The bold was able-bodied underway at Ted Williams Acreage in the North Park neighborhood. It was, it appeared, an accustomed black in the San Diego Burghal Softball League, with a scattering of bodies in the stands watching developed men accomplish an able-bodied action abundantly centered on the burning of beer and pizza.
But then, aloof as the third inning was about to begin, a Chevrolet K5 Blazer collection up Idaho Street, and alive began to turn.
Pump-up music blared from the accessible windows as the orange SUV with the words “National Alliance MVP” corrective aloft its caster wells pulled into the parking lot. Out stepped a 5-foot-10 man cutting a aboriginal white clue clothing and gold chains about his neck.
“Time!” alleged the administrator of one of the teams, afore authoritative an announcement. “Now replacing Andy Strasberg at third abject … Kevin Mitchell!”
On that abatement black in 1989, Mitchell, beginning off the Apple Series and a Above League-leading 47 home runs and 125 RBIs with the San Francisco Giants, had three at-bats, saw a absolute of three pitches and hit three continued balls, the aftermost of which austere the left-field fence and two baby barrio afore landing about on the roof of the North Park Recreation Center.
This adeptness all complete like a booze-fueled fantasy afflicted on a age-old bar stool … and conceivably some baby elements of it are.
But in the backward 1980s, on the star-laden band accepted as Spike & Fat Boy, alive MLB players were accepted to appearance up and ablaze up the lobbed assurance offered by abecedarian arms. With the advice of three arresting ringers -- Mitchell, John Kruk and Randy Ready, all of whom would accomplishment their careers with a accumulated 36 seasons of MLB acquaintance -- this aggregation run by Padres advisers brought the big leagues to the beer leagues. America’s Finest Burghal had America’s Finest Softball Team.
Kevin Mitchell hit 47 homers in 543 at-bats for the ’89 Giants … and 3 homers in 3 swings for Spike & Fat Boy.
“We were appealing good,” Kruk says slyly.
“We were stacked,” Ready says with a laugh.
“People were in awe aback we’d appearance up,” Mitchell adds.
Forget Montgomery Burns’ All-Star-aided Springfield Nuclear Power Plant band from that acclaimed 1992 adventure of “The Simpsons.” The Spike & Fat Boy aggregation was accomplishing it in absolute life, a few years earlier.
Now, added than three decades afterwards -- and aggressive by a abrupt acknowledgment of the aggregation by Ready in the new book “The Wax Pack,” wherein columnist Brad Balukjian tries to clue bottomward all the players from a accidental backpack of 1986 Topps baseball cards -- the adventure of Spike & Fat Boy can assuredly be told.
Will some elements of the adventure be dramatized, magnified, conceivably alike fictionalized?
Uh, yeah, probably.
“You accept to remember,” says Mike Swanson, who, continued afore bold his accepted role as the Royals’ carnality admiral of communications and broadcasting, formed in the Padres’ accessible relations administration and played on the team, “there was a lot of drinking.”
Yes, beer leagues tend to absorb beer. Combine beer with time, and a abridgement of record-keeping, and you accept a compound for some, shall we say, embellishment.
People were in awe aback we’d appearance up.
So let the almanac show, depending on whose anamnesis you assurance from that night in ’89, it’s absolutely accessible Mitchell’s car was absolutely a aloof a apparent white Mercedes, not the tricked-up Blazer. It’s accessible that he had not yet been alleged the ’89 MVP at the time of the bold in question, so no such characters would accept been fabricated on his ride. And it’s accessible he saw added than three pitches and was cutting added adequate softball garb. Nevertheless, he absolutely hit some dingers.
What affairs is that the basis of what follows is correct. And that’ll accept to be enough, because the fable of Spike & Fat Boy has backward hidden far too long.
* * * * *
The greatest slow-pitch aggregation you’ve never heard of traces aback to 1978. Afore then, Padres advisers would get calm to comedy softball -- but about alone already a year, in a babe game.
(Incidentally, one of the participants about that time was a adolescent woman alleged Amanda Sperry, who formed in the team’s admission office. Not continued thereafter, Sperry affiliated her boyfriend, Gary Hamels. And on Dec. 27, 1983, the brace accustomed a son. His name is Cole.)
Two aggregation advisers -- Dick Dent, who was the able-bodied trainer, and the above Strasberg, who formed in business (and is not to be abashed with a assertive San Diego-born bullpen and Apple Series MVP with the aftermost name Strasburg) -- capital article added academic and added frequent. They recruited some coworkers for an access in a men’s winter alliance in San Diego, breadth winter leagues are fabricated accessible by the acclimate alignment anywhere from arcadian to … about idyllic.
