Manny Serrano

 Manny Serrano

     Greg often used this man's sad story as a cautionary tale and a reminder that we had actually accomplished adulthood. Manny Serrano was a guy who hung around the South Gate Park too much. We never knew his true story. He had been a semi-pro baseball star in the late 1940's and early 1950's and coached teams at the Park for years. He was a handsome guy and in great shape which might have been easier since he never seemed to work a day in his life and lived with his Mom in a house within walking distance of the hundred acres of South Gate's pride and Joy. He played tennis, almost every day and was winning because he practiced when others had to go earn a living. He dressed well, mainly sportswear and his Mom kept his mufti clean and pressed. He was a third base coach of the legendary Jets youth baseball team that Daddy Warbucks Gene Childs put together by providing the best equipment and enticing the best players to sign up and wear the Red and Blue of the rarely beaten Jets. The coaches wore full uniforms with stirrup hose, undershirts, crisp cotton jerseys with zipper fronts. They had windbreakers and really cool hats because Gene Childs was in it to win it, even if it were 11 year olds. So here are two full-grown men coaching the bases who had no kids on the team and were expected to keep the stars in line as they demolished the boys trying to learn the game. Maybe Manny worked nights or was a bartender but he was at the Park all day long.  When Greg worked with Bobcat as a landscaper at the baseball diamonds it enfuriated him that Manny Serrano would drive his car up to the parking lot near the North Playground and get out with a 9 iron and a single golf ball that he would hit it off the grass with divots. Despite the sixty cent fee to play on the Pitch and Putt he would just hit his ball back and forth  across the length of the park for an entire morning or afternoon. Manny passed the nice Southern California days unimpeded by work for basically his entire life. The family must have been OK financially since I believe he drove a T-bird but he had a great tan and firm physique that our Dads did not have time to achieve. The last time I saw Manny was during one of my frequent visits to Value Village Thrift Store where he was obviously deep into dementia and no longer in the care of his Mom who must have been long  gone by the 1990's. He was unshaven, shabbily dressed and smelled like sour sweat. The kind clerks at the Village were nice with him and let him look at stuff in the display case but the end was in sight for his life of leisure.