Page 10 February 24, 2022 EL SEGUNDO HERALD
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Gina Hoffman Palm Realty Boutique 310.864.5347
Tim Chrisman from front page
included a multi-decade stint with the New
York Mets. Fun fact about Floyd: when he
was attending ESHS, he authored some sports
stories for the Herald.
Of living in El Segundo back in the day,
Floyd said that “I can’t imagine a better
place to grow up. We had a small town, and
all the parents and families knew each other.
You grew up with the same guys all the way
through high school,” noting that he is “still
pretty close” with many of the early 1960’s
ESHS graduates.
Back to Chrisman. He did not have an infield
position that he was adept at when he attended
ESHS. “I was afraid of the ball,” Chrisman
said, “and I couldn’t hit,” so legendary Eagle
coach John Stevenson and staff pointed Chrisman
to the pitching mound. Chrisman also
played American Legion ball for three years,
developing his pitching talents.
Once Chrisman graduated, he attended El
Camino College, but that experience tanked.
He became academically ineligible to play ball
at El Camino, but pitched for a KC Athletics
rookie team and caught the eye of the legendary
Tommy Lasorda, who was scraping around
the lower levels of pro baseball.
With Lasorda in attendance at one of his
games, Chrisman was tossing a no-hitter,
and Lasorda posited, “how would you like
to become a Dodger? I would like to come
over and speak to you and your parents.” After
the Lasorda visit, Chrisman signed a contract
on the dotted line, and ended-up pitching, for
about a year, as a Dodger farmhand, toeing
the slab in the low-minors in Santa Barbara.
The slim Chrisman said he gained a bunch
of weight when he signed with the Dodgers.
Not sure if the always well-fed Lasorda participated
in the weight gain. “Lasorda was a
wonderful guy, worked with me very hard on
my curveball,” Chrisman said. “He was almost
like a father figure. We were very close. He
would send me Christmas cards after I was
out of the organization.”
At this point in our phone conversation,
Chrisman and I chuckled over a couple of
classic Lasorda rants that were immortalized
on the must-listen-to Jim Healy sports radio
show that ruled the late afternoon drive-time
AM airwaves back in the day. Lasorda’s classic
diatribes involving “Kingman’s performance”
and the banjo hitting Padre Kurt Bevacqua falling
out of a boat were legendary rants that cannot
be repeated in this family-friendly newspaper.
After his year with the Dodgers, Chrisman
was selected by the Houston Astros in the Rule
5 draft. He went to North Carolina to pitch,
but things did not go well. More ominously,
Chrisman, who was nursing a sore arm, soon
received his draft notice, allowing him to
participate in the Vietnam War.
Chrisman became a soldier on Valentine’s
Day of 1966. When he was pulling his
tour of duty with the armed forces of the
United States, he took every opportunity
to participate in whatever sporting options
were available, including quarterbacking in
flag football, bumping a volleyball, playing
centerfield on the diamond, and participating
in softball activities.
Chrisman was stationed at the massive
armed forces facility at Fort Hood, Texas,
which encompasses more than 350 square
miles. “Quite an experience,” he said. “We
had 66,000, mostly men, training at that post.
People were coming there like crazy,” but
fortunately, Chrisman was never deployed
to Viet Nam.
Chrisman friend Lee Sherrill still lives in
El Segundo. He said that when he peruses
the Herald, he “looks at the (obituaries) to
make sure that my name is not in there.” He
played youth sports with Chrisman and still
cherishes their friendship.
Tom Callanan was the ESHS student body
president in 1961. He recently retired from
El Segundo Middle School, where he taught
physical education. Callanan was a varsity
basketballer when Chrisman made free throws
for the junior varsity. “Knowing Tim at the
time,” Callanan said, “I always thought to
myself, what a friendly, outgoing, intelligent
individual, who was always smiling and
positive.”
At one point, Chrisman satiated his baseball
needs by pitching batting practice to a new
generation of players at ESHS. “Coaching
with Stevenson,” he said, was “one of the
highlights of my life.” Chrisman would leave
work before 2 p.m., go toss batting practice,
and return to his business to ice his throbbing
elbow and shoulder. “I did it for me as much
as I did it for them,” Chrisman said. “There
is something about being outside, in the sun,
on the green, freshly mowed grass. I loved
throwing BP,” Chrisman said.
Chrisman moved to El Segundo when he
was seven years old. He originally lived in
Hawthorne, then his family moved to Oregon
and finally relocated to the El Segundo area.
He currently lives a stone’s throw from the
El Segundo border, but is a Mayberryite,
through and through.
So, how does Chrisman sum up his decadeslong
love affair with El Segundo?
“A bitchen little Tim Chrisman and Daughter Rainy Attend Homecoming Festivities. Photo courtesy of Tim Chrisman. town,” he said. •