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