A Hall of Fame Fan

If fans were inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, my father would have a place of honor somewhere between Sandy Koufax and Willie Mays! No less a place would be worthy enough or grand enough to hold his love of the game.

Stories about my father’s boyishly eager enthusiasm have gained a solid place in my extended family lore. For years, Petra, a long-time family friend who only saw my dad in the summer ― baseball season ― thought he had grown deaf. Why else would he always be wearing an ear bud whose cord ran into a device that he carried in his shirt’s chest pocket? The device must surely be an aid to help him hear more clearly . . . pobresito, Ale. She kindly adopted the habit of speaking to him more loudly until someone questioned her about it. “No," she was told, "that’s not a hearing aid! It’s a transistor radio! He’s listening to the Dodger game!”

Not many people know that my dad also played ball. During the 30s and 40s, there were many Mexican / Mexican American baseball teams throughout Southern California.

Pictured here is my dad’s team sponsored by Rancho Sespe.

STANDING (L > R): Unknown, John Castorena, Alex Davis (Dad), ___ Catarino (the Manager), Chavelo Sanchez, Primitivo Calles, Henry Garcia, David Cervantez (stats). KNEELING (L > R): Unknown, unknown, __ Cota, Henry Ibarra, “Loco” Carrillo, Gilbert Ozuna.

I don’t have any names for the following photos nor

do I know exactly where this field was. But I do recognize the silhouette of the hills in the background. They look like home to me.

The agile batter (BELOW) spreads his wings and flies his butt out to avoid an inside pitch. I can almost hear the stinging slap of the ball as the leaning catcher grabs it.

The curly-haired, handsome man posed with this team of young women ball players is my dad. He was their coach. Like so many other photos in my mom’s collection, the back of this one had no names. But there is one face that I recognize.

She wasn’t the best player on the team – not even close. My dad said when he did allow her to play, he would put her in right field, the field that seldom got any hits. There, she was less likely to cause any errors. Now, I don’t want you to feel sorry for her. He liked her well enough. In fact, my twenty-something dad had an eye for this mid-teen player. But he was also a gentleman. He waited until my mom (you already guessed, right?) was 18 before he let his interest be known. My mom, Carmen, is the first one standing on the left.

She may not have been a great player but, if there was a Hall of Fame for love stories that began on a baseball diamond, this one, that evolved into a fifty-seven year marriage, would have a place of honor somewhere between Sandy Koufax and Willie Mays.

Summer in Sespe - 1957

While kids “in town” enjoyed their summers by spending hours at the Plunge, an outdoor, in-ground swimming pool on the Fillmore High School campus, my family came up with our own way to keep cool.

A tina (tee-nah), a galvanized metal tub, was a perfect portable, easy-to-maintain (no need to hire a pool service) source of cool on a tamale hot summer day in the Ranch.

(L > R) My brother, Adrian, (age 8), me (age 4) and my big brother, Charlie (age 14) are in the back yard of our home, House #130. The diagonal lines that rake the upper part of the photo are clothes lines that ran from the side of our neighbor’s garage (seen) to our garage.

It wasn’t unusual for my mom to hang clothes in the relative cool of the morning and have them become dry, stiff and smelling wonderfully fresh in just a few short hours.

Before the summer was over that year, my parents splurged and bought a “real” pool! It made quite a stir in the neighborhood.

The cold, garden hose water would raise goose flesh and wrinkle hands & feet but we didn't care. We would keep refilling the pool and stay as long as they would let us. Even though our “swimming pools“ may have been just the garden hose, a sprinkler to run through, a tina or a sheet of heavy-duty plastic draped over a metal frame, every photo I have of us shows faces of children who really didn’t seem to mind that they weren’t at the Plunge with all the kids in town. We look happy and cool.

Photo on the Right: (L > R) Adrian, me & my cousin, David Ramirez (age 4).

BELOW: (Front L > R) My cousin, Nick Robles (age 6); my aunt, Anita Ramirez (age 9); my brother, Adrian; (Back L > R) me, my cousin, David, my cousin, Tenchi Robles (age 8).

