One of the many people to show up at Guido Garcia's home in Fullerton for conversation and to play guitar and sing was baseball great and future hall of famer Maury Wills (center) shown here with Grady Little and Mariano Duncan.
By Allen Bacon, BOSCO Fullerton
Each year when it's baseball season and it's the middle of summer in my hometown of Fullerton, I always think of Guido Garcia...my high school best friend's dad. That's because Guido Garcia was the best at hitting fly balls.
Guido was from Havana, Cuba where the first thing they do when you are born is give you a baseball bat and a glove. Baseball is the national sport and the Cuban national team is always hovering around world champion status. A few years ago in the World Baseball Classic Cuba finished runnerup to Japan in a classic matchup at Petco Park in San Diego. They actually finished ahead of the USA team of Major Leaguers. But I digress.
Guido would take Grant and I over to the Richman Elementary School (in my hometown of Fullerton, CA) fields and start us out first with ground balls. Then it was time for fly ball practice. This guy hit the highest fly balls of anybody I had ever seen and that includes all the great coaches my son had while he played ball growing up. I'm not talking about just sky fly balls. This was more like he would hit the ball...Grant and I would run down to the local Tick Tock Market for an Icee and over to George's for a burger... watch the last inning of the Angel game on TV...come back to the field and the ball would still be in the air. He hit the ball so high he had to get clearance from the Fullerton Airport before he launched it. He hit the ball so high....well you get the idea .
Guido and his American born wife Roberta seemed like they knew everybody...famous people too. You never knew who would end up in the Garcia family living room. It was like watching an episode of the I Love Lucy Show. One day after Grant kicked my butt in one-on-one basketball as he routinely did, we went in for some ice water from the fridge and much to my surprise sitting on the couch was the single season stolen base leader from the Los Angeles Dodgers and NBC baseball analyst Maury Wills!
Maury was playing an acoustic Fender guitar and singing Fire and Rain on the Garcia couch. After he was finished I waited for the applause track. Maury was interesting to talk to and a gentleman. So after talking to Grant and I he picks up his new guitar that Guido picked up for him through Fender Guitar where Guido worked. He also picked up his martini that Guido mixed for him and he got in his car which I believe was an Olds 98 and drives off... drink in hand. I guess they didn't have an open container law at the time.
One time Guido took Grant and I to Chavez Ravine for a game between the Dodgers and Willie Stargell's Pittsburgh Pirates. I want to say here that I am very thankful to be alive because Guido would have this habit of talking and driving at the same time. Except he forgot he was driving the car. So Grant and I would be sitting in the back seat of his Nash Rambler and as we are cruising down the Santa Ana freeway, heading toward the stadium, he would turn around, put his arm on the back of the seat and have a conversation with me and Grant about the finer points of baseball.
If you have ever been to Dodger Stadium on game day, there is a long line of cars that go up the hill leading to the stadium..you are supposed to patiently wait in line and you will eventually get in. Guido wouldn't wait. He would flash that big smile of his and wave to the cars as he passed them in line and he went right to the front. His smile was like his press pass and almost everybody bought in. Some people gave him a special wave with their middle finger. Meantime, Grant and I were on the floorboard of the Nash Rambler dying from embarrassment.
But that wasn't the highlight of the evening and it wasn't even the fact that Big Daddy Willie Stargell hit it a ball clear out of Dodger Stadium that night. Sometime during the game...around the fifth inning Guido decided it was time to visit his friend...All time pinch hit leader (at the time) ....Manny Mota. So using the smile as his credit card again we go into the bowels of Dodger Stadium and into the clubhouse...during the game!!! And there is Manny Mota putting on his jock strap getting ready to come in when needed. So while Manny is wearing nothing but a jock strap he proceeds to have a conversation with us. Manny was great. He even showed us the dugout during the game where I saw Walt Alston pacing and Billy Russell trying to hide a cigarette from the coach.
Guido Garcia had one fault. He could be stubborn sometimes. He thought he could go off his blood pressure medicine without any problem. He calculated wrong. It cost him his life recently. Grant and I rarely get a chance to talk anymore...he's on the east coast out Boston way and I'm still in So Cal but our number one topic when we get together is his dad and the smile and the great stories and memories. He was a real life Ricky Ricardo.
And we're still waiting for the pop fly to come down.
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