Chapter 16
Dodgers Going to the World Series?
We found the back road that we couldn’t find the night before. And good thing we’d waited ‘til daylight. It was treacherous! On occasion just dirt or gravel. Hundred-and-twenty-degree hairpin curves. Up-hill and down. Was this really the way to Muir Beach?
When we arrived at Rick’s place, he told us that when we left – heading south – we could take the paved road US 101, but coming from the north he had given us the most direct, scenic, albeit slow route. “Glad you waited ‘til daybreak,” he said, inviting us to set up camp in his orange grove, among the apricot, pecan, and macadamia nut trees. “Those craggy ledges are dangerous at night and beautiful in the daytime.”
Rick looked like the baseball player he was, a strapping six-footer with huge hands, and a tanned body that looked good in shorts. After some introductions, Rick suggested we head into town. Skip and a couple of us got in his Ford 150 and the rest followed in the Land Yacht.
Avila Beach might be the most beautiful, unheralded beach in the entire State of California. It’s south-facing, looking out to the sea towards Santa Monica and L.A. The mid-day sun was blazing down as we took up benches on the boardwalk. Rick said if any of us were early risers there’s always a beautiful sunrise over the jagged peaks to the left; and to the right, “. . . see that ledge in the distance, if you walk down the beach at sunset you’ll see it’s almost like Lands End – any of you ever been there? – with water flowing under the ledge and the sun sets right there at certain times of the year.”
The town of Muir Beach (if you’d call it a town – it’s really just a two-block stretch of shops) was mostly quiet with just a few strollers and shoppers. There were a half-dozen people hanging out by the coffee shop, so we went there, and started telling ex-major leaguer Rick about our trip so far. He said he preferred the quiet and solitude of his nursery. When Rick and Skip started talking baseball, most of us decided to head back and maybe get in a nap. Before we left, Rick did tell a good baseball story:
“So the Dodgers always have a Fan Appreciation Night at the end of the year – you know how the Dodgers got their name? Before they moved to L.A. they were the Brooklyn Dodgers – kids had to dodge street cars to play ball. At any rate, one of my Dodger teammates, Stony we called him, was the pitchman for Midas Muffler, and was at the microphone, on the mound, after the game to pull the winning ticket from his hat to see which fan won the car – I think it was a Chevy Camero that year – and the guy who won comes out of the stands to get the keys, and says to Stony with 50,000 fans listening, ‘Guess you know where I’ll take it when it needs a new muffler, right Stony?’ And Stony goes, ‘huhh?’ ”
“That’s ballplayers for you,” Patty said.
We spent a quiet night at Rick’s. He had a good video collection. Some of us enjoyed re-watching Jack Morris pitch his 10-inning 7th-game shutout over Atlanta to win the 1991 World Series. When we left for L.A. the next morning, Rick said he could get tickets if the Dodgers made it to the World Series, all of us blithely unawares of a conversation in Vancouver concerning a plot to blow–up that Dodgers ballpark.