Floyd should know. He spent nine years in the minors in the Angels, Dodgers and Astros organizations. Throw in a season playing winter ball in Mexico, and there are plenty of memories.
He is 76 now, but Floyd remembers his salad days like it was yesterday. And that’s a good thing. In Bush League Blues (Lea Street Press, LLC; paperback; $19.95; 300 pages), Floyd gives the reader an unvarnished look at the difficulty of getting to the big leagues. It is a poignant, funny and at times heartbreaking look at the game, and Floyd tells his stories with zest.
Many memoirs from former major leaguers touch on their formative years. Recent autobiographies by Cleon Jones and Willie Horton are good examples. But Floyd never got to the big show. And while that was disappointing for Floyd, it does provide him with a treasure trove of stories to tell in his first book.
Floyd played 740 games in the minors, batting .275 with 75 home runs and 369 RBI. He got his start with Idaho Falls in 1967 in the Pioneer League and had stops in the Quad Cities, San Jose, the Arizona Instructional League, El Paso, Salt Lake City, Waterbury, Albuquerque, Columbus and Denver before hanging up his cleats in 1975.
That does not matter now. In Bush League Blues, Floyd reveals a vibrant, competitive and draining lifestyle at the minor league level and spins a friendly, conversational narrative.
And there are some wonderful stories in this book.
Floyd describes himself as a “wild, undisciplined athlete” who was taught the basics by California coaching legends Joe Hicks and Mike Sgobba and his father, George Floyd.
Hicks coached from 1950 to 1975 at Long Beach City College, where he won 514 games and three state titles. Sgobba coached at Fullerton College from 1961 to 1985 and racked up 487 victories. Floyd played for Hicks on a Long Beach team that was part of the California Collegiate League in 1965.
Floyd has warm memories of Del Rice, who was his manager for four seasons at three different franchises. He called him a good manager who left players alone and expected them to give their best “without any cheerleading or pep talks.”
“I could write a whole book about playing for Del,” Floyd writes.
“When you shook hands with this skinny dude, it was like putting your hand in a steel vise,” Floyd writes. “He played the game hard and he played to win.”
Then there is Dennis Ribant. My only memories of him came from collecting and reading his 1965 and 1966 Topps baseball cards, when he pitched for the New York Mets. Nicknamed “Weasel,” Ribant was an intense competitor.
Floyd writes about hitting a home run off Ribant and celebrating in the dugout, then taking a pitch from the right-hander to his elbow during his next at-bat. Floyd had to leave the game and was later taking a drink at the water fountain when he was asked, “How’s your elbow, big boy?”
Floyd turned around and faced a glaring Ribant.
“Nobody, and that means you, laughs after they hit one out off me!” the pitcher said before turning and leaving.
OK, so Ribant was not Bob Gibson, but the competitive fire is eye-opening. Ribant was 24-29 in the majors but had minor league seasons where he won 14 games (1970) and 15 games (1971).
It is instructive that when Floyd hit a home run later in the season off Ribant, he kept his head down and refrained from “cadillacking,” as he called it.
“Nobody hated to lose more than (Tommy) Lasorda except Dennis Ribant,” Floyd writes.
Lasorda has appeared in many books and magazines, but he never had the eclectic shoutouts given to another Floyd teammate, pitcher Dick Baney.
Baney earned several mentions in Jim Bouton’s classic 1970 book, Ball Four. He was shaving next to Bouton in the Seattle Pilots’ locker room in March 1969 and told him about the time the veteran pitcher — soon to be best-selling author — never answered a fan letter the young pitcher wrote to him.
When Bouton asked how long ago that was, Baney said, “When I was 6.”
Baney is actually six years younger than Bouton, but baseball players are noted for their talent at needling others.
Floyd writes that during his minor-league career he had seven teammates who played for that Seattle Pilots team — Baney, Gene Brabender, Greg Goossen, Gus Gil, Ray Oyler, Jerry Stephenson and Danny Walton. I am not sure if any other professional baseball player can make that claim, but I could be wrong.
Floyd notes that Baney threw so hard as a youth, his Little League organization in Garden Grove, California, banned him because he threw too hard.
Baney “could pick up a scent belonging to any open opportunity,” Floyd writes.
That includes having a chance encounter with gossip columnist Rona Barrett and posing nude in the centerfold of the February 1977 issue of Playgirl.
Lasorda never made an appearance in that publication, to everyone’s relief. Great manager, but not a pinup candidate.
He writes about meeting his hero, Harmon Killebrew, and the crazy antics of his minor league roommate, Randy Brown. A short, compact man, Brown fancied himself as having “the quickest bat in baseball,” and would mouth the phrase to his teammates while batting.
There are also stories about Reggie Jackson, Moose Stubing and Roy Gleason, who hit a double in his only official major league at-bat in September 1963. Gleason appeared in seven games as a pinch runner before that hit against the Philadelphia Phillies, but had his career derailed when he was wounded in action in Vietnam five years later. Gleason would earn a Purple Heart to go with a Silver Star.
Floyd’s final chapters are about his time in the Mexican League and the mysterious death of teammate Zelman Jack in Guasave, Mexico, in December 1971.
Floyd’s introduction to Mexican baseball came when a fan threw a pig bladder filled with the animal’s urine as he warmed up in the outfield. Most of the time, however, Floyd enjoyed the culture and the nightlife south of the border.
Jack, Floyd writes, “looked like a chiseled light-heavyweight fighter.”
Floyd writes about the circumstances surrounding Jack’s death, which have never been fully published. He also discusses his emotional meeting with Jack’s son in 2012.
“It took fifty years to finally get this story out there,” Floyd writes. “Forty years to think about it, and ten long years to write.”
The book does have some flaws. There are misspelled names and incorrect possessives. I know, the average reader may not notice the latter, but I am an old copy editor, and from my perspective, they could have been avoided.
Greg Goossen is spelled as “Goosen.” Mickey Mantle is referred to as “Micky” in a photo caption. Jimmie Foxx is spelled as “Jimmy.” Pedro Borbon is written as “Bourbon,” and Al Hrabosky is referred to as “Hrbowsky.”
And those possessives. Examples include “Angel’s” instead of Angels’, and “sport’s writer” instead of “sportwriter’s.”
Drives this OCD copy editor nuts.
Those flaws do not overshadow Floyd’s narrative. As an added bonus, he publishes correspondence he had with players he writes about. Their letters and memories give the book some added depth.
As he looked back on his career, Floyd recalled a conversation with his father, a major in the Army Air Force during World War II and a decorated combat B-17 pilot.
His father wanted to know why Floyd never made it to the majors.
“I had the numbers, and I had the ability, but I was just too immature and rebellious,” Floyd answered. “I literally talked and acted my way out of the big leagues. I didn’t understand the political nature of the game because I was a player, not a politician.”
Floyd is not alone. But he went on to interesting careers as a mail carrier, reporter, baseball coach, a collector for Dun & Bradstreet and musician (specializing in blues harmonica).
He has lived a fascinating life, and in Bush League Blues, Floyd tells a compelling story.