Wilbur sold Yellow Pages ads. Al was going out with Frankie Hawkins, drinking and starting rhubarbs in bars.
"My dad's responsibility was to find Al in bars," Doug Wright says. "That was his family duty, to keep him sober while he was playing ball. He told me that on many, many nights he would try to find Al in bars and sober him up for the next day's game. It was a constant source of frustration and anger on my dad's part to have to do that. He could see his brother wasting his career."
There was more to it than that. Wilbur watched his brother, their father's namesake, screw up just like the old man had, indulging the same appetites that tore the family apart. Al got all the chances. Wilbur sacrificed to make it happen. And Al was squandering it all.
The fraternal roles stayed pretty much the same until Al left baseball in the late '40s and went to work selling clothes for Roos Atkins in Berkeley and Oakland.
Still, he loved his booze and his women. He always had a dame on his arm and nice clothes on his back.
Meanwhile, Wilbur was taking care of their aging mother, Marie, raising a family in Los Altos, and commuting to the city by train each day to sell those Yellow Pages ads.
A strained relationship, built mainly around holiday dinners and golf, was formed.
In 1971 it all came crashing down when Marie died and left Wilbur in charge of the estate. "Some money was left and Al took it and blew it on booze and gambling," Doug says.
Sometime around 2 or 3 a.m. one morning that year, Al called from Reno, where he'd lost all the money, pleading with Wilbur to wire him some more.
Wilbur would take no more. No one will ever know exactly what words passed over that phone line. Just the result.
Since I wrote my first column on Al Wright, I've been getting a steady stream of phone calls, e-mails, and regular old mail from good-hearted people wanting to help put Al to rest with dignity.
Richard Beverage, president of the Professional Baseball Players Association of America, has already sent a $300 check to Wilbur's daughter, Virginia Welch, who has power of attorney over Wilbur's affairs.
A group of old Seals and other PCL players, called the Dante Benedetti Baseball Foundation, got Welch's address, and are sending her a $100 check.
SF Weekly is going to send along a check too, for $350.
I talked to Doug and he says the money is welcome and appreciated. The Wright family isn't rich and could use the help paying for a nice headstone commemorating Al's baseball career. Doug said it'd be OK to publish his sister's address, if anyone else wants to send checks or money orders to help with the early February memorial service: Virginia Welch, 64 East 900 South, Orem, Utah 84058.
But Doug and I realized what's missing most is memories and anecdotes about Al's ball career and his life afterward. The family has a 30-year gap to fill in. So Doug also said it'd be OK to publish his phone number for anyone to call. The family will take your stories and weave them into readings for the memorial service. Call Doug Wright at (801) 226-5344.
Al didn't provide a very decent coda on his ball career: He was fired for getting drunk and ruining his team's chances at the Eastern League championship. The next year, he in-jured his elbow and couldn't turn double plays anymore, so he quit. And he didn't tie his life up in a neat bow like lots of other folks.
So I guess that's what Amason, Larson, Doug and his siblings, Dick Beverage, Dante Benedetti, me, and all the folks who contacted me are after here.
A decent requiem for an old ballplayer.
I Screwed Up
Tail tucked between my legs, ears pasted to the side of my head, I drag my belly across the carpet to admit two mistakes in my Jan. 6 column, "Assholes on the March": One, the loft development I ridiculed as the Mint Monster is not located at 755 Minnesota, as I wrote, but mars the landscape at 755 Tennessee St., as the photo accompanying my column so clearly shows. My deepest apologies to the owners of 755 Minnesota St. Two, the brave and sweet man who took me on my tour of Dogpatch is Robert Anderson, not Bruce Anderson as I reported. Sorry, Rob.
George Cothran (gcothran@sfweekly.com) can be reached at SF Weekly, 185 Berry, Suite 3800, San Francisco,
