Rare Bird Comes Home to Roost : Rough-Hewn Cardinal to Retire After 26 Years as Channel Islands Baseball Coach

They’re sending the old man home, back where the buffalo roam,

Out in the Pacific, they say he was the best,

Now he’s in his civvies, heading home like all the rest.

“Sending The Old Man Home”

--Jimmy Buffett

He shuffles through the third-base dugout in his distinctive gait, sliding past the empty beverage cartons that litter the dilapidated diamond at Channel Islands High.

As the only varsity baseball coach in the school’s history, Don Cardinal has left this field more than 1,000 times since he began coaching there in 1966. He has mowed the grass, dragged the infield dirt and chalked the foul lines more times than he can remember.

Cardinal, 59, began his coaching career in 1962 when John F. Kennedy was President and the Beatles were four kids with strange haircuts. All sorts of Presidents have since come and gone. Rap music now thunders from a nearby car.

Cardinal’s 26-year career will end after this season. His teams have won 429 games, and he will coach his 654th game today when Channel Islands (20-6) visits Santa Monica in the first round of the Southern Section 5-A Division playoffs.

An impressive accomplishment for a man who, with a sheepish grin, tells you he can’t remember his own phone number and doesn’t know the age of either of his two sons. Cardinal, whose idea of a great time is “filling up my air mattress and just floatin’ on the water,” is an Oklahoma country boy who calls his refrigerator an “ice box” and refers to his wife Joan as “Mama.”

“He’s definitely a character,” former Channel Islands assistant Al Tarazon said.

Although Cardinal says it is time to hang up his stirrups, health played no role in his decision. Cardinal is a fitness fanatic who works out with his P.E. classes; three weeks ago he bench-pressed 242 pounds.

Such an accomplishment comes as no surprise to those who have crossed Cardinal’s path over the years. After all, his dedication was evident as early as 1948 when each school day he ran three miles from his home to Santa Paula High and three miles back.

“Donnie always has been very dedicated to anything he’s done,” said Anita Blackshear, Cardinal’s sister. “He’s one of the more intense people around any more.”

Cardinal’s intensity, in part, helped him overcome adversity at an early age. The Cardinal family was forced out of poverty-stricken Oklahoma, much like the Joad family in Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.”

En route by car from Purcell, Okla., to Santa Paula in 1944, Don, Anita, mother Lois, and father Joseph slept in a tent pitched along the roadside. About a year and a half after their arrival, Joseph was struck by a car and killed.

“The main thing I remember is praying to the good Lord to let him live,” said Cardinal, who was 13 when his father died. “My mother scrubbed floors at night and worked in a cafeteria during the day so I wouldn’t have to get a job and could play sports.”

At Santa Paula High, Cardinal was so shy that he crossed to the other side of a hallway when a girl approached.

“When I was asked to dance, my heart would go 90 miles an hour,” Cardinal said. “I was scared talking to them girls.”

Cardinal saved his bravado for athletics. He earned nine varsity letters as a third baseman, shotputter, basketball guard and quarterback. He credits Santa Paula coaches Bill Spriggs, Bob Dahlberg and John Devine for molding a raw country boy who slopped hogs before he was 6 into a solid citizen who eventually earned a football scholarship to Pepperdine.

On the first day of baseball practice, Spriggs tossed the equipment bag at Cardinal.

“Here, take this,” Spriggs demanded. “I heard about you, and we’re gonna take some of that meanness out of you.”

Cardinal’s competitiveness made him a feisty, unruly sort who hated to lose.

“I didn’t want to lose at marbles, playing for matches, nothin’,” he said. “When I played, I played to win. And I still do.”

He graduated from Santa Paula in 1951 and, after attending Ventura College and playing football two seasons, Cardinal served in the Korean War for 16 months during a 22-month stint in the Army. After working for a construction company, he enrolled at USC in 1955 and left within four weeks.

Cardinal’s academic shortcomings at USC became evident during an English course in which the instructor asked each student to write a 1,000-word essay on a lamp.

“I only wrote about 300 words,” he said. “I didn’t know no more.”

In 1958, he received a football scholarship to Pepperdine, where he played linebacker and graduated with a teaching degree. Cardinal became junior varsity baseball coach at Hueneme in 1962 and moved to newly opened Channel Islands in the fall of 1966.

