Chronicle Classic
Spring, the splendid silly season, arrived in these parts a couple of weeks ago. Technically.
Spring is here. Today. Officially. The boys with the bloomers are back, punishing the old horsehide for Squire Stoneham at Candlestick Park. This is Opening Day, buddy. “The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”
To celebrate the glorious occasion, both houses of the California legislature are playing hooky today.
“We will recess until Wednesday to be free to go to the ball game,” said forthright Senate majority leader Hugh Burns.
This excursion into anarchy will bring most of the lawgivers to Candlestick, but some of the southerners will make it to Chavez Ravine, the concrete Disneyland provided for the gulls of Los Angeles by the kindly management of the Dodgers.
Such pressing issues as what to do about draw poker — not to speak of the budget and Senate redistricting — are being given a miss in favor of the National Pastime.
This is known as putting first things first.
Even the sober Voice of the West is getting a bit giddy about the whole thing.
In a burst of impassioned hospitality, the Chron is throwing a champagne brunch for the cognoscenti at the Stadium Club at the park at 11 a.m. today.
“In order,” declaims a stately invitation, “that you may celebrate or deplore, as you see fit, the annual return of organized baseball to San Francisco.”
Over at Buena Vista Café, waitress Lucy Kendall is wearing a black mourning band on her stiffly starched white blouse. “I always do on opening day,” she explains.
Lucy reads Proust and thinks Harry Bridges should be in the White House. A little something dies in her when talk turns to Jimmy Davenport’s wisdom tooth and such.
Garry Schumacher, the Giant public relations man, goes into hiding each year for the days just before Opening Day. “Everybody but Albert Schweitzer wants a seat behind first base, at the last minute,” he says.
Dennis O’Connor, the cynical barman at the In Between in Maiden Lane, will celebrate the great occasion by going fishing before, being an indigene of Hoboken. “Baseball,” he declares, “is for the idiot who thinks they’re getting something for nothing when they get green stamps.”
Ladies from all over are stomping into Saks and other charitable institutions to buy straw headgear that would look avant-garde even at a Colony Club luncheon in New York.
I have succumbed to the fervor of the occasion by purchasing from the Freres Brooks a straw hat that makes me look rather like the senior bouncer in a New Orleans house of pleasure.
Most of those at Candlestick today will know as much about baseball as they wot of the Nibelungenlied. They like to make the scene, like those strange numbers who get drunk on St. Patrick’s Day and spend the rest of the year staring into space.
It will be a stunning day. What with our legislators goofing off, and those divine hats, and all that.
As Mr. Carl Latham just sighed, “Maybe baseball is bigger than all of us.”
“We will recess until Wednesday to be free to go to the ball game,” said forthright Senate majority leader Hugh Burns.