Around the Horn

CHAPTER 1

You’d better come in now, Danny. Your dad will be home soon, and we have to eat dinner. Make sure you take those shoes off before you come in the house.

Five-year-old Dan Kristich heard his mother’s voice as he rounded first and headed for second base set in the middle of the expansive lawn that stretched from his house out toward the asphalt outfield of the street. As he reached second base, he pulled up with a little crow hop, put his head down, and kicked at the base in disgust. His mother’s command had shattered his reverie, and another game winning line drive headed for the gap in right center was cut off by the fleet right fielder who, running full speed, dived to his right, speared the ball in the webbing of his glove, rolled in the outfield dust, jumped to his feet, and thrust his left arm skyward in exultation, leaving Dan alone at second base dejectedly kicking the bag.

His game winning hit had turned into the inning ending out. Apart from his baseball musings, there was nothing special about Dan Kristich. He simply was a boy who turned five in the summer of 1949 and who happened to live in Butte, Montana. Montana is the Big Sky Country whose wide expanses and seemingly unspoiled, natural landscape attract movie stars and entrepreneurs seeking escape from the glare of their celebrity status. The Montana of 1949 was no different from the Montana of any year in that it was the land of the Big Sky, but for all practical purposes in 1949 it still hadn’t been discovered. Gary Cooper, the famous movie star, had a home near Helena, the state capital just 65 miles north of Butte, but his movie colleagues and America’s entrepreneurial elite favored other, more appropriate retreats. In 1949 Eastern Montana, identified by its rolling hills and endless grazing land, still belonged to the homesteaders who first settled the land in the late 19th century. And Western Montana, marked by its rugged mountain ranges and expansive valleys, still belonged to the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, the capitalist conglomerate that dated back to the beginning of the 20th century.

Montana seemed like two states separated by the Continental Divide. Politically, Western Montana embraced the Democratic Party while Eastern Montana favored the Republican opposition. Western Montana, with its mining industry centered in Butte, had its gold rush heritage while Eastern Montana, with its farming industry centered in Billings, had its homesteading heritage. And very often the interests of the west and east appeared to be at odds with each other. The difference even went so far as to include religion with Western Montana being predominantly Catholic and Eastern Montana being predominantly Protestant. Montanans west and east of the Divide sang of their state as being the glory of the West and of all the states from coast to coast as being easily the best, but Western Montanans and Eastern Montanans lived by different interpretations of the same state. They looked out for their own interests under the standard of being Montanans. And, in truth, they were united only by the common experience—west or east—with freezing arctic winters and life-renewing spring thaws.

A mile high and nestled in the southwestern corner of the state just over the crest of the Continental Divide and Harding Way—US Highway 10—to the south, Butte stood alone as a part of Montana but essentially as a city—or maybe a country or at least a state—unto itself. If Western Montana was predominantly Catholic, Butte was almost exclusively so. Its nine Catholic Churches and nine Catholic grade schools, to accompany one Catholic boys’ high school and one Catholic girls’ high school, served its then 50,000 inhabitants. Western Montana may have belonged to the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, but Butte owed its very existence to Anaconda, or to The Company as Butte residents referred to it. If there was nothing special about five-year-old Dan Kristich, there was something special about Butte. As Montanans, both the western and eastern variety, were known to admit, there was Montana. But then there was Butte.

The Mining City, as its loyal sons and daughters affectionately identified it, was unique, as was anyone defined in its image. The mining culture brought neither homesteaders nor ranchers to Butte. Instead, it brought a variety of ethnic immigrants unmatched anywhere in the state, making Butte a New York City microcosm with all of its ethnic enclaves still thriving as late as 1949. The Italians settled in the what came to be known as Meaderville just off the eastern slope of the mining hill—the Butte Hill or simply The Hill—on the level ground sitting between that Hill and the East Ridge of the Rocky Mountains that stood guard over the city. A large portion of Butte’s Croatian population settled, amidst their Italian brethren, to the immediate east and south of Meaderville either in the McQueen Addition or in East Butte. Entering Butte from the northeast over Woodville Hill, U S Highway 12 split these two neighborhood communities and then hugged the southern slope of The Hill as it wound its way Uptown. The Italians and the Croatians had their differences, and, in the name of honor, they were known to shed blood in defense of their respective identities. Still, it wasn’t uncommon for a Croatian to refer to an Italian neighbor as a Wop or for an Italian to refer to a Croatian neighbor as a Bohunk. You just had to make sure that a smile accompanied the reference.

