Floyd Jackson’s return to Palm Springs was less triumphant than he’d hoped for

By Biff Stroganoff, Sports Pictured Magazine
Week of Dec. 9, 2013

Floyd Jackson, starting pitcher for the Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance’s Palm Springs Codgers, is in the game room of a Seven-Eleven convenience store, frantically mashing the buttons of the arcade game Joust.  A small explosion knocks his character into a lake of burning lava and the words “GAME OVER” appear on the screen.

“Dammit, I can never make it past that pterodactyl,” he pouts.

We are in Palm Springs, California, city of Jackson’s birth and the place of his upbringing.  Across the street is Palm Springs South High School, the site of one of his earliest triumphs – pitching the Samovars to a trio of conference championships.  All three years, Jackson dominated the landscape, being voted Desert Springs Conference Player of the Year in both 2001 and 2002.

He was a real diamond rat as a kid, always hanging around Palm Springs Stadium to watch his idols on the Palm Springs Angels clubs of the eighties and nineties, even working as a batboy.  “I met Bob ‘Excavator’ Smith, Bill ‘Hulker’ Ungrum, Bart ‘Manwich’ Hansen, Sally ‘I am Not A Girl, I Just Have A Girl’s Name, There’s Nothing Weird Or Unmanly About That’ Plouffe… all those guys.”  He laughs.  “Remember Roland Toes and that far-out Fu Manchu mustache of his?  I was there the day he threw that pitch over the backstop and nailed the mayor in the face!  Crazy.”

A lot of professional water has flowed beneath the baseball bridge since those long-ago days.  After graduation, Jackson quickly found himself in pro ball.  He was already plying his trade as a full-time member of Crystal Lake’s starting rotation by 2007; by 2008 he was an All-Star.  He was still just 24 years old.

He would spend six years altogether with a powerhouse Sandgnats club that never won less than 102 games and claimed the Great Lakes Division title every season.  Yet he always felt a pull toward his hometown and the salmon-hued club that now played there.

“It was always fun to play the Codgers, but kind of bittersweet too, you know?  I guess in a way, they were always in my heart.”

And the feeling was mutual.  For years, Palm Springs General Manager Denny Hills had been scheming to figure out a way to bring Jackson back to his hometown club.

“We asked about him all the time,” says Hills.  “I called so often, I think they started to just let the phone go straight to voicemail.  That’s really kind of… kind of mean, when you think about it.”  His eyes seem to glisten a bit.

“Anyway, finally last year, Crystal Lake called and was ready to do business, so I pulled the trigger on that baby as fast as, um, something that happens really fast.  Like a gun or something?  I don’t know.  But fast.”

It seemed like a perfect fit, but things started to go awry almost as soon as the paperwork on the deal was finished.  Jackson found himself unable to sell his multimillion-dollar manse in Crystal Lake – “With the market the way it’s been these past few years, it’s murder trying to move any high-end property,” he laments – so post-trade, he was forced to move back in with his parents, back to the very room where he daydreamed of big league stardom as a kid.

“My mom had left everything exactly as it was when I was still living here back in high school,” the pitcher says as we leave the convenience store and head down the sidewalk toward the local arcade.  “Even my blue canary night light!  It was actually kind of creepy, to tell you the truth.”

Things were even worse on the baseball diamond.  Jackson kicked off the season with a horrific April, losing all six games he started and finishing the month with a bloated 18.00 ERA.  Though rallying a bit in May and June, he still concluded the season with 14 losses and an ERA of 5.71 – both marks career worsts.

Jackson’s phone rings.  It is his high-school sweetheart, now running a dry-cleaning business, with whom he has reconnected after moving back to town.

“Wut?  No, I can’t.  No.  What’s your damage, Heather?  You know I can’t go; I’m grounded again.  Duh!  Whatever.  ‘Kay, bye.”

Jackson rolls his eyes.  “I tried to explain to Ma that I was going on road trips with the team, but she just kept accusing me of sneaking out after curfew with ‘those no-good pink-dressed boys’.”  He heaves a sigh.  “So I’ve been grounded pretty much the whole year.”

At this exact moment, a rusting bluish minivan with imitation wood-panel siding pulls up to the curb and honks its horn.  The driver shouts, “Floyd Bennett Jackson!  Get in the car this instant!”  The voice is instantly recognizable as that of Floyd’s mother Wanda.

“She looks pretty mad.  I better go,” the younger Jackson says, shaking his head.  “I’ll see ya around,” he offers over his shoulder as he lopes toward the minivan.

“Coming, Ma!”