I am through reading lists of MVPs who make millions endorsing tennis shoes, golf balls and baseball mitts.
They aren't my heroes in the first place. You never heard of my heroes, but they mean more to me than Magic Johnson, A-Rod and Sonny Sixkiller put together!
My first hero was a little known sandlot mud bowl football player, Russ (Little Spud Turkey Neck) Robinson my 13 year old big brother, Russell. How did he reach hero status with me?
Well, first, he kept me from being beat up by all the girls on our block but he also once ran like a thief through the Clinton Street Altar Boy's team back in 1935 on a rainy Saturday morning on the old Commerce High field in Portland. Just once. We got beat 40 to zip.
I was on that team because I had copper-toed shoes. My dad, tired of replacing my boots had metal caps put on the toes. Russell and I always rode two up on my bike and Russ drove and pedalled while I sat on the little rear fender behind him dragging my feet.
So they let me do all the kick-offs.
Nobody had uniforms but the Breidenstein brothers were rich and had cotton shoulder pads.
The Altar Boys had a speedy little runner named Sammy Capatosti who later gained star status at Commerce after his folks shortened the name to Tosti. Sammy, besides running circles around us had a gorgeous sister named Mariana, who dazzled me with her dark eyes at a Halloween party and gave me my first big smooch in the hall closet. But she did not play football so Sammy was my second great hero,
My third was a boy named Donny Kirsch. He was my age and there were probably 200 of us at the Batboy selection for the Portland Beavers at the now long gone Vaughn Street stadium.
We all had a chance to show off our baseball skills and win the batboy for a season honors. I was in the group of shortstops and so was Donny.
My chance went up in smoke when the first bounding ball hit me in the forehead. Donny impressed everybody with a flawless performance and won it easily. He later went on to play for the Oregon Ducks and became their legendary coach.
He would have been my favorite hero but I never met his sister.
Jerry may be reached at publisher@robinsonnews.com
