I'm not sure you can say it’s a shock if you know it’s coming, but I had known for a while that Ken Anderson was taking his final lap, and it was still a shock to read his obit a on the front page of the Daily Journal back in 2009.
We had met more than 30 years earlier, and though we were never close we had a cheerful, amiable relationship. Our connection was the baseball diamond, a place on this earth that Ken owned and I merely visited. He was that good.
In the early 1970s I was on a fastpitch softball team in Cloverdale. We had some good players but there was lunchmeat at a few key positions. The league was tough and competitive. Following another loss and a few quarts of Coors to reduce the emotional pain, a group of us began ruminating on how to turn the season around. We had a big game set for Friday against the Cloverdale Druids, a top-tier powerhouse.
Bruce Anderson (yes, that Bruce Anderson) leaned forward and murmured a loud whisper at our manager, Dave Domenichelli. Bruce suggested Dave do a little ummm, creative reworking of the lineup, beginning with adding brother Ken to the team. Dave, our young (yet grizzled, grumpy and weary) manager perked up and smiled. Leered wolfishly, really. The fix was in.
Guys like these are called “ringers” and the team they join pretends innocently they're legit members of the lineup, when actually last week the guy might’ve been playing third base for the Detroit Tigers.
Enter Ken Anderson. He was tall, rangy and terribly handsome, with the poise and self-assurance of a guy who’d been playing third base for the Tigers last week. Dave put him at first base, thus allowing Dennis Davis to shift to second, and putting our weak, whiny and wealthy sponsor, Marc Goldberg, on the bench.
One small move and suddenly we were competitive and maybe even more, depending on what the new guy could bring to the park. And the first thing he brought was a sense of style to a bunch of guys who couldn’t spell it. We were hippies playing the grand game of baseball while wearing headbands, tie-dye shirts and Fu Manchu mustaches.
Ken arrived in a crisp white shirt with long sleeves and a button down collar. He wore red suspenders, a jaunty beret, smoked an expensive cigar and had the raffish charm of a guy who wasn't accustomed to having many worries in the world. And certainly none on a baseball diamond.
I can’t type this and pretend I remember all the details of that game. There are no box scores, no videos, no newspaper accounts. But I remember this more clearly than I remember what I had for lunch yesterday: Ken strolling to the batter’s box in the middle of the game, sweet cigar fumes trailing after him. He settled in for the first pitch.
And the umpire, a daffy old codger named, appropriately, “Blind Man” held up an arm and shouted “Time!” And Time was called, providing Blind Man the opportunity to instruct the Anderson rookie that cigar smoking was not allowed in the Cloverdale Men's Fastpitch League. Never mind that Blind Man drank beer between innings, and sometimes between pitches.
Ken gazed at Blind Man and, always the pro, agreeably set the smoldering cigar down — in the middle of home plate. He resumed his stance, awaited the right pitch and when he got it he drilled a ball-flattening drive into left center. It would have been a homerun for me; Ken was content to saunter into second base with a leisurely double. He may have been unclear on how important this game was, but probably not.
I was on deck when the next hitter, Mark Wiget, cracked a shot inside the right field line. Another double. It allowed Ken Anderson time to mosey around third and roll into home in no more of a rush than if he were going to work. He approached the plate, calmly retrieved his cigar, then stepped on home to record the run. He may have tipped his beret to Blind Man before heading back to the dugout. He was probably whistling.
Ken Anderson: Impossibly cool.
He was a ladies man and a man’s man. He attracted people as if he were a rock star instead of a schoolteacher. He was physically fit in an era before fitness was a religion and health clubs were churches. I never saw him sucking on a bottle of water, but we shared sips of whiskey more than a few times.
Ken was funny, easily amused and a bit remote. He was also something of a socialist, but I’ve forgiven friends for far more grievous sins. I’m saddened and yes, still shocked that he’s gone.
Let’s promise ourselves we’ll learn the lesson this time. Let’s appreciate our friends and family while they’re with us, not just mourn them when they’re gone.
ED NOTE: Ken said fastpitch looked like a basketball coming at him, it was that easy to hit, but not for anyone else. He was always a great fastball hitter in regular baseball. He held the homerun record at Cal Poly for a number of years and maybe still does before he signed with the old Milwaukee Braves. He was on his way up to the Bigs when his wife complained that he was away too much, so he quit baseball and then his marriage went away along with baseball. Lots of Mendo old timers will remember that Ken was also a basketball force in local men's leagues.
Hey Tom–off topic (RIP Ken), who was Bruce’s nephew with all the San Fran political connections? Recent AI whistleblower assassination in SF needs more coverage.
Thanks