Baseball Innovator Branch Rickey Also Knew the Use of a $50 Bill

Said and done.

* Mr. Rickey saves a buck.

Someone who should know says that the play titled “Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting” is a startlingly accurate portrayal of baseball innovator Branch Rickey, who made the decision to break the sport’s color line.

Buzzie Bavasi, who lives in La Jolla and attended a performance Saturday at the Old Globe’s Cassius Carter stage, says the play captures Rickey perfectly: right down to his legendary tightness with money.

In the play, Rickey offers, then never produces, a nickel tip for a $2 room-service order.

Bavasi, 76, an executive for Rickey’s Brooklyn Dodgers and later the Los Angeles Dodgers, California Angels and San Diego Padres, remembers how Rickey would always invite him to the barbershop so the two could get haircuts and talk baseball.

When it was time to pay, Rickey would pull out his wallet and complain, “Hey, Bavasi, you got some cash? All I got is this $50 bill.”

Bavasi ended up paying for lots of haircuts for his boss:

“Rickey got about a hundred miles outta that $50 bill. He carried it for years.”

* Call it the (shocking) commode caper.

As a 63-year-old Ocean Beach man tells it, he was sitting in a stall in the men’s room at Furr’s Cafeteria in East San Diego. He feels a sharp pain in his left shoulder.

He looks up and sees a tall guy reaching over the partition and wielding a stun gun. The guy zaps him again, this time on the chest.

Wishing no further assaults on his person, the victim exits the stall forthwith into the restaurant, pants down but mouth open: “I’ve been stabbed. Call the police.”

The alleged perpetrator walks cool-as-you-please out of the restaurant. The victim throws a salt shaker at him.

The cops arrive. A 30-year-old transient who stands 6-foot-5 is picked up in the neighborhood.

The suspect has a different version: He says the older guy upbraided him for using a handicapped stall, and a pushing contest ensued, in which a fork was used.

Police can’t find any stun gun. They’re left with two contradictory stories and no witnesses. Case closed.

“It’s a zoo up here,” says a detective.

Sailing Souvenirs

Take notes.

* Who says there is no interest in the America’s Cup?

A 44-year-old San Diego man has been arrested for trying to steal the flags outside the competition headquarters on West Harbor Drive.

If it’s any consolation, the fellow was international in his approach. The arrest report says he was trying to abscond with “flags of various nations.”

* Now it can be told: Relations between General Dynamics and San Diego City Hall were chilly even before the company decided to dump two local divisions.

An offer several months ago by GD to donate $50,000 to the city’s gun-buyback plan was rejected because Mayor Maureen O’Connor thought it would imply that the city endorses GD’s hardball approach to its employees: laying off workers while giving bonuses to top management.

Part of the offer (which was made before the fatal shooting at GD) had been for a joint press conference with company and city officials.

* The San Diego Lawyers Club will honor lawyers Bonnie Reading and Abby Silverman on May 29.

Reading is fighting cancer. Silverman provided pro bono work for Planned Parenthood.

* Now on the book stands: “The Secret Empire: How 25 Multinationals Rule the World,” by former San Diego Tribune financial editor Janet Lowe.

* Seen on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard: Car with “Just Divorced” soaped on the rear window. And a drawing of a happy face.

Digging for Jobs

How tough is the economy?

The county Water Authority held a meeting recently in La Mesa to discuss some underground work planned in La Mesa and Lemon Grove.

Those are the kind of feedback sessions that usually attract residents who are worried about what is happening to their neighborhood.

In this case, about three dozen people were concerned about all the digging. There was also another contingent:

Eight people showed up to see if the project meant that the Water Authority is hiring.