They Love the Crabs of Summer

The Feb. 2 edition of the Eureka Times-Standard delivered the predictable dosages of predictable news. The Eel and Klamath rivers were rising again, and a flood watch was on. A Eureka woman on trial for murder told the jury her husband did it. Punxsutawney Phil, the celebrated groundhog, had failed to see his shadow, forecasting an early spring. In Judge Ito’s courtroom, lawyers were bickering over O.J. Simpson’s dream life.

Eclipsing all this, however, was a report people here on the North Coast would find shocking and horrible. The headline was spread across the top of the front page in big, bold type: “Baseball Crabs to quit.”

Not the Crabs, the townsfolk cried. Not our Humboldt County Crabs--the semi-pro baseball team that only last summer celebrated its 50th season, the baseball juggernaut that packed them in every night at Arcata Ball Park, that almost always won, that gave the sporting types who reside behind the so-called Redwood Curtain something to live for every summer.

“That’s all you hear around here: Crabs, Crabs, Crabs,” said Matt Nutter, a young businessman who pitched for the Crabs in the 1980s. “It’s the only game in town. I couldn’t believe they were folding. To me it was like last October, when they said there wasn’t going to be a World Series. That was a knife through my heart. Then I see that headline: ‘Crabs call it quits.’ It was a second knife through my heart.”

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The Crabs were founded at the close of World War II. Fisheries sponsored the first teams, and thus the name. The Crabs began as a classic town team, made up of hometown talent--lumberjacks and deckhands with bats. Over time it evolved into a grooming school for college players. Mixed in with home-grown players would be recruits from across the country. They were given day jobs and lodging in exchange for a summer’s loyalty to the Crabs. This mercenary strain didn’t dent the team’s popularity much. Crab games were Americana theater, a $3 bargain. The Crab Grass Band, Dixieland with tuba, performed the National Anthem. Idle relief pitchers provided color commentary for the radio broadcasts. There were promotions like Apple Pie Night and Free Beer Night. There were hated rivals, particularly a team from San Jose composed of players older and ornerier than the peach-fuzzed Crabs.

Nutter remembered a San Jose first baseman who would step up to bat bellowing to the grandstands: “He’s thunder, but I’m lightning. I’m gonna tear his head off.” Inexplicably, this same slugger was billed as the world’s fastest typist. During a doubleheader, a battered portable was passed down from the press box to test the boast. The burly graybeard sat down and pounded out 160 words a minute, and the crowd roared.

The cozy park in Arcata, a few miles north of here, contributed to the charm. Awhile back, to accommodate U.S. 101, part of left field was sacrificed and a tall, Fenway-like fence was erected. It stopped most flies, but occasionally a shot would make the freeway--and, cringing, everyone would listen for screeching tires. To reach the nearer southbound lanes was regarded as a modest feat. Homers that sailed into northbound traffic were the stuff of legends. “One hitter was so good,” Nutter recalled, “we just called him ‘Northbound.’ ”

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Initial reports blamed the Crabs’ demise on a bad economy. In fact, the two guys who’d run the team forever simply had run low on gas. Founder Lou Bonomini had suffered a stroke. Ned Barsuglia, the general manager, was 75 and weary of the load--scouting college recruits, lining up sponsors, finding summer jobs. “To do this job,” the retired haberdasher said, “you have to be nuts for baseball.”

So he decided, painfully, to fold the team. This would not be so easy. After a round of community mourning, the Crab faithful went to work. Volunteers, Barsuglia said, “came out of the woodwork.” This, they said, wasn’t like the absurd stalemate wrecking the major leagues. This was a situation they could do something about.

“The people who live behind the Redwood Curtain,” explained Larry Zerland, who sells crabs--the sea creatures, not the ballplayers--from a waterfront shack, “we’re a family. We’ve stuck together through some hard times: We’ve lost a lot of the fishing and timber industries. We weren’t going to lose our Crabs.”

Quiet meetings were held. Nutter and his father, a former YMCA executive, stepped forward. A committee was formed, a transition negotiated. And on Feb. 16, the Times-Standard carried another banner headline, this one eclipsing stories of killer tornadoes, computer hackers and more bickering in Judge Ito’s courtroom. It said: “Crabs baseball revived.” Sometimes, the world works.