Player Profile #4- Johnny Bartlett

Well, its raining, and there is little chance of a game this week, so I reckoned on getting a few more stories told while we watch the water fall....

Johnny Bartlett. I knew him long before I met him. Circular commentary I know, but its true. I first heard of Johnny when I moved to the city, in 1995, as an impressionable 17 year old, out of the grips of small town. I had a cousin and a brother in the City who helped me get acquainted and showed me what they thought was cool. Ok, some of it was....Johnny was the lead guitar player for the Phantom Surfers, known as Big Hand, a handle given I can only imagine, for his chops with the Jazzmaster. My cousin Mike Lavella had started a magazine dedicated to muscle cars and punk rock, called Gearhead, (surprisingly still in business, Issue #18 out this month I think) and the Phantom Surfers were on his top 10 bands at the time, along with Gas Huffer and The fastbacks. We would sit and listen to P.S. records while stuffing magazines in protective plastic (hey he provided beer).

Anyway, I had this appreciation for a guy who played awesome guitar, and wore a lone ranger mask at concerts, pretty sweet. My personal favorite band at the time was The Pogues ( I know, join the idiot masses), The Breeders (ah Kim Deal) and Tom Waits (that should get a little street cred back) but I digress.

Oh, PS., I used to also really enjoy going to The Go-nuts shows- SNACK ROCK! (just to bring the whole thing full circle), and Skankin' Pickle concerts.....so now you can all whip the hell out of me with that piece of info.

On a seemingly separate topic, my brother took over the cousins apartment in the Tenderloin, on Leavenworth, and since I was underage, we had to frequent the diviest bars possible to get service. Some of my personal favorites were the Hunter, Harringtons (where a drunk horse jockey invited us to the track to watch him race, and an hour later was picking a fight with me), Geary Club (smallest bar ever), and the Brown Jug, where Ulysses held court. After drinking illicitly for a night, my brother and I would walk home and always we would stop to admire these bowling pin curtains that hung in a street level apartment on Post and Leavenworth. Good times.

Get to the fucking point, you might be saying, and here it is. It was Johnny's apartment, and I now have those curtains in my possession....A lot of lead up for not much payoff, I know, but I am trying to show how threaded life can be. I told this story to Johnny once at a game and the next week, there were the curtains, resplendent in all their glory. As an added bonus I found out that they had hung in the Phantom Surfers touring van, which I think is very cool. And he gave them to me, without a second thought, not too many people I know would do something like that without an agenda. But that's Johnny, all heart, and no agenda.

So not only is Johnny a great guy, and an amazing musician, but he's also great ball player. He's the closest we have to a five tool player, ( most of us are just tools, sorry, I made that joke last week, and needed to insert it somewhere). He can pitch (with a natural slider action) , hit (anything), throw (in the sun, in the wind), plays third like Brooks Robinson, and still has more get up and go than a lot of us. Johnny had a streak of three winning complete games last year, which has to be some sort of record for us, and no matter how I try, he always seems to get the best of me with the bat. I have my moments, but the guy is the best bad ball hitter I have seen, and since that's my bread and butter, I get burned more than I care to say. My regret is that because of his skills, he and I don't get to be on the same team too often, but in our game, the other team is still all your friends, so it works out.

Along with playing good, Johnny has perfected looking good. He wears real vintage wool uniforms, something I envy a great deal (but actually finding a XXL vintage uniform is like throwing a perfect game...blindfolded). He has also been responsible for getting the MBC shirts organized (the non-fading ones, sorry Girgus) which are the closest thing to a team uniform that we have so far, you can see them in the San Quentin photo.

And he's just a good guy. Doesn't argue calls, compliments the hitter, and he shows up regularly, which these days almost overshadows everything else.

Well that's the old rufus goofus for today, stay dry

S. Paige