How Sam Francis Hosted Two Future Big League Stars
In The Same CCBL Season

9 August 2007


 


By MATTHEW M. BURKE

     Sam Francis was a friend of Wareham Gatemen General Manager John Wylde, which was the reason why he had been hosting Gatemen players for several years by the time 1988 rolled around. 

     When he first started opening up his home to Gatemen players, Francis had an empty room with three open beds, vacated by his children.

     When asked the names of the players that he hosted over the years, it is hard for Sam to remember. “I had one kid who was a senior at Harvard,” he said. “He was a math major, and he was a pitcher?”

     In 1988, Francis lived alone in his home at 18 Pitcher Street in Marion. The warm, kind, hardworking gentleman had seen his own children grow up and move on. He had been a good parent and was proud of the way he raised his four daughters.

     The house is different now. It is shingled, and Sam no longer lives there, but if those walls could talk, they would tell one of the most entertaining and perhaps fascinating Cape League stories ever. 

     It is the tale of two future Major Leaguers, polar opposites, spending a summer under the same roof, coming together to win the league championship. 

     Sam was never really a fan of baseball and never followed the sport. When he hosted players, like a proud parent, he would go watch them play, but he has trouble remembering their achievements on the field. He was simply performing a service for Wylde, the kids, and to the team.

     However, there are two players in particular that Francis will never forget, a modern day odd couple who lived with him during the Gatemen’s 1988 championship season (29-13-2): Maurice “Mo” Vaughn (Seton Hall), and Chuck Knoblauch (Texas A&M). 
     Francis said that he became particularly close with both of them that summer (Mo stayed with Francis for two seasons, 1987 and 1988). He remembers the pair better than any of the other players he hosted over the years, but he doesn’t remember them because they were special once they stepped on the ball field. He remembers them because of their interesting personalities and how they interacted with one another.

     “They were good kids,” he said. “I was sort of just a house parent. I kept the refrigerator full with some food and then the whole team would come and hang out at my house, which was fine…I was very impressed. You should understand, I know nothing about baseball. I don’t object to baseball, I’m just not a fan, so I’m an odd case for this. But I have to say that the kids were here for the summer, and they knew what they were here for. This was their chance in life.”

     Francis said that the future Cape League Hall of Famer, and former American League MVP, Mo Vaughn first came to stay with him in 1987. He returned the following season, and this time, he was joined by Chuck. 

     Francis smiles remembering just how different the pair was.

     “Each one was really different,” he said. “Mo was really a big kid…big, happy, powerful. As a batter, if he ever connected, that’d be the end of it. And Chuck was just razor sharp focus. Every minute of every day was part of his trial to get this position…very focused.”
     Francis said that he met Mo’s parents several times. They lived in Connecticut and made the trip to Wareham to see Mo play often. At the time, he said that Mo also had a “gorgeous girlfriend” that would also visit. Despite Mo’s laid-back attitude, he was gifted, and Francis said that he was focused on the ball field, just not as much as Chuck. 

     Francis fondly remembered Mo’s mother as a “classic big, beautiful, black woman,” he said. “She was all woman…great great woman.”

     He recalls a multitude of scouts being at the games to watch his two houseguests, especially Vaughn. “For two years Mo was with me,” he said. “Those were big years for him. He was very famous at that time.”

     Francis said that he related more with Chuck because of his focus and blue-collar attitude, which has always been a staple of Gatemen baseball. He said that Chuck would be up at the crack of dawn getting ready for work. 

     “I know how important it is to set yourself up for the rest of your life,” he said. “That was what this was all about. Chuck particularly took it very very seriously.”

     Chuck’s parents made the trip from Texas once to visit during that summer. 

     According to Francis, both of his players had jobs in the morning, and not working at baseball camps like today’s Cape Leaguers, rather landscaping. He said that one of two CCBL stars worked at Tabor.

     Then they would be off practicing and playing games. Francis would sometimes give them rides if they needed them and then he would not see them until afterwards, when they came piling in, with the rest of their teammates. They would order pizzas and have dinner.

     Francis fondly remembered the team playing a Peter, Paul, and Mary record on his old phonograph machine, getting quite animated during the song, “Right Field.” He said that the team would sing along.

     “The whole team is yelling and I don't know what for/Suddenly everyone's looking at me/My mind has been wandering, what could it be?/They point to the sky and I look up above/And the baseball falls into my glove!/Here in right field, Its important you know/You gotta know how to catch, you gotta know how to throw/That's why I'm here in right field/Just watching the dandelions grow.”

     Francis said that the team would cheer when the underappreciated right fielder caught the ball. This helped bring them together that year and would help them to win the championship over Orleans two games to one.

     Host parent Francis admits that the pair’s immense differences occasionally got between them. He said that, in his opinion, Chuck might have thought Mo wasn’t focused enough at times, and Mo probably thought Chuck didn’t enjoy life enough. He added that they did get along for the most part and if there were ever any real problems, he never saw them.

     However, Francis believes that because of their differences, they were never quite relaxed around each other, but in their spare time, they hung out together quite a bit.

     “Occasionally that would rattle between them,” he said. “Because Chuck was very focused and Mo was laid back and fooling around, but they both were good kids. They got along okay together. There weren’t any harsh moments at all…got into a little too much beer once or twice. I don’t think the coach would have liked that but that was not my job to…but if it needed to be brought home and put to bed, then I could do that.”

     Francis said that the one thing that brought the pair together was their desire to play pranks. He recalled with a smile, coming home and seeing Mo and Chuck sitting on a living room couch with the Tabor Academy flag that they had stolen off of the flagpole at the school.

     “They were just kids having fun, ya know?” he said laughing, barely able to get the words out. “They were going to do in these fancy prep school kids that were out there. They were going to take their flag away…This was a big school flag.”

     But like any good host parent, Francis told them to return it, to their amazement. He said that they looked at him baffled. “They said, ‘What if they see us?’” Francis recalled. “I said, ‘That’s your problem, not mine. You gotta take it back.’ So I made them take it back and leave it someplace where it would be found. There was nothing terrible about it, they were just kids. It seemed like a good idea to them, I’m sure, at the time. They were shocked when I told them to take it back.”

     Francis added that he often assumed a parental role with the boys and helped shape them into the Major Leaguers that they would become. Mo went on to play Major League baseball for 12 seasons. He played for the Red Sox, where he won the AL MVP in 1995, the Anaheim Angels, and the New York Mets. Mo was named to three All-Star teams. 

     Chuck played 11 years of professional baseball for three different teams, the Minnesota Twins, the New York Yankees, and the Kansas City Royals, winning four rings. He was AL Rookie of the Year in 1991 and was named to four All-Star teams.

     “I had four daughters, so I didn’t have any sons, but I appreciated what they were going through,” Francis said of the time he spent with the boys. “That part of it was good fun. From my point of view, I was delighted to have them. I enjoyed being with them and doing things with them. But they were growing up, and I said, ‘Grow up!’ We had a good summer.”

     Francis said that he went to several Red Sox – Twins matchups over the years to see “his kids” play. He went to one game with Mo’s mother, and another with Wylde, who remembered Chuck coming up to Francis before the game and talking with him at length.
“I saw them a couple of times after, but then we lost touch,” he said with an air of sadness in his voice. “For me they were just fun kids to help raise.” 


 


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