Parma, Idaho -- 1929

Before settling in Rancho Sespe, my grandparents lived a migrant farm workers’ life style. In the summer of 1929, they left California to travel to Idaho where peas waited to be harvested. At age twenty-eight, Pablo Ramirez, my grandfather, and his twenty-one year old wife, my grandma Lupe, had 3 children and a fourth one on the way.

In the photo above you’ll see Pablo in the window of a Ford Model T Centerdoor Sedan. It was the first “family” car that Ford made. It required a good half of a crank to get it started. Standing outside of the car is Senor Dolores Rodriquez. The Rodriquez Family were traveling companions on this arduous journey.


On that day, July 13, 1929, in Parma Idaho, the photographer also gathered what may have been all the children.
(L > R) Carmen Dolores Ramirez (my mother, age 6), Esther Ramirez (my aunt, age 2),Henry Rodriquez, John Torres, Richard Rodriquez, Raul Ramirez (my uncle, age 4), Virginia Rodriquez, & Vera Rodriquez. In the car, Aurora Rodriquez. That’s 5 Rodriquez kids, 3 Ramirez kids and a Torres. I’m guessing that the Torres family was also part of the caravan.

I can only imagine what it must have been like to travel over 800 miles from Southern California to Idaho in the heat of summer in cars that lacked the modern conveniences we now take for granted like shock absorbers, engines that don’t routinely over heat & air conditioning over roads that may have been rutted and rough more often than smooth and wide.

This was the last migrant farm worker trip that the young Ramirez family was to make. Soon after this, the families learned about Rancho Sespe. My extended family had a continuous presence in the Ranch until 1979 when it was sold to Newport Development Company whose plan to mechanize motivated a sweeping lay-off of workers.

Just for fun I’ve also included a link to a video from Ford Motor Company about their production of the Model T: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4KrIMZpwCY

She Smelled Like Lemons

My mother bent down and lifted me up off the kitchen floor. She was home and she smelled like lemons.

Since I was around 7 months old, I would spend my weekdays at my grandmother’s house (# 129). My mother, Carmen, would rise early enough to get my two older brothers and me ready to go next door to grandma’s house and still get to work by 7:30 a.m.

Like many women who lived in Rancho Sespe, Mom worked at the Sunkist Lemon Packing House. She would spend her day standing beside a conveyor belt as thousands of aromatic lemons bobbled along beside her.

This photograph was taken in 1953, the year I was born. My 30 year old mother is the second woman from the left. All the women on this line were responsible for grading the lemons after they had been washed. I noticed that Mom’s cart and another behind hers were turned at an angle that displays the “Gold Stripe” label. This, along with the "Sunday best" outfits the women were wearing instead of "work clothes," makes me think they had advance notice about the promotional photography that would take place that day.

The “Gold Stripe” was only used for top grade fruit. Its design was conceived by Eudora Hull Spaulding whose father deeded her the land in 1895. If you're questioning the presence of a rooster on a citrus and cattle ranch label, here's the story. During a visit to Chicago, she was so taken by a local hotel’s coat of arms bearing a white rooster that she decided to have one put onto her Rancho Sespe label. (Source: “100 Year History of Rancho Sespe 1888 to 1988,” Kenneth K. Glenn) In addition to the gold stripe, my research also revealed that there was a silver, blue, green, orange and red version. Each stood for a different grade of fruit.

Four Generations in Rancho Sespe

Every November the Los Padrinos Club of the St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Fillmore organized the BLACK & WHITE BALL. It may have been the biggest fundraiser of the year. Both my mother and father were involved in activities throughout the year but this one always had a buzz to it. Not that selling tamales after Sunday mass wasn’t important, it’s just that a chile-stained apron couldn’t raise the same level of anticipation and excitement that a rental tux or a new dress could.

In this picture my older brother , Charlie, may have been going to his first BLACK & WHITE BALL. The coming together of the formal event and an infrequent visit from my great-grandmother from Los Angeles inspired those present to snap a four-generation picture. Standing (L >R): Carlos Jesus Davis, son of Carmen Ramirez Davis, daughter of (sitting L>R) Pablo Ramirez, Sr., son of Felipa Rangel Ramirez. This photo may have been taken in 1960 or ’61.