Rodger Brown, 78, still remembers the signs.
Sitting across from me at the Santa Maria Historical Society Museum, Brown re-enacts them with his hands, just like his third-base coach did to him 60 years ago. Brown shows bunt. Then he shows steal. He goes through the signs without hesitation, like they are engrained in his memory.
He can also list off how many home runs he hit for the Santa Maria Indians. In his inaugural start with the semi-pro team in 1956, Brown smacked two homers and had a double. He hit another homer the very next game.
“I was filling in for the injured starting catcher and batting eighth,” Brown recalled. “The next game, the coach moved me up to sixth. The game after, I was batting clean-up. I hit clean-up for the next eight years.”
The four of us—Brown, fellow Indians legend Ike Simas, and Santa Maria Valley Sports History Club member Eddie Navarro—are seated in the “sports corner” of the museum, where Navarro has set up a fascinating display dedicated to Santa Maria sports history.
Black-and-white photos, old jerseys and equipment, newspaper clippings, and trophies line the walls—artifacts of the valley that the men treasure. The display is seasonal, so, right now, it’s baseball themed.
Brown and Simas needn’t much prompting to carry on a conversation about their heydays. The people, the games, the stories, the journeys, and their deep love for the community all bubble to the surface with a youthful jubilance.
When the Santa Maria Indians first formed as a semi-professional team in the 1940s, Simas, a born-and-raised Santa Marian, was one of the founding members. Simas talked about the tremendous excitement surrounding baseball at the time and how most of the city’s best ballplayers weren’t actually around to play because they were serving in WWII. Simas is 90 today, but he doesn’t look or act it.
“I should have written a book,” Simas laughs.
About a decade after Simas started with the Indians, Brown came along from Ohio. Brown migrated to the area after high school with legendary coach Bill Bertka, who had accepted the basketball coaching job at Allan Hancock College. Bertka recruited a sizeable group of Ohio All-American athletes to attend and play sports at Hancock College.
Brown howls when he recounts his cross-country car trip with the Bertka family: how Bertka “warned” them about California girls and how he miraculously turned his only $20 into $200 at a casino in Nevada.
“I didn’t know what to expect coming to California,” Brown chuckled.
Brown and Simas will share these stories, and more, with the community at this month’s Valley Speaks on Aug. 13 in the Santa Maria Library at 11 a.m.
“They get a twinkle in their eyes talking about their day,” said Navarro, who reached out to the Sun for this story.
For Navarro, the Valley Speaks event and his museum display are valuable opportunities to talk to the community about Santa Maria’s rich athletic history and culture.
“I love showing these guys off,” Navarro said. “We hope to keep the sports history alive in the community, especially with the kids. I try to tell the local kids today, ‘One of these days, you guys will be history. You’re making history right now.’”
And Navarro is truly devoted to the cause. He and fellow sports history club members Ernie Carol, Al Ramos, and Joe Talaugon recently helped with the unveiling of the Guadalupe Sports Hall at the town’s Cultural Arts Center.
Navarro’s ultimate dream is to spearhead a stand-alone Santa Maria Sports History Museum. That’s still a work-in-progress. He extends an offer to any senior athlete to dig through their garage and find the gems of their past.
“Whenever we can put up displays of any sports, we’ll go set it up,” Navarro said. “We want to keep these guys alive.”
Send your local sports news to Peter Johnson at pjohnson@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Aug 11-18, 2016.