Lines Ballet: AlonzoKing’s “Constellation.”Through Sunday. LamResearch Theater, 700Howard St., S.F. $20-$65.(415) 987-2787. www.ybca.org.

By Allan Ulrich

One expects candlesfor a 30th anniversary,but Alonzo King went abit further Friday eveningwhen his Lines Balletlaunched its home seasonat Lam Research Theater,Yerba Buena Center forthe Arts, with the pre-miere of a full-eveningwork (now called “Con-stellation”).

For decor, he calledupon electronic artist JimCampbell to illuminatethe stage with 1,000 pro-grammed LED spheres.

The effect, in tandemwith the contribution ofcompany lighting design-er Axel Morgenthaler,was gorgeous. Some ofthose spheres served as acanopy; some provided abackdrop. A few rolledacross the stage and fur-nished a jocular episodefor the company during a90-minute helping ofrather intense dancing inthe King manner.

This was a night forcollaborators all down theline. Maya Lahyani wan-dered through in a russet

Margo Moritz / Lines Ballet

Yujin Kim and ZacharyTang’s duet put Kim’sextensions on display in“Constellation.”

Stars alignfor Linesbig 30th

DANCEREVIEW

Lines continues on E2

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DatebookSan Francisco Chronicle and SFGate.com | Tuesday, October 23, 2012 | Section E

By Peter Hartlaub

The San Francisco Seals file inThe Chronicle photo archive isfilled with players from the 1940sand 1950s in baggy uniforms andtough-looking baseball poses:holding bats with white-knucklegrips, glaring from the pitcher’smound or crouched in the fieldstaring down a ball.

Albie Pearson is set apart byhis joyous grin and his entourageof children. In posed shots andcandids, he is often surroundedby the San Francisco Seals’ youn-gest fans. Some stand nearly levelwith the diminutive outfielder,but they still look up to him. ThePied Piper of the Pacific CoastLeague.

“I just think there was an affin-ity for me right off the bat becauseI was so short,” Pearson says.“When I played there, I don’tthink I weighed 132 pounds, 5foot 5. The kids would walk rightup and stand next to me and puttheir backs toward me. Theywould get on their tiptoes and seeif they were taller than me. Someof them almost were.”

Pearson was one of the lastgreat stars of Bay Area baseballbefore the Giants arrived in 1958 Joe Rosenthal / The Chronicle 1957

At 5 feet 5, outfielder Albie Pearson, at Seals Stadium on April 20, 1957, was a hit with kids.

Courtesy Albie Pearson 2011

Helen and Albie Pearson, aminister, have been married58 years and cared fortroubled boys for decades.

Pearson continues on E2

LIFE STUDIES

A minister of stature Albie Pearson,Seals star, foundreligion ‘biggerthan baseball’

By Edward Guthmann

During the second halfof October, Chuck Nicklowrents upward of 2,000Halloween outfits at Cos-tumes on Haight. On thebusiest days, he’ll have twodoormen managing theflow of customers and aline that snakes up HaightStreet.

When it’s over — whenthe customers have re-turned the pirate suits, thegangsters, the zombiehookers, the astronauts,

the Marie Antoinettes andthe Mitt Romneys — itwill take Nicklow and hisstaff three months to washand dry all the Halloweenrentals.

Nicklow, 43, manageda costume shop in north-east Ohio for eight years.He moved to San Francis-co with his wife, Amanda,in 2000, was hired byCostumes on Haight (costumesonhaight.com) in2003 and became storemanager the followingyear.

I spend all year gear-ing up for Halloween.And then October hitsand the first two weeksare really slow. But I’mfilled with staff because Ihave to train them. Ihave eight full-time em-ployees year-round andduring October that goesup to 20.

By about the 10th ofOctober I’m starting towonder, “Where are thecustomers?” And thenthe middle of the month

Russell Yip / The Chronicle

Chuck Nicklow, who has managed Costumes on Haight in San Francisco since2004, spends all year preparing for the two-week crush before Halloween.

Man behind the masks spendsyear gearing up for big night

WHAT I DO Chuck Nicklow, Costume Shop Manager

What I Do continues on E2

E2 | Tuesday, October 23, 2012 | San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate.com

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it gets really busy. Satur-day the 27th will be ourbiggest day.

Every year there arepop culture events thatkind of predict whatcostumes will be pop-ular. We know “TheAvengers” are going tobe big this year, so ofcourse superheroes ingeneral will be, too.

There’ll be a lot ofpolitical stuff, peopledoing Obama and Rom-ney. No, we don’t have a

Paul Ryan mask. Or anEddie Munster mask.

