The best gift I ever got from my father was a love of baseball. His team, the New York Giants, became my team. His team also migrated from the East coast to the West coast the spring of my 10th year. This love for the game translated to love of playing the game too. In my neighborhood, three kinds of baseball were available. The first was watching the game along with all my idols on TV. In those days, it was the game of the week, televised on Saturdays. To see the World Series, we had to wait for the film to accompamy the "News of the Day" in our local movie theater. We may have heard of a fantastic play or a clutch home run, but to see it was another matter. The second kind of baseball available to me was Little League. Open to boys 8 through 12, it was organized baseball complete with tryouts, scheduled practices and games, uniforms, and a well kept field complete with foul poles, umpires, and a snack bar. Of course there were bleachers, screaming parents and official umpires to call the game.
The third kind of baseball I played was the neighborhood game. Played in the street with two teams of two people and our own bats and tennis balls, this was arguabley the most fun. It was pure fantasy. The fields were the stdiums of our mind adapted to the geograohy of our neighborhood. A manhole cover was home plate, trees were the stands in foul territory, and one neighbor's pyracanthy covered fence became the iconic ivy covered walls of Wrigly Field in Chicago.
When a teaj was up at bat, each hitter tossed the ball up in front of him and then swung for the fences. If the hit that followed went a certain distance or hit off a roof, or parked car, the "announcer" would explain and a resujlt would be quickly assigned to the play. After 3 outs, the other team came to bat. We hit a lot of catchable fly balls, so the games moved along at a good clip. The team at bat always provided the announcer, who's job it was to highlight great defensive plays, keep the score, and generally provide all the statistics and color of the professionals we watched on television. In my town we had Vin Scully, the Hall of Fame Dodger announcer to listen to, so we learned from one of the best.
I'd play this version everyday if I could. The problem came with finding enough people. On my street there were four other boys close to my age. Paul andRandy were my age, Jimmy was one year older, an Dickie, Paul's older brother was two years older and mostly hung out with kids his age. The teams were always Paul and Jimmy against me and whoever else we cold get. Mostly it was Randy, a kid from the Southern end of the block, who was usually more interested in reading Science Fifiction than anything in the real world.
Paul and Jimmy would not be separated. They were sure of that, so the teams were usually them against me and whoever we could get. If Randy wasn't around, we'd try Kenny King, but he lived one street over and had "baloney breath" so an invitation to him was a rare occasion. get
I'm sitting there in a hospital gown, waiting for my doctor to complete my yearly physical. This is when I look at everything on the walls, read the medical posters, the instructions on any equipment in the room, look in every corner and behind every chair. I study the paper on the examination table, laugh out loud at the picture of a smiling child holding a bouquet of broccoli, and the note the placement of the computer in the room. Finally, wondering if the gown I'm wearing is on correctly, I focus on myself. At this point in my life I'm fairly comfortable in a doctor's office. But it always seems to take so long when waiting for the doc to enter. So I fidget. Then I begin a tour of myself. Scars are tattoos. I look at the one on my knee and see myself at 12. Whittling a piece of wood with my Boy Scout jack knife. The blade slips and I cut a crescent slash through my jeans and into my flesh for life. 50 years later ...
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