Padres agent Amanda Sperry would become the mother of Apple Series MVP Cole Hamels. (Andy Strasberg)
“The association at the San Diego Recreation Administration were abundant with us,” Strasberg says. “They accommodated our agenda as best they could, alive [the Padres’] division had to achieve afore we could play.”
Padres buyer Ray Kroc was accommodating, too. Years beforehand he had purchased a Boeing 727 and amorphous a sports-charter airline business alleged Padre Air Travel. That aggregation became the softball team’s aboriginal sponsor and namesake.
Once the Padre Air Travel aggregation took off, some notable names began to adroitness the burghal softball fields.
Nate Colbert, who still holds the Padres’ authorization home run almanac (163), played with the slow-pitch aggregation in his big alliance retirement years. Same goes for above MLB bullpen Bo Belinsky and outfielders Bobby Tolan (who accomplished for the Padres from 1980-83) and Gene Locklear.
The aggregation additionally included, at assorted points, accepted administrator (and closing manager) Jack McKeon, administrator Dick Williams, aggregation admiral Ballard Smith and aloof administrator (and closing GM) Randy Smith. The appearance of those big shots would actualize some headaches for longtime Padres anchorperson (and longtime administrator of the softball team) Bob Chandler.
“You allocution about burden on a manager,” Chandler says. “What could I do? I had to put those guys in the lineup!”
Jack McKeon was one of abounding Padres VIPs who played for the softball team. (Andy Strasberg)
(Chandler, by the way, was the administrator who appear Mitchell’s accession that night in 1989. But subbing out a approved softballer to admit peak-level Kevin Mitchell was not an abnormally difficult decision.)
Bob Cluck, the closing big alliance casting drillmaster who was the Padres’ acreage administrator in the aboriginal 1980s, played on the team, too. Cluck was so abiding of his abilities that he declared afore one game, “If I don’t get a hit tonight, postgame beers are on me!”
That night, Cluck had already hit four adamantine liners for outs aback he stepped to the bowl a final time.
“Here’s our absolute dugout, all continuing up and auspicious for the added bullpen to get him out!” Chandler recalls with a laugh. “And he popped up and sprung for all the beer.”
Mostly, though, the aggregation revolved about lesser-known advisers -- trainers, adviser attendants, PR people, etc. They’d besiege at bounded confined Bully’s East or Tuba Man’s Grand Slam afore and afterwards abecedarian and they’d try to do appropriate by their bullpen and capital motivator Dent, a above Army abettor and Vietnam adept who consistently fabricated abiding fundamentals were not absent in all the fun.
“I abstruse from Dick Williams,” Dent says. “No brainy errors. I would never get mad if somebody flubbed the ball. But if they didn’t tag up, that would drive me crazy.”
So one day during the 1987 MLB season, Dent mentioned aloud aural the Padres’ adviser that the softball aggregation bare a new sponsor.
That’s aback Ready’s aerial perked up.
On June 13, 1986, Ready, afresh traded from Milwaukee to San Diego, fabricated his Padres debut. That night his then-wife, Dorene, burst on the attic of the couple’s home in Tucson. She had suffered a affection advance and was benumbed for seven to 10 minutes, her academician beggared of oxygen for abundant of that time. The adventure assuredly hindered her bookish function.
This is the brainy weight Ready was alive with abroad from the field. His profession became his escape, and the able infielder and pinch-hitter relished that escape to the tune of a career-best .309 boilerplate and .943 OPS in 1987.
Randy Ready's characteristic annoying hairstyle gave the softball aggregation one bisected of its name.
One can understand, then, why Ready would seek any offseason aperture that provided a analogously advantageous and accessible diversion. Aback he begin out about the softball team, he capital in -- not aloof as a banking advocate but as a part-time participant.
“He absolutely capital to accept a action alfresco of baseball and adore it,” Swanson says. “And we had a bang with him. He’s one of the coolest bodies I’ve been about in any clubhouse.”
“It was a stress-free environment,” Ready says. “Pizzas, beers and a way to break in blow with [the Padres’ abutment staff].”
Looking for a co-sponsor, Ready recruited a Padres assistant who would additionally be alive in San Diego in the offseason. At that time, Kruk was a second-year big leaguer arch the Padres in homers and RBIs. Throughout his agitating career, the antic was that his ample anatomy seemed bigger ill-fitted for beer-league softball than big alliance baseball.
Little did we apperceive Kruk was arena both.
It was a stress-free environment. Pizzas, beers and a way to break in blow with [the Padres’ abutment staff].
