If you look deeply into the palm of your hand you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.
-- Thich Nhat Hanh
Another baseball season is upon us and I find myself marveling at how much of a constant baseball has been in my life. Early on my father, brother and I were bound together by playing, watching and ingesting the game every summer.
I was playing catch with my brother on our driveway when I was eight years old and as often happened, we would start throwing the ball at each other as hard as we could until someone backed down and lobbed the ball back signaling the end of the hard throwing. On this occasion, my brother called my father through the screen door and asked him to come outside. We started throwing again and my brother told me to throw hard. My father watched for a couple of minutes and said, “It looks like we have a pitcher in the family.” He went back inside but his words stuck with me and from that day forward, I thought of myself as a pitcher.
My father was always generous with his time and energy when it came to his family. When you are young and are blessed with endless energy, it never occurs to you that your dad, who pulled himself out of bed every day and put in eight hours of work, might be tired when he got home in the evening. So my brother and I were constantly asking him to take us to a baseball diamond to practice in the evenings. Many an evening was spent at the park practicing until we couldn’t see the ball as evening caught up with us.
Prior to my reaching the ripe old age of eight, my father played fast pitch softball and I thought his black silk uniform with the gold piping was the coolest thing I had ever seen. He would also, on occasion, play in “beer games.” Beer games were when two teams would meet and the losers would buy a half-barrel of beer to be drunk in the park after the game. The rules were loose and my brother and I would go along with the hope that we would get to play in the games. My father was also a youth baseball umpire in those years and we would go along and watch him call games.
So at the age of eight, I was a pitcher, and began playing some organized baseball in the park leagues. The park teams were not a collection of the best players but rather whoever showed up on that particular day played. In that league I was a bit of a prodigy. My brother had read the famous Negro League pitcher Satchel Paige’s autobiography and told me how Paige would be out barnstorming with his team and would walk the bases loaded on purpose, then waive all of his fielders, with the exception of his catcher, to the bench and then strike the next three batters out. It struck me as an amazing feat and I pulled it off a couple of times in a park league game.
Over the next few years, my father would pull out his glove from the forties, put a sponge in the worn out pocket and catch me. Afterward, he would take out his hand and show his palm to whoever was around and say, “Look at my hand.” It would be puffy and red and he couldn’t have been prouder.
So, I was feeling pretty cocky about my talent when I was one of three nine year olds to make a Little League team that normally was for ten to twelve year olds. My father and his good friend Sewell Greely were our coaches.
When I was nine, I was also toying with the idea of being a catcher. I was given an early opportunity to try that out and learned why the catcher’s equipment is called the “the tools of ignorance.” Quickly realizing I wasn’t tough enough to be a catcher, I became a third baseman, shortstop and, of course, a pitcher.
Near the end of that year, we were winning 4 to 3 in the bottom of the last inning when our pitcher got in trouble. I guess my dad wasn’t into giving me my first chance to pitch in a blow out, so he told me to warm up. To say I was excited is a total understatement. Before too much longer, he called me into the game with runners on first and second and one out.
The first batter I faced was twelve-year-old Barry Wood. I can still vividly see him step into the batter’s box and take a few practice swings. I took my first windup and delivered a pitch low and outside for ball one. Barry dug in and I delivered the next pitch. This one was in the strike zone and Barry didn’t miss it. What he did do, was line it off my forehead. It knocked me back off the mound on to the seat of my pants. However, the ball caromed off my head and rolled to our third baseman, who picked it up and stomped on third base forcing the runner from second. Two outs.
My father, Sewell and the umpire, Erbie Gass, all converged at the mound. This was a different era, in that all three of these adults were having a hard time controlling their laughter. Today, I probably would have been lifted from the game and brought to a clinic to be checked out. Then, the drill consisted of Erbie asking me how many fingers he was holding up, what day it was, and did I want to continue. I was able to answer the questions and the adrenalin coursing through my veins would have made all three of them have to carry me off the field, kicking and screaming, to get me to leave. Heck, my noggin had gotten an assist and we were only one out away from victory.
The next hitter was another twelve year old and he worked the count to two balls and two strikes, when he helped me out and swung at a pitch a foot out of the strike zone and struck out to end the game. I was one happy kid. Sure I had a knot in the middle of my forehead, but we won and I learned that no matter how hard you threw a pitch; it had the potential to come back at you a heck of a lot faster.
