The role of mentorship
A used copy of a classic writing book, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, by Christopher Vogler, arrived in the mail yesterday. I’ve started reading it, and I’m trying to apply Vogler’s wisdom to my own nonfiction writing, specially my in-progress biography of Dave McNally.
Vogler wrote the book as a fuller treatment of a seven-page memo he also wrote called “A Practical Guide to The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” the latter being Joseph Campbell’s classic work. When Vogler wrote his book, he had just started working as a story analyst for the Walt Disney Company.
His book is primarily aimed at filmmakers. Yet, as he points out, humans use a core storytelling model that has developed over the millennia, and today’s quality narrative nonfiction craft incorporates the model used by fiction while remaining true to facts.
Thus, here are some thoughts on the Mentor, as it applies to the life of McNally. The Mentor is one of the archetypes developed by Campbell and refined by Vogler, and it may go without saying that McNally is the hero of my current writing project.
As I’ve combined through the digital archives, primarily old Billings Gazette articles, it’s no surprise to see how often Joe Pirtz is mentioned as a key, maybe the key, to McNally’s development into a star major-league pitcher. McNally, who lost his father, killed in the Pacific in the final months of World War II, had several mentors while growing up in Billings, but Joe Pirtz probably was the most influential.
Here’s some background on Pirtz, drawn primarily from a Gazette article by John Letasky.1 Letasky wasn’t exaggerating when he called Pirtz “perhaps the greatest pitching coach ever involved in Midland Empire baseball.”
That encapsulates the influence he had on hundreds of young players who made Billings a nationally-known hub of junior pitching talent. The most famous of the group were the four players who reached the major leagues: McNally, Les Rohr, Joe McIntosh and Jeff Ballard.
All were products of the Magic City’s American Legion baseball program, but Pirtz also coached Little League baseball and basketball at Billings’ Little Flower Catholic school.
Pirtz’ contributions to the development of Billings youth baseball players have been recognized through the naming of two baseball fields after him. One, at Eighth Street West and Central Avenue, originally was the diamond for the Cardinals and Blue Jays, the city’s two Legion teams that competed at the next level down from where the Royals and Scarlets competed. It’s now a senior league ballpark. For more than three decades, the Blue Jays and Cardinals have played at Pirtz Field, in Stewart Park, on Central Avenue across from the Target store and other businesses in a mini mall.
Pirtz passed away on July 27, 1991, at age 78, but he lived to see the opening of the newer field. His son, Joe, Jr., said his father would be pleased to be honored that way, but other deserving people should be honored, too.
“I wish they’d do it for Eddie (Bayne). It would be nice if they’d do it for Eddie,” he said, referring to the legendary coach of the Billings Legion Post 4 team, who died in 2003.
Dennis Margert, who guided the Scarlets to several state championships and into regional Legion competition, also deserved recognition, the younger Pirtz said.
Still, he opposed the idea then circulating in Billings that Cobb Field should be renamed to honor Bayne. (Cobb Field was demolished in 2008, and Dehler Park was built to replace it as the field where Billings’ professional Mustangs play as well as the Royals and Scarlets).
“That’s not fair to (Bob) Cobb. Cobb did a lot, too.”
Bob Cobb, a Billings man, moved to Hollywood and owned the famed Brown Derby restaurant, where he devised the Cobb Salad as a convenience for movie stars and others who frequented his eatery. Cobb also owned the Hollywood Stars in the years before the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. In the late 1940s, he talked several of his movie business friends, including Barbara Stanwyck, Cecile B. Demille, and Bing Crosby, into buying stock in the fledgling Billings Mustangs team. For his efforts, the Billings City Council renamed existing Athletic Field as Cobb Field, and it became a shrine of Billings baseball until it was demolished.
Joe Pirtz, Jr., who coached the Billings Blue Jays, was aware of his father’s legacy when he walked onto Pirtz Field.
“Definitely, it’s a privilege,” he said in 1999 when he was in his third year as Blue Jays coach. “At first it was definitely special. I remember the first time I walked out there. It was like treading on Holy Grounds.”
Pirtz, a teacher, said students would approach him and ask if the field was named after him.
“And I say, ‘My dad’s name was Joe, I’m Joe, and my son’s name is Joe. There are three of us.’ ”
As Letasky wrote, how do you become an icon in a town, so respected that a baseball field is named in your honor?
I’ll develop that thought in an upcoming post.
- Billings Gazette, July 4, 1999 ↩︎