Adams forever the beat of Cleveland baseball
- Brett Hiner: A Work in Progress
- February 8, 2023
- 489
Playing third base for the Kansas City Royals in T-ball was a big deal, mostly because when the hitter was able to make contact with the baseball, instead of swinging through the air just above it, the hit was usually accompanied with a “thunk” sound as the bat hit more of the rubber T than the snow-white ball perched on top.
More often than not, that sound meant a slow roller down the third baseline, a quick charge on the ball, a toss to first and the hope that, by some miracle, the ball would meet glove. My snapshots of those days recall the first base coach dodging more errant throws than actual outs being called. That is probably why my baseball-playing days did not last much past second or third grade, yet my passion for the sport only grew.
We must remember, in those summer days of the late ‘70s and ‘80s, how awful the Cleveland Indians were. No one playing T-ball wanted to play for the local Indians, not because of the 6- or 7-year-old talent on the ball field, but because no one could name a player on the professional Indians roster worth their weight in gold. A few kids tossed out the name Buddy Bell but did so only because of the silly limericks they could make up with that last name.
Because of the roster of “no names,” Cleveland Indians players being pulled from a pack of baseball cards held all the excitement of being asked to pull weeds in our cracked driveway. So my search for boyhood idolization was not going to involve a local player. In the midst of Cleveland sports fandom misery, thankfully, the baseball gods decided to intercede.
On a trip to Nardini’s, a local candy/magazine shop that supplied my baseball card collecting addiction, I busted open a pack of Topps Baseball Cards, and there he was: George Brett, all-star third baseman for the Kansas City Royals. Wait. I played third base for the Kansas City Royals. My first name is Brett, and his last name is Brett. Ah, baseball symmetry.
It was the beginning of many years of trips to flea markets, garage sales, card shows, trading with friends and begging for 30 cents (per pack) every time my parents left the house, all in a quest to amass the ultimate George Brett card collection. At the time I had no idea he would go on to become a first ballot hall of famer and the person ESPN would name the 43rd best baseball player of all time.
He also is the reason most of our summer trips to Municipal Stadium coincided with the Royals being in town. On one particularly beautiful day in 1987, I saw a fight (Royal Danny Jackson throwing at Indian Brett Butler’s head), an athletic wonder playing left field (Bo Jackson) and managed an autograph from my childhood idol, ole George Brett himself. While not in actual value, it is my most prized baseball card because he touched it.
Interestingly enough, aside from the autograph, what I most remember about that game was seeing some guy, way out in the center-field bleachers, banging incessantly on a bass drum. He was alone, and for as far away as he was, he may as well have been watching the game on a boat in the middle of Lake Erie. Yet there he was, beating in impressive metronome every time an Indians player reached second base.
Much to my chagrin, it was the sound that reverberated through my head as the Indians mounted a ninth-inning walk-off comeback off the bat of Cory Snyder. I left the ball park with a headache and, regardless of my young age, the usual harassment one experiences in Cleveland when wearing apparel supporting the opposition.
Yet I would later pinpoint that game as the moment when my loyalties began to shift a bit. George was reaching the latter part of his career and was relegated to DH, and Cleveland sports, in the late ‘80s, were finally giving fans something to cheer about in the form of the Browns and Cavs. Believers, like John Adams banging his drum in front of an impressionable kid, knew the Indians could not be far behind.
I had the pleasure of meeting John Adams once at a TribeFest fan celebration. We spoke briefly, but not about the state of the Indians, overcoming difficult playoff losses or even drumming, but of this game and what it meant for me to see him alone in the bleachers, his drum ringing in the cavernous stadium, never seeming to lose belief. I then had him sign his bobblehead likeness, which he did with a smile that seemed to say, “I can’t believe they made me a bobblehead.”
Under his name he wrote “boom, boom.” I felt like a little kid again, standing in front of his boyhood hero.
In the deserved life celebrations surely to come for him this baseball season, I think John Adams’ legacy will be this: He missed only 45 games from Aug. 24, 1973, through the 2019 season, when his health complications began. Think about that for a moment: 46 years of those cold and sometimes snowy Aprils, the stagnant heat of Northeastern Ohio Augusts, the drizzly Octobers and midge-infested Julys, not to mention the number of times he lugged his 26-inch bass drum to the ball park and sat through the uncertainty of rain delays.
On Oct. 2, 1993, he beat his drum until the very last fan left the ball park at Municipal Stadium’s final game.
As much as I loved George Brett in my youth, my 50-year-old self realizes my idolization may have been misplaced; it should have belonged to the mustached fan whose loyalty and passion was always focused on the name on the front of the jersey, never on the back. With his humble and charitable ways, he was the definition of a sports fan.
And with Adams’ recent death, the park itself will forever be a little quieter, but his drumming pulse will forever be the heartbeat of a stadium and its fans.
Brett Hiner is an English/language arts teacher at Wooster High School, where he also serves as the yearbook advisor and Drama Club advisor/director. If he’s not at work or doing something work related, he is typically annoying his children and/or wife. He can be emailed at workinprogressWWN@gmail.com.