During those years we would go, in addition to the games we were playing in, to see the Dodger’s minor league team that played in Green Bay, and later the Milwaukee Braves games in Milwaukee. After the games we would discuss virtually every pitch. We would drive my mother crazy. Not only did we go to all these games, we had to talk about them into the night.
When I was sixteen, I decided to pick up a few bucks umpiring games in a league for eight, nine, ten and eleven year old kids. My first game, I was paired with another sixteen year old, umpiring his first game. He was reluctant to be the plate umpire but I had no qualms. So I went behind the plate and he took the bases.
I had come prepared to umpire behind the plate and had borrowed my father’s mask and chest protector. Some umpires had taken to wearing shin guards but I was unprotected from the waist down. We were making $3.25 a game, so I would have had to work the entire season to pay for shin guards and I had other plans for my earnings.
As I signaled for the teams, “To play ball,” the first hitter came to the plate. I crouched down behind the little ten-year-old catcher and the pitcher delivered the first pitch. Just as the pitch got to plate the catcher dove out of the way and the ball – How can I say this delicately – okay, I have it – the ball hit me square in the nuts! Now, a ten year old pitcher doesn’t usually throw that hard but, as any man can tell you, it doesn’t have to be that hard to be excruciating.
I doubled over and took a walk down the third base line stopping every now and then to bend over and put my hands on my knees. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I tried to regain my composure. The base umpire was also crying but his tears were coming from his intense amusement. There was a definite buzz in the bleachers that told me that the people in the stands were enjoying this almost as much as my fellow umpire.
Finally, I was ready to resume, and I signaled to the teams to, “Play Ball.” Before I got behind the plate, I told the little catcher that he couldn’t be diving out of the way and that he had to stay in there and use his glove to catch the ball. He nodded his understanding and we got ready for the next pitch. Just as that pitch got to the plate the catcher dove out of the way and the ball hit me right on the shin. Time out again, as I hobbled, this time, down the first baseline. Now the bleacher dwellers were really enjoying themselves and my fellow umpire was in danger of wetting himself.
Once the pain subsided, I again talked with the catcher and told him he had to stay in there. He again nodded and I crouched behind him for the next pitch. This time, as the pitch approached the plate, I grabbed the straps of the catcher’s chest protector and held him in place as he again was trying to dive out of the way. I used the kid like a garbage can lid in a mud ball fight for the remainder of the game and survived. I felt I had earned my $3.25.
One of the things you learn when participating at any level of youth baseball is adults will blow things out of proportion and make total assholes out of themselves in front of their kids and the world. I saw such an array of poor behavior, 98% by adults; it made you wonder what lessons were being taught to the kids. I believe more coaches, umpires and league officials have quit due to having to deal with the parents of the players than probably any other reason. Talk to any coach (although certain coaches behaved horribly too) or umpire about dealing with the “adults” and they all have stories to tell.
I remember umpiring a game one time when a little batter came up to the plate and took three strikes without swinging the bat. When I called the third strike, a woman in the stands, who turned out to be his mother, let me have it. She was loud and obnoxious and kept it up for a few minutes. Her son came to bat again in the third inning and again he refused to swing the bat. When he looked at the third strike I again called him out. This set the mother off for at least the next inning. She was getting personal and was starting to get under my skin.
The third time her little darling came to the plate, I told him he needed to relax, pick out a good pitch and swing the bat. Once again he refused to swing and I had to call him out. This set off a nuclear blast of abuse from the mother. The inning was a prolonged one and she spent the whole time on my back. I’d had enough as the inning finally concluded and I turned to her, raised my middle finger and said, “f—k you, lady.” Just as it had left my mouth, I looked and saw my father sitting about two rows behind her. He threw back his head and let out a guffaw. I’m sure he didn’t approve of my method or language but he certainly understood the impulse. We never talked about that incident and I never lost my cool like that again but it sure felt good when I did it.
There is nothing magic about the game of baseball. It was just the vehicle that allowed my father, brother and me to connect on so many levels. It provided us with a way to spend time together and enjoy each other’s company. Lessons were learned but more importantly it brought us together in that particular male way where nothing is said and everything is understood. My father has been gone now for about twenty years. My brother and I carry on, grousing about major leaguers who don’t know how to run the bases or hit the cutoff man, like the two old men we will be in the not too distant future. These days when I look at my hand, I see my father and I remember the three of us playing at the park until the light faded and we were no longer able to see the ball.