The Irish settled on The Hill itself north of Uptown and west of Meaderville, McQueen, and East Butte. Together with the Welsh and the Cornish contingents, they built distinct neighborhoods like Centerville, near the crest of The Hill, and Dublin Gulch, further downs-lope to the southeast but still situated in the heart of the copper mining country responsible for Butte’s economic vitality. Like their Italian and Croatian counterparts, the Irish, the Welsh, and the Cornish were quick to defend their honor and their territory. But, still, an Irishman could be a Bloody Harp and a Welshman or a Cornishman could be a Cousin Jack or a Cousin Jenny as long as the appropriate smile accompanied each form of address.

So, in such an environment young Dan Kristich could be a Bohunk and proud of it. He learned early that only two kinds of people inhabited the world—the Bohunks and those who wished they were. Of course, the Irish said the same thing about themselves as did the Welsh and the Cornish and the Italians. There was much chest beating in the Mining City, but never did a city display a greater sense of humor. Identity mattered; but the various ethnic identities—that included the Finns and their Serbian neighbors living in, and near, Fintown just southeast of Dublin Gulch looking toward the base of The Hill, but still north of the Uptown business district—eventually meshed into one, unifying identity. You were a Croatian or an Italian or a Welshman or a Cornishman or a Finn or a Serbian or an Irishman and you were a Montanan. But most of all you were an individual from Butte. You were an individual from the Mining City that was number one on your state license plate and number one in your heart.

And eight times out of ten you were Catholic. In the early days of Butte the discovery of gold deposits, then of silver and finally of copper, that would bring the mining camp a sense of permanence, brought with it more than enough vice to serve its predominantly male population. The Catholic Church wasn’t far behind, and its altar religion proved to be remarkably tolerant—in marked contrast to the Protestant pulpit religion that dominated Eastern Montana, with isolated Catholic influence, and even in contrast to the Catholic altar religion as it emerged in related Western Montana cities. Butte’s unique expression of Catholic, altar religion seemed to take root in the already established vice, and whorehouses, bars, and churches existed side by side in balance with one another with none of them ever locking their doors. To be pious or righteous, of the Catholic or Protestant variety, was to be alienated in Butte. But to be religious, of either variety, was to be socially defined in the image of the Mining City—a unique image built on individuality and humility accompanied by the requisite honor and temperance.

By 1949 Dan Kristich’s mother and father had settled south of The Hill, on Aberdeen Street amidst the green grass and expanse of The Flat. But they still lived within clear view of the mines’ headframes, or gallows frames—gallus frames to Butte residents—through which ran the steel cables attached to the cages that raised and lowered the miners from and to the shafts they had carved and blasted into the contours of the volcanic hill that gave Butte its name. Mining necessarily produces tailings, or slag, as a result of the accompanying smelting process, and in the early years of the copper mining industry—before the construction of the smelter in the city of Anaconda, 26 miles to the west—Butte was a city of smoke stacks. The smelting operations had left a legacy of murky yellow and dull, black slag heaps surrounding the gallus frames that identified the mines that, in turn, identified the clustered neighborhoods of the Butte Hill. The immediate picture of Butte, framed by The Hill dominated by its black iron gallus frames and murky yellow and dull black slag heaps, was that of a land of waste. But to the patient observer—Dan Kristich’s mother and father, for example—tempered by years of experience with Butte’s unique expression of Catholic altar religion, this obvious land of waste hardly proved to be a Waste Land.

