There Will Never Be Another Met Quite Like Chico

Of all the great baseball players of the 1970s, the one I miss the most, the one who had the most impact on me, is Chico Esquela.

Chico was the peppery, good-natured, almost bilingual Latino second baseman for the New York Mets.

Granted, Esquela’s statistics weren’t real impressive. He had no hits and no stolen bases. In fact, he never played a game.

America’s fans got to know Chico through his appearances on the original “NBC’s Saturday Night” TV show, from 1975 to ’80.

What he gave us, fans and players, was not a great performance on the field, but a philosophy, expressed simply and eloquently.

“Base-e-bol been berry-berry good to me.”

Do you hear major leaguers saying that today? Not quite. If any of them use the phrase, it starts with “My commodities broker . . . “ Or, “My groupies . . . “

Anyway, I ran into Chico the other day. He lives in L.A. He’s a little bitter about the way he was drummed out of baseball, but he’s still the smiling, irrepressible, hyper nutball he was a decade ago.

He goes by the name Garrett Morris now. Garrett Morris and “Saturday Night” writer Brian Doyle Murray created Chico in ’75.

In his first appearance on the show, Chico is the guest speaker at a neighborhood Knights of Columbus meeting in New York. A priest, John Belushi, has cleaned out the lodge treasury to pay Chico’s appearance fee.

The good Father proudly introduces Chico. Chico stands at the podium, smiles radiantly, and says: “Tank you berry, berry much. (Pause. Smile.) Base-e-bol (pause) been berry-berry good to me. (Pause. Smile.) Tank you berry, berry much.”

Chico sits down. The priest can’t decide whether to punch Chico or strangle him. Chico quickly senses that more is expected of him.

His English is limited, but he remembers an all-purpose phrase, something he shouts back at fans who hail him on the street.

Chico stands up again, still smiling, and proclaims grandly: “Keep jew eye on d’bol. (Pause. Smile.) Tank you berry, berry much. Base-e-bol been berry berry good to me.”

Esquela became a regular on the show. He even did the sports news on the Weekend Update segment. Then came the sad day when he was railroaded out of major league baseball for writing his tell-all book, “Bad Stuff About the Mets.”

“It was time for Chico to go away, anyway,” Chico says. “He was beginning to realize he had other talents. I tried to give of my great athletic gift, and they didn’t want it. Pearls before swine.”

It was the end of a long road for Chico. As Garrett Morris, he grew up in New Orleans, a loyal Brooklyn Dodger fan simply because the Dodgers let black people play on their team.

Morris graduated from Dillard University in New Orleans. He spent 10 years as a member of the Harry Belafonte Singers, and was a successful actor-singer-playwright-conductor on Broadway.

Then came “NBC’s Saturday Night,” the original cast, and Chico got his big break.

Morris played hundreds of other roles on the show, but Chico is the one everyone remembers. “He was far and away my favorite character,” Esquela-Morris says. “I have never had a bad response from anyone about Chico. Hispanics in particular like him, and I didn’t think they would. I tried not to make him a put-down, but how could you not do that on ‘Saturday Night Live?’ Everything was a put-down.”

To not satirize minority groups on the show would have been a form of discrimination. Besides, Chico was a lovable guy. People still love him.

When he is recognized in public today, Chico says: “It’s 70-30--70% Chico and 30% Garrett Morris. That’s cool, it’s all very nice, it means someone likes what I did.”

When he signs autographs, many fans are disappointed if he signs “Garrett Morris.” They tell him, “No, no, I want Chico .”

Chico has overcome a lot of the bitterness about being blackballed for writing that book, which broke a baseball taboo by exposing such secret slime as the fact that Yogi Berra’s car always took up two spaces in the team parking lot.

Chico can’t stay away from the game, though. He stopped by to visit the Dodgers in spring training last month, at the request (Chico claims) of team owner Peter O’Malley.

“He wanted me to talk to my fellas, Pedro and Mariano and the other guys,” Chico says. “Pedro told me he wasn’t going to slide anymore, only head-first. I told him, ‘No, you have to slide. Just get that right leg bent.’ ”

Chico loves the game so much he even took time out from his busy schedule to pick his all-time All-Star team. In no particular order, he selected Chico Esquela, Chico Ruiz, Chico Salmon, Chico Carrasquel, Rico Carty, Chico Marx, Maurice Cheeks, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Coco Laboy, Choo Choo Coleman and Cha Cha Muldowney.

He says he picked Laboy over Babe Ruth in right field because of Laboy’s glove.

Chico looks good these days. Doesn’t look 50. Still real energetic.

He’s doing real well in movies and TV, one of the few superstar athletes to successfully make the transition from not playing to acting.

Chico-Garrett is right at home in Hollywood. He meditates every day, has a press agent and wears shades indoors.

But it’s the old Chico I like to remember.

Bobby Grich, another legendary former second baseman, speaks at various functions and he always tells his audience: “Base-e-bol been berry-berry good to me.”

Chico Esquela--the man, the legend, the philosophy--lives on.