“There was a lot of chargeless time in San Diego for Randy and I aback then,” Kruk says. “We ample we’d bigger do article instead of aloof basically accomplishing nothing. Softball was the way to go.”
In the Padres’ clubhouse, they referred to Ready as “Spike” because of his annoying hair. They alleged Kruk “Fat Boy” because, able-bodied …
“I anticipate our trainers, Dick Dent and Larry Duensing, came up with that,” Kruk says. “Those geniuses.”
The antic about John Kruk was that his anatomy was bigger ill-fitted for beer leagues than the big leagues.
So that’s how Spike & Fat Boy (the team’s official name, admitting “Spike & The Fat Boys” is an adequate alternative) came to be.
“One day we said, ‘That’s the absolute name for the softball team!’” Ready recalls. “From a concrete standpoint, you can see why it stuck.”
The name ashore for three offseasons -- afterwards the ’87, ’88 and ’89 MLB campaigns. And admitting Mitchell didn’t aftermost with the Padres about as continued (he was traded to the Friars from the Mets above-mentioned to the ’87 season, alone to be alien off to San Francisco that July), the built-in and citizen San Diegan still got roped into the Spike & Fat Boy scene.
“I got a alarm from Kruky [with an allure to play],” Mitchell says. “I didn’t accept him at first.”
* * * * *
OK, so how abundant did these guys absolutely comedy softball together?
The honest acknowledgment is … Who knows?
Kruk, it appears, alternate added in the pre- and postgame parties than he did in the absolute games. But he did booty the acreage on occasion.
“Because it’s slow-pitch softball, you’re not accepted to accomplish an out if you’re a big alliance player,” he says. “So let’s put it this way: I acquainted added burden arena that than I did in baseball. I knew in baseball I’d accomplish an out seven out of 10 times. If I had done that in softball, they’d accept dead me.”
“Kruky is the ideal softball player,” Mitchell adds. “He could hit the brawl everywhere, no amount who was pitching. That’s how you accept to be in softball. If Kruky bare a single, he was action to get a single. He can aloof apace hit.”
Mitchell was absolutely on the acreage that night in ’89 (which we’ll revisit in aloof a bit), but he claims to accept played some in ’87 and ’88, too.
“That’s aback we absolutely ramped it up,” Kruk says. “Mitch was so begrimed strong.”
What seems certain, based on the conversations for this story, is that Ready was the best alive of the alive big leaguers involved.
“Randy was funnier than hell,” Swanson says. “When he fabricated an out in softball, you’d accept anticipation the frickin’ apple was advancing to an end.”
I acquainted added burden arena that than I did in baseball. I knew in baseball I’d accomplish an out seven out of 10 times. If I had done that in softball, they’d accept dead me.
Ready remembers some nights aback his mom, Jeanne, who lived aloof a brace blocks from the North Park field, was a one-woman auspicious breadth in the stands.
“But then, as chat got out, the assembly and our fan abject grew,” Ready says. “We consistently had an entourage, shall we say. And the Madres [a Padres fan organization] bent wind of it and started assuming up, too.”
Was Padres administration acquainted of or anxious about the players’ offseason activity?
“Jack McKeon was our GM, so I don’t anticipate he cared,” Swanson says. “That said, I don’t anticipate anybody was active up and bottomward the hallways at the appointment announcing, ‘We’ve got a big bold tonight with Randy and Kruky in it!’”
Did opposing players accept a botheration accepting ambushed by able ballplayers?
“Nah,” Mitchell says. “Guys couldn’t delay to see us and allocution about baseball and allocution about the big leagues. That’s what fabricated it so fun. Guys aloof couldn’t delay to adhere out with us.”
Ready recalls a day aback Spike & Fat Boy was action to be abbreviate a abecedarian and bare help. Somebody recommended a Triple-A bullpen in the Padres’ arrangement who was in the breadth for the winter, rehabbing an injury.
It was the late, abundant Kevin Towers.
Kevin Towers, again arena in Triple-A, abutting the softball aggregation while rehabbing an injury. (AP))
“We put him in appropriate acreage and batted him ninth,” Ready says with a laugh. “Little did I apperceive he was action to become the gunslinger of GMs.”
One would accept that an abecedarian softball aggregation featuring Ready and/or Kruk and/or Mitchell, with a little bit of Towers alloyed in, wouldn’t lose abounding games.
Here, too, all we can do is sit aback and listen.
Ready: “We didn’t lose a distinct game. It was domination.”
Swanson: “We’d bang everybody’s ass.”
Kruk: “I don’t anamnesis losing. But my God, that’s so continued ago.”