We still have threeSarah Palin kits — thewig, the glasses and a“You Betcha!” button —left over from 2009. Nota big seller anymore.That’s a perfect exampleof an item that was real-ly hot for three months.

What’s difficult topredict is when a celeb-rity dies or gets in trou-ble with the law, or hassome notoriety. Like,there was the Siegfriedand Roy accident (Roy

Horn was badly bittenby a tiger on Oct. 3,2003), so everybodywanted to be a magicianand a tiger at the lastminute.

The other big eventseach year are BurningMan and Bay to Break-ers. For Burning Man,we sell a lot of blinkiesand EL wire. Day-Glo,rave-y kind of stuff.Faux-fur miniskirts andbikini tops. For Bay toBreakers it might be agroup of 50 doing a No-ah’s Ark theme, or oneyear during the swine fluthing, we sold a lot ofdoctor’s masks and pig’snoses.

We don’t rent cos-tumes for Burning Manor Bay to Breakers. Theyjust destroy it. Only oncedid somebody try tobring back somethingthey took to BurningMan, and it was com-pletely filled with playadust. The dust gets inthe seams of the fabricand from what I un-derstand it’s alkaline, soit kills the fabric.

We definitely get a lotof men doing drag inhere. Drag kings, too. It’sall about facial hair.Blond, red, black,brown, salt-and-peppermustaches. Mutton-chops. Chest-hair piecesmade from human hair.We helped sponsor theSF Drag King Contest

this year. SantaCon is a big

Santa-themed bar crawlthat happens in Decem-ber. The idea is to dressup in the cheapest, lousi-est Santa suit they canpossibly get. I haveabout 400 Santa suitscoming in that we’ll sellfor $15 or $20. They’remiserable suits; the beltson them are made fromelectric tape.

I think this is my 18thor 19th Halloween I’veworked in a costumeshop. People ask me allthe time, “What are yougoing to be for Hallow-een?” The answer istired. I love Halloween,but I can count on onehand the number oftimes I’ve actually goneout on Halloween since Istarted working in cos-tume shops.

I’ve usually worked 12to 14 hours a day the lasttwo weeks leading upOctober 31, and have tocome back to handlereturns the next day.Thankfully, the one Hal-loween party I’ve thrownthe last 20 years, in 1996,a girl showed up I’d hada casual date with acouple weeks before. Wehad a great time, and Iended up marrying her.

Edward Guthmann is aBay Area freelance writer.E-mail: datebookletters@sfchronicle.com

Man behind masks set for big nightWhat I Do from page E1

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

robe intoning Handel,Vivaldi, Strauss and He-brew chant in her plan-gent mezzo-soprano(overamplified, alas).Scores by Arvo Pärt,Somei Satoh and LeslieStuck were sampled.With all these trappings,the fact that the dancingnever receded into thebackground remained asource of amazement.

King has arranged“Constellation” as a suiteof 19 numbers, rangingfrom solos to full compa-ny ensembles. The latter,

with their energetic uni-sons, have never capturedKing’s imagination, so hehas mostly directed hisforces elsewhere. Onegrouping, assembling fivedancers in playful com-bat, goes for a mixedmood, something notattempted previously.

The choreographer’sfractured classical stylehas never seem moreassured; his dancers’striving to realize thatvision never more heroicin the attempt or moresensual in the appeal.

The current company of10, all in Robert Rossen-

wasser’s simple costumes,looks terrific and shows adiscipline not always evi-dent in previous troupes.You watch David Harveyclasp one bent knee andspin in place on the otherleg and wonder what the

human body can accom-plish, given the trainingand the will.

“Constellation” is fartoo loosely organized todeliver a cumulativestatement, but one canstill find a guiding princi-

ple here. King seems to beexploring that pointwhere attraction andviolence meet head-on,and how one shades intothe latter.

Harvey butts headswith Zachary Tang, andthe choreographer trans-forms it into a group effort.Later, the two clasp armsand circle the stage in theclosest thing in “Constella-tion” to a love duet.

The women are by nomeans neglected. TheSouth Korean dancerYujin Kim joined Lineslast year, and her phe-nomenal extensions mayyet become the stuff oflegend, if her sensationalduet with Tang is illustra-tive of her gifts. This is anepisode that fuses intro-spection with testing (ofbalances, for a start) and

comes closest to a conven-tional partnership,though the Vivaldi musicis not convincing in thiscontext.

After 30 years, Kingstill hasn’t come aroundto treating his music (thepre-existing scores) asmuch more than accom-paniment. Pärt (especial-ly this piece, “Für Alina”)has been overused by thedance world. And somemusic just resists chore-ography. As Harvey rollsMeredith Webster’s bodyto the sound of Strauss’“Morgen,” at the end, Ithought of the composerrolling in his grave.

