Good Night Ed

I did not know Ed Kuempel that well. In fact, I didn't even know he was a state legislator until I read that he had died this morning of a heart attack in Austin. Truth be told, the last time I saw Ed (the newspaper story referred to him as Edmund, but I always knew him as Ed) was a little more than 48 years ago.

It was during my first internship, during the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college. I was working for the Seguin Gazette, at the time a weekly newspaper in Seguin, known back then as the town 30 miles east of San Antonio where U.S. Highways 90 and 90A joined (they separated in Houston, depending on which way you traveled). My job at the Seguin Gazette was basically to cover and write about everything, except the editorials and the society columns. That meant city news, county news, the police beat and sports. That summer sports consisted of two semi-pro baseball teams based in Seguin, the Seguin White Sox and the SMI (for Seguin Steel Mills) Steelers. Kumpel, who had also pitched for Seguin'sTexas Lutheran College's baseball team, was the ace of the White Sox starting rotation, which meant he pitched almost every game since the two teams only played twice a week.

The University of Texas' baseball team, then coached by the legendary Bibb Falk, had just won another Southwest Conference championship that season and was heading up to Omaha to play in the College Wold Series. Between the end of the SWC season and the start of the series, Falk scheduled a couple of warmup games, one of which was with the White Sox in Seguin. I covered the game for the Gazette and since the field had nothing resembling a functioning press box, I sat behind the Texas bench, one of those chain-link enclosures you see on just about all municipal baseball fields even to this day.

Falk had a reputation for trying to unnerve opposing pitchers by talking to them constantly and he never let up on poor Ed throughout his stint on the mound. "He throws inside, he throws outside," Falk yelled to his batters. "His main pitch is his changeup." I distinctly remember one moment, when Kuempel was about halfway through his windup, Falk yelled "Hey, Kuempel! Can you open a beer can with that chin?" A hapless Kuempel collapsed in laughter right there on the mound. Even the umpire was laughing too hard to call a balk.

About half the teams in the league in which the White Sox and SMI played were based in San Antonio, so I often accompanied the team on road trips to the Alamo City. The team usually piled into four or five cars, each one belonging to and driven by a player, to make the trip. This league could not afford team buses. After one of these road contests it was decided that we would stop off at a neighborhood drive-in for dinner, which was going to be expensed by the team. We placed our order and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally Kuempel had had enough. He slammed his fist on the dashboard of the car he was riding in, jumped out of the card and screamed:

"Why you clowns can't fulfill a simple order of 37 hamburgers, 28 cheeseburgers, two double cheeseburgers, five with lettuce and tomato, 16 with pickles and mayonnaise, seven with mustard and lettuce ... 42 with French fries, 20 with onion rings ... 6 plain Cokes, 4 vanilla Cokes, 8 cherry Cokes, 7 chocolates shakes .... is beyond me."

This time it was the turn of the rest of us to roll around laughing out loud.

I did not know you well, Ed Kuempel, but the time I did know you were some of my best times.