Scrapbook Pieces All Fall Together

It’s a typical suburban snafu.

A man with things on his mind leaves a cherished possession on the roof of the family minivan. The next morning, his wife drives off with the kids. Down the street, she hears an odd flutter from above. In the rear-view mirror, she sees a jogger waving his arms. What’s his problem? she thinks.

Only later did Chris Sherry realize the jogger on Erbes Road must have been doing his frantic windmill to let her know: Lady, this album full of yellowed clippings about the 1960 World Series flew off your roof! Is it yours or did an eagle fly across the country from Cooperstown to plop it on your Nissan Quest here in Thousand Oaks? And who would keep this thing around for nearly 40 years anyway?

Of course, more questions cropped up when I called the number in a classified ad about a lost scrapbook. Mike Sherry had plenty to say. As it turned out, I shared more than I could have guessed with this stranger who was seeking to reclaim a bittersweet piece of his past.

*

“The story starts when the Dodgers left Brooklyn,” he said.

As a 12-year-old on Long Island, Sherry felt betrayed when his beloved Bums did the unthinkable and headed for Los Angeles in 1958.

“I mean who was there left to root for?” he said. “Who rooted for the Yankees?”

I knew what he meant. I too grew up on Long Island. I too felt betrayed. And Sherry was right: Nobody rooted for the dull, pinstripe-perfect Yankees. That would be like writing a love letter to Mamie Eisenhower. It would be like rooting for the New York Stock Exchange.

When the Dodgers vanished, I was angry. Did loyalty count for nothing? Didn’t they know how overjoyed I was when they beat the Yankees in the 1955 World Series? Would they change their minds if they knew I threw my hardball up into the stratosphere and, when I caught it, inscribed “DODGERS WIN!!!” on the well-worn horsehide? Not a chance.

A few years after the Dodgers’ move, I quit following baseball. Today, I am a man without a team. Like Miss Havisham in “Great Expectations,” I keep my memories enshrined in a moldering room of the imagination, where decades-old Dodger dogs shrivel in their rock-hard buns and empty scorecards turn to dust.

Sherry, though, soldiered on. He couldn’t not have a team. Huddled in bed at night, he picked up the powerful Pittsburgh radio station KDKA on his transistor radio. Straining for meaning through the static, he transformed himself into a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. A few years later, he ended up studying at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University only because of his devotion to the Pirates.

But loss has a way of compounding itself.

For me, the year the Dodgers left was also the year my dad died.

For Sherry, it was the year his older brother Dennis was killed in a car wreck.

Sherry shared a bedroom with Dennis, who was a huge sports nut. Dennis idolized Archie Moore and crammed a scrapbook with clippings about the famed boxer. He put together other sports scrapbooks too, and covered the room wall-to-wall with posters of ballplayers.

“One time a friend came over and pointed to a picture of Jesus Christ over the bookcase,” Sherry recalled. “He said, ‘What team does he play for?’ ”

Not long after Dennis’ death, Mike Sherry started putting together scrapbooks of his own. The 1960 World Series was to become legendary--the Pirates defeated the Yankees on Bill Mazeroski’s ninth-inning homer in the seventh game--but I don’t think that’s why Sherry hauled his scrapbook around all those years. Before last Saturday night, he hadn’t touched it for two years. Then he took it to a friend’s house and, returning, left it on the van.

“But I’m not freaking out that it’s gone,” he said. “You can’t recapture the moment.”

*

An investor who works from home, Sherry has advertised for the book in three newspapers. One man tried to respond but, apparently because of arcane phone company rules about unlisted numbers and collect calls, he couldn’t get through.

“What are they, trying to make me crazy?” Sherry asked.

I talked with him quite awhile, lapsing into a New York accent I’m not sure I ever had.

“So whereabouts on the island you from?” I asked.

“Rockville Centre.”

“Whaddya kiddin’ me? I’m from Rockville Centre!”

“Whaddya kiddin’ me? South Side High School?”

“South Side High School!”

Sherry was a senior when I was a sophomore but we never knew each other. Even so, we shared memories of the wild Chiari brothers, of boys much cooler than either of us, of remote and beautiful girls, of Mr. Eiseman, the maniacal health teacher who warned: “Hold your nose when you blow it, you’ll wreck your brain!”

“Life just takes you on these weird steps,” Sherry observed.

Or, as we used to say back home, so go figure.

Steve Chawkins is a Times staff writer. His e-mail address is steve.chawkins@latimes.com.