The Louisville Slugger

I lived in the wrong neighborhood. No one from anywhere near my street made it to the big-leagues. In fact only a few ever played organized amateur baseball. If I lived a couple miles over in the right direction I would have fallen under the influence of my mother's uncle who managed Bucky Walters. Walters became a star in the National League. Let's face it, with my great-uncle and Bucky to guide me, I might have gone to Cincinnati and been the Ron Tompkins who made it.

I'm convinced that that is true. If you live near the fire you'll be warmer. I figured out that all the kids that grew up in Rudy York's neighborhood matriculated up to the big leagues. You've got to have the right equipment. We didn't. We were living out on the outer marshes of the baseball world. Still we could imitate our heroes and Rudy York was mine. I was told he weilded a forty-two bat, heavy lumber. So I got a forty-two and swung it with equal mediocrity from the right side and the left. When I hit the ball right, I got distance.

Our gang would go up to the school yard and choose-up sides. We would appear with our available equipment: a bottle of water, maybe a glove. We were woefully poor and the collective tools to play with always came up short. Check them off: two, or maybe three bats, five or six gloves, a ball that fell out of its hide and recovered with electrical tape.

Games always followed the same patterns. First we would choose up. This was done by best out of three or five — odds and evens, a little ritual between the self appointed captains who each made a fist and when they thrust their arm forward would expose x number of fingers. Count the total between them each time and the winner had first advantage of pick. Or, a bat would be used — tossed by one captain to the other. The second would grab it and alternately grab above the previous grip until only the tip of the handle was available. The winner would put a finger grip on the end and wing it around his head three times. Failure was possible. The bat could slip from the fingers. It could hit him on the head. Either ritual was certain to be accompanied by the type of arguing that would continue for the rest of the day. Threats and violence would wait until the sun was high in the sky.

The selection of players was dependent upon two factors. Those who arrived with bats or balls or gloves were picked early-on to insure advantages for the side. Usually this type wouldn't go home early. Some guys were known to be good, even if they didn't own a glove.

Our games were played without umpires or managers or adults standing around to insult us. We played on asphalt and no one would imitate Pepper Martin by sliding into second base.

If my parents were more considerate, they would have bought a glove of quality for me. My father could have gone down to Edelman's and bought me a good one and saved me the pain of jammed fingers. Edelman and my pop were lodge brothers. That connection would have gotten the glove for a discount, I'm sure. But my glove came from Woolworth's at a fraction of the cost of a real one. I was supposed to be happy and grateful when I unwrapped it. Instead I saw eighty-nine cents wasted. The regularity of jammed fingers and split fingers could lead to arthritis.

It's a wonder that any games came to a natural conclusion. The same complaints played like old records. "Hold the label up." The owners of bats were apprehensive and waited at the risk of ulcers to hear the fatal sound that guaranteed a split bat. The wrecked wood would be taken home for repairs: a nail or two to hold it together and electrical tape to reinforce the repairs for a while. "Yer out!": challenged too often by "Waddya mean, safe!" Sometimes that was resolved by a nose to nose confrontation, a push, a shove, a punch, and some rolling around on the asphalt that would annoy everyone else. Someone would have to go home early. That would mess things up. Some would be invited to go home early if they made too many errors.

Who were we? The Mayland Street Anarchists versus the Belfield Avenue Anarchists would go through this tiresome routine in the summers before the known world extended beyond the chimneys that we could see from the schoolyard. No matter how bad the day's effort seemed, we would return again the next morning pretending to be our unattainable heroes: York, Kiner, Vernon, VanderMeer, Mize, DiMaggio, Williams. The yesterdays squabbles weren't remembered and we didn't reason about our own futility so we'd go up the hill with our equipment: a bottle of water, for sure, and our eighty-nine cent gad awful glove that was no insurance against split fingers. Take some electrical tape for expected repairs.

There was no past and its fights. There was no future because scouts from Cincinnati or closer places didn't sit up on the hill to pick out natural Bucky Walters types. Our dreams were in the compartments that boys were welcome to, not teased by the chance of being rich or the illusion of doing what kids did when they became old like Pete Rose.

A scream of warning came from left field. "Hold the label up."

That's the guy who owned the bat.