I married into a Navy family.
My father-in-law and two brothers-in-law all served in that branch of the military.
Two of them served as radio men, one in Texas, and the other on an aircraft carrier all over the
globe. The third was a yeoman purser, performing clerical duties on a submarine.
While their duties seem less Navy specific than other roles in the military, in talking to them I did
find out that they each received some general seamanship lessons during Basic Training.
Having myself descended from woodland Native American and rural German American stock,
and NOT having served in the US Navy, I am a confirmed novice regarding all things maritime.
I know absolutely nothing about hoisting a mainsail, battening down hatches, nor why the part of
a ship named the “Forecastle” is pronounced as “folk-sill”.
I guess we can agree that, when off of dry land, I don’t even know my fore from my aft!
I’m okay with that though. The sailing term I’m most familiar with is the oft used (at least back in
the day) comment,
“I like the cut of his jib!”
The jib is the smaller sail, without a boom, that hangs off the mast ahead of the much larger
mainsail. Some sailors believe that the jib is the face of a sailing vessel.
The URBAN DICTIONARY defines the term, ‘The cut of your jib’, as,
“An old sailor’s term for one’s intangible qualities. Often judged on first impressions.”
Conventional wisdom states that we shouldn’t be too quick to judge; shouldn’t judge a book by
it’s cover.
But we all do it.
I know I have.
Sometimes that first impression is all you really get to make a determination.
It’s always gratifying when your first impression of a person is borne out over time.
Here’s one that worked out for me.
Over my travels I’ve met an awful lot of interesting people with a vast array of stories to tell.
I was fortunate enough to have a lot of good friends from high school including a kid named
Danny O’Hara. Danny was a ballboy for the Minnesota Twins.
I haven’t heard a lot of his stories, but I bet he’s got a ton of them.
Dan was the kid, in uniform, on the field, stationed down the first baseline, on a chair, on the
warning track that butted up against the stands at the old Metropolitan Stadium.
His on-field duties during the game included shagging foul balls, and playing catch with the
right-fielder between innings to warm-up.
Growing up in Bloomington we used to go to a lot of Twins games. The team didn’t draw a lot of
fans some years so we merely had to buy cheap tickets to get in the door and then we could sit
pretty much wherever we wanted to.
On a summer Sunday afternoon in (I believe it was) 1978 we decided to sit along the rail so in
addition to his regular duties Dan also got to entertain me, another friend I was at the game with
and the young first base umpire Steve Palermo, who, seeing us chatting it up came over to visit
between innings.
Palermo seemed like a really nice guy. I felt kind of bad for initially telling him my name was Al.
You see the American League umpires all wore hats with an “AL” on them for American League.
Back then an AL hat would’ve been about impossible to get. Nowadays you can get just about
anything online. I figured I’d appeal to his sense of justice; who better to have an AL hat than a
guy named Al. I thought it’d be cool to wear one since everybody else was wearing their favorite
team’s hats that I’d be the outlier wearing an umpire’s hat.
It didn’t work though. I didn’t get the hat. But I was gaining a new friend.
(I confessed my lie to Palermo and he got a laugh out of that too!)
I liked the cut of Palermo’s jib.
After the next half inning he came back out to where we were sitting and told a few jokes.
All these years later I still remember one of them.
“What’s the difference between a hippo and a Zippo?
One is REALLY heavy and the other is a little lighter.”
Ba-dum-tss!
Who can’t like a guy that’d start telling bad jokes to folks he just met?
Ya gotta like the cut of that jib.
Nine years later, on August 3rd, 1987, Steve Palermo was on the umpiring crew, in Anaheim
California, that found an emery board and sandpaper in the pockets of Twins knuckleball pitcher
Joe Niekro. American League President Bobby Brown suspended Niekro for 10 days.
A few nights later David Letterman had Niekro on his show wearing a tool belt with a power
sander attached to it.
I could have been mad at the umpires that busted the Twins pitcher but Palermo joked to
Minneapolis Star Tribune baseball writer, Jerry Zgoda, that perhaps Niekro, or the umpiring
crew from that night (Palermo, Chief Dave Phillips, Tim Tschida, and Dan Morrison) ought to be
in line for endorsement deals from either Black and Decker or Revlon.
On the field Palermo was all business, but he could joke about things after the fact.
He seemed like a really good guy that way. What’s not to like about that?
Fast forward to July 7th, 1991. Palermo was out to dinner at Campisi’s, an Italian eatery in
Dallas Texas, after having worked an Angels/Rangers game. Someone rushed into the
restaurant and yelled that two waitresses that had just left the building were being assaulted out
in the parking lot.
Palermo and five other good guys rushed outside to offer assistance.
Shots were fired.
Palermo was hit.
The bullet severed the nerves at the base of Palermo’s spine.
Six weeks later he began regaining the use of his legs.
Using crutches, and with some assistance, Palermo threw out the first pitch at the World Series that year.
After years of daily physical therapy he was able to walk with a cane.
Palermo never worked as an umpire again after that fateful night.
Major League Baseball did hire him on as an assistant to work on special projects.
Steve Palermo died from lung cancer on May 14th, 2017. He was 67 years old.
In his later years, whenever he was asked whether he ever regretted running out into the
parking lot of that Dallas restaurant, Palermo gave the same answer,
“It’s NEVER a mistake to help someone in trouble.”
I just loved the cut of Steve Palermo’s jib.