If, at the age of five, Dan as yet had no need for his parents’ patience, he did have need for obedience. And after his initial kick of disgust, he obeyed his mother’s shattering command. Instead of walking down the grass in response, however, he walked down the long, narrow sidewalk that split the basepath between first and second base of his front yard diamond. He liked to listen to the rhythmic clatter his steel-spiked shoes hammered out on the hard concrete. When he reached the house, he sat on the bottom step of the front porch and took off the steel-spiked baseball shoes, revealing his own rubber-soled, play shoes. He clapped the spiked soles together, jarring loose any grass or dirt that might be caked around the steel spikes, stood up, grasped the heels of the spiked shoes with the thumb, forefinger, and middle finger of his right hand, and walked noiselessly up the porch steps and into the house.

CHAPTER 2

Put your dad’s shoes away, Danny, his mother said as he walked into the house. Okay, Dan replied.

Anne Kristich, the former Anne Crnich but originally Anne Musich, was 35 years old now and had been married to Pete Kristich for 12 years. Unlike her husband, Anne wasn’t a Butte native. Instead, she was born in Eastern Montana in Roundup only 50 miles north of Billings in the heart of homestead country. Her Croatian immigrant parents left the Old Country, as Dan’s grandmother always referred to it, in 1908 in search of a fresh start in America. And it wasn’t an easy leap from Zagreb, the Croatian capital, to a dusty, Eastern Montana cattle and farming town that happened to sit atop rich coal deposits left over from the dinosaur age. But Anne’s immigrant mother and father were hardy people sustained by the strength of their dreams and by the promise of their Roman Catholic altar religion.

Anne may never have moved to Butte, and may never have met Pete Kristich, if her father hadn’t been killed in a mine cave-in when she was only three years old, leaving her mother alone with four children and with little choice but to remarry. Still not fluent in English and isolated on the expansive Eastern Montana prairie, Anne’s mother had neither the luxury nor the freedom to pursue love as a pre-requisite for marriage. If she’d had that freedom, chances are she may not have married Fred Crnich, an Old Country acquaintance of her husband, who had preceded her and Tony Musich to America and who had ended up working in the coal mines near Cle Elum, Washington, on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains 700 miles west of Roundup. Fred heard of Tony’s death through the Croatian immigrant network, and in response he set out for the Eastern Montana coal country with designs on Tony’s widow, Draga. Isolated and vulnerable, Draga Musich soon became Draga Crnich.

Her dream may have died with her husband, but her courage and resolve did not. Thus Anne’s mother endured her marriage to Fred who proved to lack the vitality that created Draga and Tony’s shared dream. Finally, Fred’s lack of economic responsibility, together with the mechanization of Roundup’s coal mines, led them to Butte—and work in the copper mines—in 1929 when Anne was 15. Her oldest brother and her recently married older sister remained behind in Roundup; but the rest of the family, three girls and two boys, headed for Butte where the youngest daughter—and last child—was born two days after their arrival. Immigrant promise didn’t accompany the move to Butte, and it took all the majesty and magic her Roman Catholic altar religion had to offer to enable Anne’s mother to endure and prevail. By 1949 Fred Crnich was a retired contract miner whose leathery face reflected years of hard work and just as many years of hard drinking. And his wife, Draga, remained the strength of the family and the substance that held it together. At the age of five Dan Kristich knew very little about either hard work or hard drinking, and he knew even less about age. But the weathered faces of his grandmother and grandfather left a lasting impression. He looked at both his grandparents with wonder and respect, and when he found himself lucky enough to be in their presence, he learned to listen.

The Crnichs found their way to East Butte where the eight of them lived in a four room house with an outhouse and no hot water until 1936 when they moved Uptown to East Granite Street, on the western edge of Fintown, and into a brick duplex equipped with three bedrooms, hot water, and indoor plumbing. Anne, who didn’t attend school beyond the eighth grade she completed in Roundup where she was awarded the Rotary Club medal for being the outstanding student in Musselshell County, lived with the family on East Granite until March of 1937 when she married Pete Kristich who had pursued and courted her for three of her seven years in East Butte. And now, 12 years later, she and Pete had no car and few other luxuries. But they did own a three room house equipped with hot water and indoor plumbing.