Cardinal said he persuaded the best freshman players at Hueneme to follow him to Channel Islands. When the players were seniors, they won 25 of 26 games and gave Cardinal his only Southern Section title, a Division 2-A championship in 1969. Channel Islands won seven consecutive Frontier League titles and 11 total in the Raiders’ first 13 years in the league.

“He had some rough edges and he was no sophisticate,” said Steve Loiselle, who was the catcher on the 1969 team. “But he had a good heart and he knew his baseball.”

When a standout player violated a team rule, Cardinal suspended him from a key playoff game. Cardinal was as quick to aid in times of need, once buying a player a pair of shoes.

“Don would do without a lot of other things in order to help his players,” Blackshear said. “He is a real man of principles.”

Yet Cardinal’s fiery temper and brash style have led to criticism from all sides.

Once, when a Channel Islands player committed an error during a critical game, Cardinal screamed, “One of these days, you’re going to play for us !”

Cardinal often stands in the first-base coaching box and screams at Raider batters, shaking his head in disgust while hopelessly flailing his arms.

“I tell my kids that when a thoroughbred feels the whip, they respond with all the energy in their body,” Cardinal said. “When the donkey feels it, he sulks. Now, are you a thoroughbred or a donkey?”

Cardinal’s demeanor has produced his share of detractors, but his supporters far outnumber the critics. Channel Islands Principal Ken Benefield, who has known Cardinal for 31 years, said some misunderstand the coach.

“He is one of the most fierce competitors I’ve ever seen,” Benefield said. “He does a lot of screaming, but that’s his way of teaching. He screams when a kid makes a mistake, but he’s also the first one to run up and hug the kid when the kid does something good.”

Perhaps the most celebrated conflict revolved around Cardinal’s dismissal of talented left-hander Tajah Merrill from last season’s team. Merrill took exception to being removed in the second inning of a game.

“You’re a stupid old man!” Merrill yelled within earshot of fans.

Merrill, the team’s No. 2 starter, was immediately kicked off the team. The move, Cardinal conceded, hurt Channel Islands’ drive to a playoff berth.

“But Donnie showed us that winning is not everything,” Westlake Coach Rich Herrera said. “He showed us that respect for your coach and fellow teammates is more important.”

The combination of Cardinal’s volatile manner, quirky waddle and bushy mustache prompts comparisons to cartoon character Yosemite Sam. His words sometimes become a twisted mess.

For instance, he once failed in an attempt to describe the importance of early-season pressure.

“You got to put the chicken in the pot to see if it’s gonna boil,” he said, then paused. “Or, whatever.”

Cardinal’s folksy charm has helped develop a strong following. Several former players attend games on a regular basis, and a group of cheerleaders once serenaded Cardinal at his home.

Such dedication was apparent May 6 when Angel Aragon hit a three-run home run that gave Cardinal only his sixth win over Simi Valley in the teams’ past 28 meetings. Aragon crossed home plate and pointed at Cardinal.

“That was for you, Coach,” he said as Cardinal fought back tears.

Aragon said the Raiders have a strong desire to leave Cardinal with a memorable season.

“I knew he wanted to beat Simi Valley real bad,” Aragon said. “We just want to give him everything we have. He’s been doing this so long, you have to admire it.”

Cardinal’s April 30 announcement of his retirement was an emotional moment, one of the most difficult things he has done.

“Really, I’m just a big pussycat,” he said. “I used to get real mad, but I’ve mellowed out a lot over the years. I’ve had to, because kids have changed. You have to be more diplomatic, and I’ll be the first to admit that it’s difficult for me sometimes.”

He chuckles at the thought of himself as an overbearing, intimidating coach.

“I ask my players, ‘Why you so afraid of me?’ ” he chortled. “I say, ‘Hell, I’m human, fellas. I got four little grand kids and I hold ‘em and hug ‘em and kiss ‘em.’ ”

Cardinal said he will teach P.E. classes for another year. He purchased a motor home and plans to drive across the country with his family, including a stop in Memphis to see Graceland, Elvis’ home.

As he leaves one of his final practices, he climbs into a 1975 Dodge van, a “work truck” that looks every bit of its 125,000 miles.

“That last game is gonna be hard, and that last team banquet is gonna be hard,” Cardinal said.

Then he smiled.

“But you don’t have to listen to the old man yell no more.”