One Marriage That Was a Hit During the Playoffs

The second inning a week ago today in St. Louis lasted as long as a root canal. It was a shock for the hometown fans--and an omen of things to come--after their start the week before. For a while, not only was there joy in Mudville, but even the non-hysterical observers were beginning to become interested.

I became absorbed in the first playoff game on Wednesday when I was at a dinner honoring KCBS anchorman Jess Marlow at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. The club is a total joy--mellow, traditional, spacious, tall-ceilinged and best of all, has as its senior vice president a tall, handsome, white-haired man named Duke Llewellyn.

The head table had more cops than “Hill Street Blues.” There to honor Marlow were Chief of Police Daryl F. Gates, former officer and star novelist Joseph Wambaugh, actor Robert Waldon, who occasionally plays a cop, and the big lawman of California, John Van de Kamp.

I had a vacant seat next to me, but there was a place card so I decided someone would show up sooner or later. To my right was former Gov. Pat Brown, an amiable Irishman and good politician who has the rare ability to make you think that you are the very colleen he hoped to get in the luck of the draw. A political knack picked up through all the years of dinners? Not at all. He really was glad to see me.

About halfway into the entree, Andrea Van de Kamp, Mrs. John Van de Kamp, appeared and sat down beside me. Andrea had her usual effect on the people around us, as if a dapple-gray pony had just pranced into the middle of the ring, wearing a red harness, and with her hoofs gilded. Not that Andrea is a scene-stealer. It’s just something that happens when she walks in. Her interest in people is so genuine, she makes everyone feel as if she was only waiting to see that person. And do you know what? She was.

She has been a friend for a long time and we have sat through some evenings that would make a Spartan sob. Andrea really enjoyed them. Not that she is such an unalloyed joy girl. She really likes people and wants to hear about them.

She was late for the St. Jess dinner because she had been to the opening game of the Dodgers-Cardinals series. She had left at the last split second of the game and made it to the Los Angles Athletic Club in a time I will not tell you because of her husband’s position. She was entranced by a new friend she had made at the game, 11-year-old Casey Meyers, who sounds like a kid with a lot of promise.

It is a widely known fact that she is one of the top 10 baseball fans in the nation. This is a girl who will sit in the rain and root for a Little League team because one of her small daughter’s friends knows a kid on the team who got to play once.

She was delighted with her good luck at drawing an 11-year-old boy as a seat mate. This Casey kid is suave, knowledgeable and fun. The first thing he said to Andrea was: “Are you alone?”

This is a young man who just wants all the eventualities covered. Andrea said that, yes, she was. Casey said, with just the proper blend of kindness and insouciance, “Well, never mind. You may meet someone.”

She did. And it was Casey and they had a gorgeous evening. According to Andrea, the conversation about baseball technique got pretty esoteric. Casey, looking at the pitcher, said: “This is going to be a breaking ball.”

“What’s the difference between a change-up and a breaking ball?” Andrea asked. “They both have an arch.”

“One of them has a lower arch and goes ooohm,” Casey explained.

Andrea said he was right. She spent a splendid evening with her new friend and ran to the dinner in time to hear her husband deliver a funny piece of material on Marlow.

Andrea said that when she was a very small girl, her maternal grandfather, who had prayed for an Andrew, decided to make the most of it and taught her baseball from the time she was old enough to sit in a stadium seat. He took her to every Detroit Tiger game through her early years and turned her into a baseball torch-bearer.

The day came when she was able to partially return the favor. The Detroit Tigers were playing in the World Series, and she invited her grandfather, Alec Rennie, who lives in northern Michigan, to come to Detroit for the series. He was 83 at the time, and Andrea had managed to get the use of the baseball commissioner’s box. Andrea said it was a life high point.

The night after the Athletic Club dinner, she was getting ready to see the second game when her husband came home and said, “You know, tonight is the opening of the symphony.”

“Yes, I know,” Andrea said and trotted off to the ballpark.

“And John went to the symphony. That’s why we have the greatest marriage in the world.”