers and doctors and teachers and blue collar workers like Charlie

and Bo, who once aspired to be big leaguers too.

So you see, you can at least touch the fringes of this world and have one

helluva good time by calling Bo and volunteering for his warm-body

brigade. I just wish my leg was up to it.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column appears

Thursdays.