Sunday, Jul. 12, 2009

Heat kept top usher busy at 1966 game

Belleville man didn't get to see NL's winning run

Cletus Blaes didn't see much of the 1966 All-Star Game.

He was too busy tending to fans passed out from the heat and taking them up an elevator to a makeshift hospital.

"I had five fainters and one heart attack," said Blaes, who was the usher captain for the third-base field boxes at the game in the new Busch Stadium. "The air temperature was 96 and fans were sitting in the hot sunshine and drinking beer. About the fourth inning, they'd come into the shade behind the seats and they'd just flop out."

You mean you didn't see Tim McCarver slide home with the winning run in the 10th inning?

"No," he said. "I was working."

Blaes is 80 now, retired from teaching, living in Belleville and likes to play golf and swim. But he'll never forget his 11 years as an usher. "It gave me lots of stories to tell my grandkids," he said.

Blaes was working as a teacher and janitor at St. Catherine Laboure School in Cahokia in 1964 when he got the call.

"I started at Sportsman's Park on Grand and Dodier," Blaes said. "If you've ever been to Wrigley Field in Chicago, it was like that. Right in the neighborhood. It was a good park."

On May 11, he recalled, they closed Sportman's and moved downtown. The ushers were there when they brought in home plate and got a tour of the new stadium.

Blaes pulled out a picture of himself as an usher at Busch in 1966. He was handsome in a straw hat, a red vest, white shirt and ribbon tie.

"We were supposed to look like riverboat gamblers," he said. "Usher captains earned twelve dollars and fifty cents a game. The other ushers got eight-fifty."

But the job had great benefits.

"Once I was working on bat giveaway detail with Mike Shannon after he just quit playing ball. They told me I did a good job and gave me a case of bats."

Blaes took them back to his school in Cahokia and gave them to the kids as rewards for good work or attendance prizes.

He also got bats players had broken and "knothole tickets" to give to his students.

"There was a reason why my kids had better attendance than others," he said with a wink. "They knew Mr. Blaes would give them a bat for perfect attendance at the end of the year."

He also got to meet a lot of celebrities, especially when he worked behind home plate.

He showed Frank Sinatra and Charlotte Ford to their seats. He rode the elevator with Pearl Bailey, Cary Grant, Bob Hope and Johnny Weissmuller. "You know, he was Tarzan."

"Milton Berle was the most down to earth," Blaes said. "He stood for a half an hour and talked. He was just like he was on TV."

Blaes' favorite Cardinals player was Willie McGee. But it was Cubs shortstop Ernie Banks who charmed him. He'd always stand and talk to me. He was always happy. He was amazing."

Blaes liked to ask Chicago Bears owner George Hallas to show him his championship ring. "Hallas flashed it like this," he said, moving his fist in a semi-circle.

He was buds with Jack Buck and August Busch.

"When the Cardinals were playing bad, Augie would get so mad I thought he was going to bust," Blaes said. "He was a great guy. He had an apartment under the stands. He'd take the celebrities to his place and entertain them."

Not all the times were good.

He remembers a fan falling out of the upper deck. "He ruptured his spleen and he died. It was a terrible thing."

Blaes was in so good with the Cardinals staff that when public relations man Dick Wagner left for Los Angeles, he offered Blaes a job in public relations with the Dodgers. But he wasn't about to leave his beloved Cardinals.

Through the years, Blaes worked two World Series and he also ushered for Cardinals football games.

Blaes hung up his usher togs for the last time in 1975. Why?

"I didn't need the money anymore," he said. "At one time I had four jobs -- teacher, janitor, usher and I was going to college to get my masters. It takes a toll on you. I wouldn't get home from games until twelve-thirty. I wanted to spend more time with my family."

He still enjoys going to Cardinals games with his wife, Gloria. And, when he does, he keeps one eye on the ushers, just for old times' sake.

He doesn't have tickets to the 2009 All-Star Game, but he plans to attend a lot of the festivities downtown.

"I just hope it's not so hot."

Cletus Blaes

Age: 80

Occupation: Teacher, retired

Residence: Belleville

Family: Wife, Gloria; three grown children, Dan, Donna and Yvonne.

Cardinals usher: 11 years from 1964 to 1975

Favorite Cardinal: Willie McGee

Favorite baseball memory: "When I was about 5 years old in the Cub Scouts, in 1934, my Dad took me to Sportsman's Park. Boston was playing the Browns and I remember my dad pointing and saying, 'That's Babe Ruth.'"