16th & Bryant

From 1951 through 1957, Billy was Visitors bat boy, Seals ball boy, and Visitors clubhouse man for the San Francisco Seals in America s finest ballpark at 16th & Bryant. Seals Stadium had everything: a glass backstop, indoor concessions, female ushers, high-quality sound and lighting, Jacuzzi hydro-massage tubs in the clubhouse, even a live band. Because the Bay Area had a second professional baseball franchise, the Oakland Oaks, there was a spirit of intense rivalry that regularly drew crowds across the bridge. He was a working-class kid from industrial West Berkeley, watched the times change and was changed by the times. 16th & Bryant is his hard-hitting coming-of-age story set during a pivotal time in American history. World War II was over yet the Cold War was driving battles in Korea, Hollywood, and the Senate. The color barrier in professional sports started to come down and people were marching for equal rights, yet we still weren t comfortable with one another. Professional baseball clubs reflected all of American society: black, white, Irish, Italian, Jewish, immigrants from Latin America, war vets, as well as farm-fresh country boys. Famed film-historian Ken Burns said the moment Jackie Robinson stepped beyond the chalk-lines at Ebbett s Field in 1947, Baseball became our national past-time. This clubhouse-dugout-view gives us a glimpse of just how America was changing even as the Seals struggled to survive. Throughout it all, Billy watched and learned and applied what Joe DiMaggio told him: Kid, you ll get a lot farther if you learn to say please.