Three Good Men

In November, a ballplayer and a good man - Bernie Gerl - passed away at age 94.  He was the last remaining survivor of a bus crash in 1948 involving the minor league baseball team Duluth Dukes. Since I wrote a novel on the 1946 bus crash of the Spokane Indians team - called "Until the End of the Ninth" - I was well familiar with the 1948 Dukes, and Bernie, for having suffered a similar fate - a fate nobody wants to have. I never met Bernie but I'm a big fan, and learned about him through the years via his son Chuck (we're friends on Facebook). 

When I heard of Bernie's passing, I knew I wanted to write a remembrance for him.

Then in December, Tommy Lasorda passed away at age 93.  His fame is already known. But his connection to the Spokane Indians team, where he managed from 1969 through 1971, is not as well known (though the 1970 team is considered by many baseball scholars to be the best minor league team at the time) . Nor is it well known - unless you have a copy of my baseball novel - that he gave us an endorsement for that book, saying, "This is amazing book. It's a must for any baseball fan."

When I heard of his passing, I knew I wanted to write a remembrance for him. I started to think about how to intertwine a blog post about Bernie Gerl and Tommy Lasorda.

Then in January, Henry Aaron passed away  at age 86.  Just like Tommy Lasorda, his fame is already known. Just like Tommy Lasorda, his connection to the Spokane Indians team - through his minor league manager Ben Geraghty, a survivor of the 1946 bus crash - is not so well known. Not known by anyone is how, with a finally-ready screenplay, I was (nervously) getting ready to try to contact Henry Aaron in 2021 about this story I'd written that included Ben Geraghty - one of his mentors.

Three months. Three men. I had to write about Henry Aaron too - a hero of mine, through the years. All three of them were. But I hadn't yet written my remembrance of any of them. Now there were three. It overwhelmed me, to think of how to do right by each one, and now all three, now all at the same time.

So rather than one post, I've made three separate ones - for Bernie Gerl, Tommy Lasorda, and Henry Aaron - and then this post, to unify.  

They are unified in my mind - inextricably intertwined with Spokane's baseball men of 1946.  

They are unified through each other. Bernie Gerl caught for the Dukes in 1952, when Henry Aaron played for the Eau Claire Bears. Henry Aaron became the Home Run King on April 8, 1974 against the Dodgers, when Tommy Lasorda was the third base coach. (As Aaron rounded the bases, he shook hands with Dodgers infielders Davey Lopes and Bill Russell, who both played for that 1970 Spokane team).

And they are unified by a love for the game. Baseball lives on in our hearts, through them.  

      Bernie Gerl, 1953                              Henry Aaron, 4/8/1974                           Tommy Lasorda, 1970    .