Allan Ulrich is The SanFrancisco Chronicle’s dancecorrespondent. E-mail:datebookletters@sfchronicle.com

Margo Moritz / Lines Ballet

Zachary Tang and Yujin Kim dance a duet whileMaya Lahyani sings in “Constellation.”

Stars line upfor Lines BalletLines from page E1

and turned the city into amajor-league town. Ar-riving in 1956 with expec-tations to match his stat-ure, Pearson led the Sealsto one last Pacific CoastLeague title and thencracked the majors, wherehe had a solid eight-yearcareer.

But it never stoppedbeing about the kids. Pear-son says God urged him toquit the game early, and thenow 78-year-old and hiswife, Helen, have spentclose to a half centuryworking with troubledchildren — most recently athis Father’s Heart Ranch inDesert Hot Springs inRiverside County.

“There was a big-timeplan that was a lot biggerthan baseball for my life,”he says.

El Monte HighPearson was born small,

and he weighed 100pounds for his first varsitybaseball game at El MonteHigh School in Los Ange-les County. He signed inthe minors at San Jose in1953, bounced around thecountry, then landed withthe Boston Red Sox affili-ate Seals in 1956.

When the San Francis-co papers embraced him,it wasn’t for his potential.Early articles were a se-

ries of short-person jokesstrung together, callinghim “toy-sized” and “lil’Albie.” One Chroniclereporter sent him to BayMeadows to get pho-tographic proof that hewas smaller than some ofthe jockeys.

“The guy may never geta base hit in the PacificCoast League,” a March 11,1956, Chronicle articlebegan, “but Albie Pearsonwill be the cutest lookinglittle feller you ever sawtrying to when the Sealscome off their SpringTraining kick early nextmonth.”

But hidden in thatsmall body were baseballweapons. He had a can-non arm that could throwout baserunners whowere deceived by his size.Pearson’s wrists werethick and muscular, andhis swing had a velocitythat aided 28 home runsin the majors.

And he had a sense ofhumor. He laughed at thejokes then, just as helaughs about them now.

“I was really never

offended. If someonewould say something tome (about my height) I’dsay, ‘I represent that com-ment,’ ” Pearson says. “Iwill say this, as an athlete,being quite small, it wasalways a challenge. I al-ways found if I couldcompete, I had to do thelittle things well. I had torun my engine at about 110percent.”

Pearson hit .297 with 11triples in his second yearwith the Seals, contribut-ing to one last PCL titlebefore the team moved toArizona. His versatilitywas displayed in the lastregular-season game —fan appreciation day —when he played everyposition, including pitch-er and catcher. Pearson

won Rookie of the Yearhonors with the Washing-ton Senators in 1958, latersettling with the expan-sion Los Angeles Angels.

God’s teamPearson says he re-

ceived his religious callingwhen he was 6 years old,during a backyard base-ball game that was all inhis head. Creating a fieldwith his mother’s satinpillows and other house-hold objects, he hit thewalk-off home run in hispretend World Series, andran from third base to-ward cheering imaginaryteammates.

“I step in the middle ofthis cardboard homeplate,” Pearson remem-bers. “And … as sure as

I’m talking to you, I heardthat voice in my heart. ‘Iwant you to play on myteam.’ ”

He decided to become aminister right then andthere, preaching to hisfriends — and getting in afight — during a marblesgame.

The voice becamestronger as a baseball-playing adult, but hedidn’t heed the call. Aftersigning his last contract in1966, Pearson injured hisback sliding in for a tripleand retired at age 31.

He would have been anatural baseball coach orteacher. With that smile,he could have sold justabout anything. But Pear-son started his post-base-ball career by counselingdrug addicts from the

Summer of Love. Pearsonbecame an ordained min-ister in 1972.

Heart RanchThere were struggles.

Helen, Pearson’s wife of 58years, may be the true heroof the story — the couplehad two young daughtersby the time he made it tothe Seals. They have fivegrown daughters now, 17grandchildren and 19great-grandchildren.

But when he talksabout the kids, it’s theboys on his ranch.

The Pearsons set up alocal ministry and found-ed orphanages in Zambiaand Ecuador more thantwo decades ago. Fifteenyears ago, Helen andAlbie set up Father’s

Associated Press

A calling for both baseball, religionPearson from page E1

Continues on page E3

Horace Heley 1956

Above: Albie Pearson (second from right) as hejoined the Seals on March 19, 1956. Left: Helen andAlbie Pearson, with two of their five daughters,after he was traded to the Washington Senators.

1 To see archived Chron-icle photos of the SanFrancisco Seals and sharememories of the team, goto the Big Event blog:blog.sfgate.com/thebigevent.