MEDFORD - They sometimes wore Indian war bonnets on the field, and were known for their incessant whistles and chatter to rattleopponents.
The Hosmer Chiefs of Medford were for two decades one of thefinest amateur baseball teams in New England, in the early '60soccasionally outdrawing the then-woeful Boston Red Sox, and toppingthe Intercity League seven times in a row between 1968 and 1974.
Named for the Indian-head emblems on the flashy chrome-coveredPontiacs sold by their car-dealer sponsor, the Chiefs brought abarnstorming spirit to the game.
Their star pitcher won more than 100 games with an old-fashionedhigh-kick delivery that hid the ball till the last possible secondfrom the batter's sight.
One player-manager once ran backward around the bases afterhitting a home run, and in the field would often drop his mitt to thegrass and taunt rival batsmen to hit the ball to him.
Another went on to make millions selling hot dogs and sodas atsporting events and has been mentioned as a possible buyer for theRed Sox.
'We played with such a zest,' recalled Lennie Dempsey, the Chiefs'scrappy player-manager from 1960-66. 'You couldn't be at a gamewithout people screaming from the opening pitch. We played with apassion. We were the Boys of Summer.'
Now, 18 summers after their last game, the Chiefs and their latesponsor, John Hosmer Jr., are being honored in the city to which theybrought such sporting pride.
A memorial plaque and flagpole have been dedicated in Hosmer'smemory at the Chiefs' old home field, Playstead Park in West Medford.Team alumni who attended the June ceremony are now planning anotherreunion in Maine this fall at a restaurant owned by former catcherGordie Lewis.
Hosmer family members and former Chiefs have welcomed the chanceto reminisce on the days when baseball was king in Medford, and aballyhoo-loving car salesman and a gang of ballplayers formed anextended clan that would endure through the decades.
'Every team in New England knew who we were,' said Dempsey, whopiloted the team to five straight titles in the Suburban TwilightLeague between 1961 and 1965. 'We were invincible. We gave Medfordsomething to be proud of.'
Large crowds would fill the bleachers and sidelines for playoffgames at Playstead Park, with stampedes of youngsters chasing thefoul balls that cascaded off adjacent housetops and parked cars. 'Itwas a time when the Red Sox couldn't draw 5,000 people, and we'doutdraw them for a playoff game,' Dempsey claimed. 'They had to ropeoff the diamond in those days.'
'We all pulled for each other, and we hated to lose,' said EddieDiGiacomo of Medford, who played alongside his brother, Richie, onthe Chiefs in the 1960s and was nicknamed 'The Whistler' and 'TheBarker' for the ear-splitting noises he would make from third base todistract the opposition. Playing for the Chiefs 'meant everything,'said DiGiacomo, 57, a meter-reader for the electric company. 'It wasmy life.'
Medford City Councilor Robert Penta, a relief pitcher for the teamfrom 1966 to 1972, still proudly displays his red-sleeved jersey with'Chiefs' in red script across the chest. 'It made an average kid likemyself feel as if I were playing professional baseball,' he said,recalling hot summer nights on the mound when he might lose fivepounds to perspiration over the course of a game.
In a baseball-loving city that produced big-leaguers BillMonbouquette of the Red Sox and Mike Pagliarulo of the Twins andYankees, the Chiefs were a 'link between playing sandlot and playingfor the Red Sox,' said John H. 'Jay' Hosmer 3d of Winchester, son ofthe team's late sponsor.
Mention the team and old-time fans recall long-ago games againstthe Boston Typos and Mass. Envelope and the McKinnon Club of Everett.They recall players like Ralphie Walker and Ellis 'Sonny' Lane, whobecame athletic director at Melrose High, Tommy Mandile, who went asfar as Triple A with the Cubs before his arm gave out, and hard-hitting Holy Cross grad Joey Armstrong.
'To this day, when I say my name, 25 percent of the people I meetwill say, `Hosmer Pontiac? Hosmer Chiefs?' ' said Jay Hosmer.
What Tom Yawkey was to the Red Sox, John Hosmer Jr., who died athis Winchester home in 1989 at age 68, was to the Chiefs.
Hosmer had a promoter's flair, luring singers like the AmesBrothers and sports stars like Tom Heinsohn of the Celtics and GerryCheevers of the Bruins to appear on behalf of his Pontiac dealership.Period publicity stills show youngsters cramming the Mystic Avenueshowroom to have 45s autographed by a popular crooner or to shootbaskets with visiting Celtics. He also sponsored a basketball team,the Indians, and a number of youth baseball teams that served as afarm system for his Chiefs.
