Take me out to the ballgame…you know the rest. There’s enough sunshine to break in the old blue Western Auto baseball glove. Who’s got some tallow I can borrow?
There’s nothing like a freshly mowed baseball diamond to get the blood pumping. A slight wind, a sunny day and dreams that last a lifetime. I don’t miss the wool or polyester green and white uniforms but on second thought I’d do almost anything to be able to don it one more time.
We didn’t win much, I had an ERA that was easily three or four digits but I wasn’t going to the Yankees as a pitching threat. No, I had shortstop locked up like a Derek Jeter double-play back in the early 1970s. Not that we ever turned one.
Heck, with my ragged throwing style, that throw to first to my left-handed cousin, Mark Aycock, was always an adventure – and then some.
With my gold colored aluminum bat, I hit many a rock from our driveway across Three Mile Lake Road into Mr. Anderson’s soybean field. But that was my Yankee Stadium backdrop where banners hung proclaiming excellence. Each ping a Mickey Mantle blast. But my Little League career was more like his back up, the late Jack Reed from Silver City. He hit one major league home run that won a 22-inning marathon game at Tiger Stadium before I was born. I think I collected two, maybe three. home runs my entire Little League career for my Inverness team of Bad News Bears.
A little more talent and coaching and I’d have had a couple more perhaps. If you add in some luck as well. And there was that one year of Pony League where our Coach Walter Pennebaker would torment us by turning the pitching machine toward the outfield for us to hone our skills on skyrocketed fastballs and curves that you never had a clue where it would slice to. We had cool red and blue uniforms and I still have my hat from that team. Blue with a red cursive “I.” We played a lot, practiced a lot, gave up a lot of runs but I was chained to the outfield as my Coach Pennebaker had probably seen my lack of pitching skills and tried to hide me where my talent wouldn’t belie me. There was one game where Larry Boggs was on the mound and we were in Drew. He threw it, they popped it up – to me in right field. Of the 27 outs I caught at least 10. I think we won. Each time Larry threw a pitch, there was a ping and he’d turn and look at me deep in the outfield. I caught it and he would smile. I helped keep his ERA to a tolerable number that day.
It's February and pitchers and catchers and everybody else is in Florida with big league dreams. The Rebels in Oxford are working to make another Omaha run with a 4-0 record at press time. The Turf King Brandon Hardin is painting and helping his Bulldogs play on a perfect surface in Starkville and the folks in Cleveland and Hattiesburg are looking to book passage to post-season destinations. It’s time to banter Braves and Yankees with the boss-man at the E-T. Yes, indeed.
Baseball dreams turn into baseball reality and these days I get to sit in the booth as Public Address Announcer for the Royal Oak Leprechauns, watching young men live the dreams that lie unfulfilled for many. I let their mommas and daddies know they are up to bat and that our hot dogs are award winning. Just can’t wait for that summer pressure- filled pennant race, oh, and those on-the-field frivolities between inning fun.
Yes, it’s batter up, please and thank you.
