Dear Hearts,
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| Lefty with Mary Fran, early 1950s |
July 7th is the 63rd anniversary of the death of John Jeremiah "Lefty" Sullivan, our patriarch. He was the first of the Ui Suilleabhain Beare of Limerick to be born in America, and all the boys named Sullivan have his Y-chromosome. I never had the chance to meet Lefty, but Jim offers his memories and research very eloquently:
He was about 5' 10 1/2" tall, about 180 lb., and his shoulders were so wide that he just barely got through the door. Even when he was in his last year, he was graceful as a cat. We used to go for walks around the block and talk baseball and they are among my most treasured memories. He pitched to us, he gave me my first catcher's mitt. He used to come to my Little League games and teach hitting--he was a great hitter for a pitcher. When we were babies, he played a baseball game with us on the living room floor, "Roll the Ball."
He didn't want any of us to be left-handed, (even though five out of Big Sully's nine kids are lefties!) and he said the world was right-handed and that you had to be a ballet dancer as a left-hander to achieve any grace--but he did.
He forced himself to write with his right hand, and developed beautiful, flowing, neat penmanship that would have made the nuns proud. He was always as neat and well-groomed, as well turned-out as he could be. Shiny shoes, clean fingernails, clean shaven and hair combed. Shirt and tie, with a Baseball Anonymous tie-pin. He spoke very gently. He always called us little ones "sky-gacks," a Gaelic word of obscure origin, meaning little birdies or goosies, I think. Someone has found the origin, but I can't place it.
He was the youngest of six, second brother, son of Jeremiah Barry O’Sullivan from Limerick, and Anna Meany from Clare. He had a full scholarship to play football at Notre Dame--he was a split end, today's wide receiver--but he turned it down to sign with the White Sox in about 1911. His father, Jeremiah, never forgave him. Jeremiah always said that education and college degrees were the true measure of success. He didn't care that Lefty was born to throw a baseball. He went to the farm teams for some years until WWI broke out.
He joined the Army and shipped out for France, arriving there on November 10, 1918. He was the first generation of us born here, after his outlaw father "wet-backed" in over the Canadian border (his father was fleeing the British and the Mounties after having killed an English rent collector) and the first of us to go into the American Army. After him, three generations of his descendants have served in that same Army. He was in a cavalry unit, and shortly after he reported to the front line, the Armistice was signed. He claimed forever after to have shown up, the Germans got scared and quit. With a straight face. He used to say he gave them a choice. Then he'd hold up his right fist and say, "Six months in the hospital." Then he'd hold up his left fist and say, "Or sudden death."
Back home, his rookie year in the big leagues was 1919, the year of the Black Sox scandal. He was a rookie on that team and appeared four times. After that, the Sox were busted up and Lefty pitched semi-pro ball for 25 more years, sold insurance in Chicago, hustled pool in the summers to feed the family and ran for alderman. And lost. Everybody in Chicago knew him, and when I was growing up people would ask me if I was related to John "Lefty" Sullivan. I'd say yes and they'd say he was the greatest pitcher they ever watched.
The great Warren Spahn of the Milwaukee Braves said on channel 9 the day Lefty (we called him Boompa), "Lefty Sullivan was the best natural pitcher I ever saw. Better than me."
He had the narrow coronary arteries, "Sullivan Heart," and when he bent over to field a slow grounder or a bunt, his vision blurred, oxygen didn't get there enough. The pros took advantage of this, of course. But that was the first clue. He had six heart attacks, dying in bed from the last one at age 65. Big Sully and Uncle Bob had one, and Blackie and I did. All the Sullivan men really must get the tubes checked out. (And I am hereby begging each of you, once again, as part of a never-ending request, to do just that. I am certain Lefty would agree.)