The white, frame house, with its pane-windowed and red-trimmed front porch extending from three rooms sitting behind it, just barely fit the four of them. Dan and his nine-year-old sister, Judy, slept on the fold-out couch in the living room to the left of the kitchen set in the middle of the house. Anne and Pete’s bedroom, along with the showerless bathroom built off it, filled most of the east end of the house that, taken as a whole, crowded the narrow alley that allowed for the passage of neighbors’ cars and city garbage trucks. Following his mother’s directions, Dan walked through the kitchen toward his parents’ bedroom and into the closet built into the house’s northeast corner to the right of the bathroom. As always, he found his dad’s baseball uniform neatly folded and lying on the floor at the back of the closet with the white jersey revealing the red trim that outlined the neck and decorated the button-down front. On the left side of the jersey Dan could see the emblem of the South Side Athletic Club—the shape of a diamond with the letters SAC stitched against a red background. He placed the spiked shoes on the closet floor to the left of the uniform where they belonged, studied the white jersey, and traced the red trim and the diamond shaped emblem with the fingers of his right hand before he walked back into the kitchen to join his mother and sister.

What time is the game tonight? he asked as he sat down at the kitchen table to eat his dinner of hamburger patties and mashed potatoes and gravy.

The kitchen, with its off-white walls and red and black checked linoleum floor, was small but not cramped. An electric range and refrigerator, both 1937 vintage, sat along the east wall, and Dan took his place at a white metal and chrome-legged dining table that extended into the room from the west wall between the kitchen counter and the gas heat register. A comfortable space separated the end of the table from the electric range, but the person sitting at the head of the table had easy access to the contents of the refrigerator and the cupboards that sat underneath the countertop to the right of the kitchen sink.

Six-thirty as usual, Dan’s mother answered, and we want to be there early. South Side never has won the Copper League pennant, but if they can beat the Silver Bow Parks tonight, they’ll do it. This looks like their year with your dad, Kenny Sykes, Babe Krilich, Jim Mahoney, and all the others. If they don’t win tonight, they’ll win tomorrow night or the next night. But they’d like to win their third straight tonight to end it all and start their celebration.

Who’s pitching for us? Judy asked.

Your dad told me Elton Vanderberg, Anne answered. And I think ‘Lefty’ Yerkich is pitching for Parks.

I don’t know if I trust Vanderberg, Judy said between bites of her dinner. He’s not our best pitcher. I think we’re going to have to score a lot of runs to win tonight and sweep the series.

Is Dad going to start tonight? Dan asked, looking up from his mashed potatoes.

I don’t know, Danny, Anne answered, not looking up from her own hamburger patty. We’ll just have to wait and see. You’d better eat your dinner now.

Is Kenny Sykes going to start? Dan persisted.

He’d better, Judy quickly interjected. He’s the best player we have. I hope he and Dad both start.

We’ll just have to wait and see, Anne said, trying to look directly at Dan and Judy. Your dad has been playing baseball in Butte for a long time, and Kenny is just getting started. Sometimes he can’t make it down from Helena, but I doubt if he’d miss this game. Eat your dinner now, she added. Your dad will be home soon, and we have to be at Clark Park by five-thirty.

Well, I just hope they both start, Judy said as she obeyed her mother and turned her attention to her hamburger patty and mashed potatoes.

Me, too, Dan added as he followed his sister’s lead and returned to eating his dinner.

Anne continued with her dinner as well, but her thoughts lay elsewhere. Her formal education may have ended in Roundup with the eighth grade and her Rotary Club medal, but she remained thoughtful and inquisitive. What formal education she had only served to awaken her sense of wonder that, at 35, remained very much alive. She always found Butte fascinating, with its variety of ethnic identities and vital neighborhoods that served to both preserve and expand those same identities. She had learned to laugh at the city’s toleration of vice and to marvel at the non-stop celebration of natural life that made the Mining City a