LJ baseball: Dave Jordan, Class of 1955: 'Eating with God'

Dave Jordan, Class of 1955

La Jolla High baseball player

By Ed Piper

"I was serving as batboy for the San Diego Padres (in the ninth grade in 1952)," remembered Dave Jordan, a Viking Class of 1955 alumnus. "Lefty O'Doul (the manager of the Padres at Lane Field) asked me, 'Do you need a ride home? If you do, you have to eat dinner with us.'"

So there was Jordan, a young, impressionable junior high student who loved playing baseball, going out to eat with O'Doul and his guests for the evening, Joe DiMaggio and his new wife, Marilyn Monroe.

"People asked me what it was like to eat dinner with them," related Jordan at the La Jolla High batting practice event Mon., Dec. 26. "Everybody thought of Marilyn Monroe. For me, I was sitting there eating with God," meaning DiMaggio, a Hall of Fame centerfielder for the Yankees. He had recently retired as a player.

"No one said much during dinner," said Jordan. He attributed it partly to possible marital problems the DiMaggios were having that he read about later. But Joe DiMaggio was also known as more of a loner, different from his two baseball-playing siblings, Vince and Dom.

The young batboy lived in Pacific Beach, and got his ride home from O'Doul after the meal.

In the seventh grade, Jordan got the brainy idea of writing the Padres to ask if he could serve as batboy. "I got turned down," he said. But then he tried again the next year, and he got accepted. Lefty O'Doul, a famous baseball presence, had a major influence on the young boy.

Jordan had never seen the modern baseball facility at Muirlands Middle School before Dec. 26. He had a hard time finding the entrance, with the main campus closed down over the winter break and only one entry point--a somewhat hidden path up the hill from Nautilus Drive to the field.

When he was attending La Jolla, "The baseball field was in the corner of the football field." One ongoing problem of that location, with its multiple uses, was that too many athletes working out for the Viking track team got hit with the ball. Jordan was quite complimentary of the present baseball complex, with its turf field, batting cages, and the like.

A veteran of five years playing baseball in the pros, he told the story of facing Dodgers great Sandy Koufax. Re-creating the scene as a lefthanded batter, he said, "The first pitch was a fastball on the outside corner, strike one. The second pitch was another fastball on the outside corner, strike two. Then he threw me a curve. My butt was way back there (pointing behind him). Strike one, strike two, adios."