He wouldn't drink a drop--his whole life. His mother's brother, Pat Meany, lived with them when Lefty was little. Pat worked on the railroad, of course, and was a terrible Irish whiskey--drunk. The Irish named whiskey. In Gaelic it is called "ishca baha," meaning "water of life." There is a clue in that. Pat got plastered, fell off the tender, got his lower spine crushed and was paralyzed, immobile and incontinent for the rest of his life. Lefty's mother, Anna Meany Sullivan, would take little John by the hand and show him his uncle, before she cleaned up the mess. She'd say that this was the result of "the Craytcher." Drinking was called "the Creature" by the Irish women. The lesson took and he was a non-drinker. In his last three months, the doctor told him to have two shots of whiskey each night, for his circulation because of the bad arteries. After a few nights, he told his wife to get rid of it because, "I like this stuff far too much."
He took a beating from his father, Jeremiah, in front of his oldest son, Big Sully, because he had given an intentional walk in a ball game. The old man thought he knew what he was doing, accused Lefty of cowardice, and beat him with his shillelagh! True story! My dad, Big Sully, asked why he took it, and his dad, Lefty, said,"He just doesn't understand." My father never got over that.
Grandma, Booma, Mom, Anna Conick Sullivan used to call him Sully. I thought that was the coolest thing I ever heard. She was stern with him, and called him Lefty sometimes, and when angry, John. Boy, did he ever love her--to distraction. And he was her hero.
I used to think that the picture on the dime was Lefty. The profile of Roosevelt looked like him. So I used to tell everybody that my grandpa was on the dime. Got some funny looks.
When Lefty and Anna's son John died at age 1 month, (one of four who died as infants from lack of lung development) Booma/Mom pulled Lefty to his knees next to the cradle as the baby breathed his tortured last few breaths from his poor little undeveloped lungs, held Lefty's hand, and they offered the baby back to God. Lefty said if it weren't for Anna Conick Sullivan, right then, he would have died.
His faith was like that his whole life. There is a story about him going to confession. It was after John XXIII let us drink water before communion, after midnight. This was before the fast was lifted. So one early Sunday morning, 4:00 or 5:00 a.m., Lefty gets up and drinks a quart of ice water that he always kept in the fridge. Then he goes to communion that morning. Next Saturday, he confesses it, and the priest in the confessional says, "John, it's now all right to drink water before communion." and Lefty says to him, in the confessional, "Yes, but I didn't have to be such a God Damned Pig about it." The priest laughed out loud and got Lefty's permission to tell us that story.
I loved him very much, and when he died I was shaken down to the ground. At the Irish funeral home on the South Side, Duffy's, I went up to kiss him goodbye in the coffin, in the Irish tradition, and realized that he was gone and not getting up. I went and hid under a row of chairs with raincoats draped over them, forming a tunnel. I was 10. I cried my heart out and felt like I was going to die of grief. I had never had an inkling of death before.
After a bit, a big hand comes in there and pulls me out and holds me in his arms--Uncle Bob. He explained everything to me, and how Lefty lives and always will, and how we all love each other, so none of us can actually ever die. Love never, never dies, he told me. I have found it to be true. Uncle Bob saved me that night, and when Bob died and I was crying my eyes out in the aisle of St. Gregory's, another John Sullivan, Seamus the Younger's oldest son, my beloved cousin John Robert, 11 at the time, puts his little arms around me and comforts me, at the death of his grandpa. Full circle. The love of the family.
It seems that Lefty has adopted, in a mystical way through dreams, my old and dear friend, John Davis, who was brought back to his family's ancient Celtic Catholic faith after many generations away from it after they made it to the new world. His Irish-American wife led him back. Lefty must be, in some way, John's relative, too-- know this in my bones--John Larkin Davis must be our cousin.
Lefty was our patriarch. I love and miss him so. Timothy Aristotle Sullivan looks so much like him that it's spooky. Every time I see Tim I am reminded of my beloved grandfather.
We love you, Lefty. Please continue to watch over us. John Jeremiah Sullivan, born Chicago, 31 May 1893, died Chicago, 7 July 1958.
God bless us and save us and keep us from harm.
Love, Patty and Jim