'He was a showman,' said his widow, Betty Ann, of Winchester. Thesame spirit animated his Chiefs, which Hosmer groomed as theshowpiece of the area's talent-laden but gritty amateur baseballloop.
Hosmer took over the four-year-old team in 1962, when he succeededhis father as president of the Medford dealership, and ran it until'82, when he sold the dealership and the Chiefs disbanded.
In those 20 years, competing first in the Suburban Twilight Leagueand then in the Intercity League, the Chiefs won a dozenchampionships and never finished worse than second. Six times, theBoSox Club, the Red Sox' booster organization, named the Chiefs thebest amateur baseball team in New England.
Hosmer attended every game. He found jobs for some of his players,who were mostly in their early 20s, and lent cars to others. Everysummer in late August, after the season ended, he and his wifeinvited the team to their summer home on Wingaersheek Beach inGloucester for a clambake.
'He loved that team,' said Betty Ann Hosmer. 'My husband was avery energetic person. He required little sleep, and was veryenthusiastic. The kids went to the games, and they got a kick out ofit.'
The four Hosmer children came to see the ballplayers as part oftheir extended family. 'The Chiefs taught me how to play whist,' saiddaughter Darcy Hosmer Margiotta of Andover, who recalled watching thefirst lunar landing in 1969 with the ballplayers at the Gloucesterbeach house.
Former Chiefs manager and catcher Joe O'Donnell of Belmontrecalled Hosmer as a benevolent owner who would sit on the benchduring games but never interfere, and would treat players to dinnersat Blinstrub's and other eateries.
'He was the kindest person I ever met,' said O'Donnell, a productof Everett and Harvard University who was player-manager for theChiefs from 1968-80, winning his final championship with the club inhis last year at age 37.
Since hanging up his catcher's mask, O'Donnell himself has had anoteworthy off-field career. The 56-year-old Harvard Business Schoolalumnus has built his Boston Concessions Group into a multimillion-dollar business that markets refreshments at sporting arenas andresorts around the country. He has founded the Joey Fund, to aidchildren with cystic fibrosis, in honor of a son who died from thedisease, and has given millions to the baseball program at Harvard,where the field is named in his honor.
Widely seen as a potential suitor for the Red Sox if and when theteam is put up for sale, O'Donnell describes his old patron, Hosmer,as a role model for him. 'He was the first rich guy most of us evermet,' O'Donnell said. 'He demonstrated day after day, year afteryear, the good things you could do with money. He helped more peoplein an unobtrusive way. He had an impact on that community far beyondthe Hosmer Chiefs.'
The Harvard B School-bred O'Donnell's approach as player-managerwas pure 'Wall Street,' he said, at least compared with that of hispredecessor, Lennie Dempsey, who climbed backstops and ran basesbackward to rally the troops. 'I was kind of dull,' said O'Donnell.'Lennie was electric.'
Dempsey personified a Gas house Gang style in an age when baseballrivalries were fierce between communities like Cambridge andWatertown and Medford and Malden, and no quarter was asked or givenon the field.
'It was never a gentlemanly contest,' said Dempsey, 64, in a phoneinterview from his home in West Yarmouth, where he is retired after30 years as a teacher at an American military base in Italy.
'We never saw a locker room,' he recalled. The fields were awful.They were rocky. The home team had an edge. They knew where the bumpswere.
'It was a tough game, and when we stepped across the lines, it waswar. Pitchers were not afraid to throw inside. I ate dirt. I was runover. I was also spiked. I took that as a compliment,' he said.
A Medford native who captained the Boston University nine in 1957and got his start in amateur ball on the powerhouse Malden City Club,Dempsey guided the Chiefs to five straight Suburban Twi Leaguetitles, from 1961-65, while encouraging a hustling and colorful styleof play.
A standout player who spanned both the Dempsey and O'Donnell eraswas Fred Knox, dubbed 'the Original Chief.' The sidearm-throwingright-hander was the ace of the pitching staff, winning some 115games in 16 years with the club.
Knox's trademark on the mound was a high leg kick, reminiscent ofthe style of the Boston Braves' Warren Spahn. 'At the last second,'recalled Jay Hosmer, 'the ball would come out of nowhere.'
The 63-year-old Knox retired two years ago after 36 years ofteaching social studies and coaching baseball at Medford High School,and now lives in York, Maine, where he and his family operate a bed-and-breakfast inn.
'We used to yell,' he said in a recent phone interview. 'We had atremendous competitive spirit. We were pretty much unbeatable - wehated to lose.'