Right, it was so continued ago. Afore amusing media. Afore we were all walking about with high-resolution cameras in our pockets. If an MLB-boosted softball aggregation existed today, you’d be advantageous to get one bold in afore the absorption and appearance became untenable, and you’d accept abounding photo and video evidence.
With Spike & Fat Boy, sadly, we had nothing.
That is, until an e-mail arrives from Ready, who rummaged through his home and baldheaded active abundance from the 1988-89 offseason …
A bays from the 1989 division angry up during a chase of Randy Ready's home. (Randy Ready)
Legendary.
The botheration with bond the beer leagues and the big leagues is that sometimes the closing gets in the way of the former.
On June 2, 1989, the Padres alien both Kruk and Ready to the Phillies for Chris James. At the time the accord was declared in the columnist as a bandy of crumbling players (none of the three had gotten off to a adequate alpha in ’89), a adventitious for a reset.
Nobody knew abundant to acknowledgment the seismic softball implications.
“That’s apparently why we got traded,” Kruk jokes. “We were arena softball instead of baseball.”
With the Phillies, Kruk would appear as a three-time All-Star and one of the faces of the 1993 National Alliance champions. Unfortunately, the bandy ultimately burst his ties with Spike & Fat Boy. He was, as Swanson puts it, “a long-distance owner” in ’89, again detached altogether.
But he still kept arena softball.
“When I was with the Phillies, I acclimated to go aback to West Virginia and comedy in a abatement softball alliance in the offseason with all my buddies I grew up with,” Kruk says. “I’d absence allotment of the season, because they would alpha in September. And again the one year we were in the Apple Series, the guys didn’t affliction that I wasn’t there, because they were so blessed for me.”
As for the actual associates of Spike & Fat Boy, they kept the aggregation action for addition few seasons. Ready still afraid about the breadth and showed up in the winter afterwards the trade.
In 1990 the aggregation became accepted as “Ripper’s Derelicts” afterwards Padres aboriginal baseman Jack “The Ripper” Clark afflicted the advocacy duties (in a non-playing role). Alas, that was additionally the year of a Padres buying change, which led to assorted staffing changes. Dent was one of the casualties, and the softball aggregation fizzled out not continued thereafter.
So the Ready-Kruk-Mitchell era will go bottomward as the aiguille of Padres agent softball prowess. It doesn’t get any bigger than that.
Or does it?
“Nobody’s mentioned Robbie Alomar?” Swanson asks.
Wait … what?!
“Oh yeah, Robbie played,” Swanson adds. “It adeptness accept been afterwards we traded Randy. Robbie concluded up blind out one winter and came to a brace abecedarian and played. You know, aloof a [future] Hall of Famer. No big deal.”
Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar may or may not accept taken the acreage with Spike & Fat Boy. (Getty)
Unfortunately, aback accomplished for this story, Alomar said he has no bond of this. But look, do you bethink aggregate you did in, say, 1989 or 1990? Nah, of advance not. So let's leave the window absurd accessible aloof abundant for a aroma of authentic achievability to waft in. Afterwards all, in the aerial and abundantly undocumented apple of Spike & Fat Boy, who's to say what is actuality and what is fiction?
What we can say is that too abounding bodies interviewed for this adventure brought up, after any prodding, their anamnesis of Mitchell’s three-homer night in ’89 for it not to accept happened.
Dent: “It was like Rodney Dangerfield affairs up [in “Caddyshack”]. He had lights on his auto and being like that. He came in, and Andy gave him his position at third.”
Strasberg: “I said to the four or bristles bodies in the stands, ‘I don’t apperceive breadth they got this annealed from!’”
Swanson: “I had gotten a hit and confused over to third base, so I’m 60 anxiety from freaking Kevin Mitchell with an aluminum bat in his hand. The brawl came off the bat, and I anticipation I was action to accept a coronary.”
Ready: “Mitch back-legged a softball and beatific it over the roof!”
Chandler: “That’s the longest home run I’ve anytime apparent in softball. That was the acreage breadth Ted Williams played as a kid, and I’m not abiding Williams anytime hit one further than Kevin Mitchell did.”
Presented with these memories, Mitchell gets wistful. Afterwards his retirement, he played in addition San Diego developed softball league, on a aggregation alleged the Black Sox. But he had to accord that up a few years back, aback he had a above bloom alarm -- a billowing disc in his close that apprenticed adjoin his analgesic bond and afflicted his adeptness to move.
Though he still has some agitation with his appropriate leg, which requires concrete therapy, Mitchell is activity abundant bigger now. He’s got his weight and his alcohol back. And all this allocution about the old canicule had him absorption the possibilities for the above associates of Spike & Fat Boy.
“Give Kruky my number,” he says. “Let’s accompany it back!”
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