One's Own Experience
I was a baseball fanatic as a child. Most seasons, except
for the dead of winter, I carried a mitt and always wore a baseball cap, even
though wearing one wasn't as popular then as it is now. I collected baseball
cards until I was at least thirteen, went to Yankee Stadium whenever I could,
and certainly watched enough baseball TV to last two lifetimes. Personally for me spring training began when
the snow lay still and untracked on the ground, and I made snowballs, pitching
at telephone poles and stop signs. An
empty lot became an opportunity to rap rocks with any hefty stick I could find.
I practiced on and off a field and even in the bathtub if I could.
I joined little league with the hope of being the best. At the age of nine I was star pitcher and
hitter on my team. The following year I
was graduated to the next level and still was a star. By the time I was eleven,
I was placed in the major leagues of little league. I got a full dress,
pin-striped white uniform, a dark blue jersey underneath, real baseball stirrup
socks, and spiked shoes. I was number 21.
The field we played on was a lush emerald, surrounding a cleanly raked
brown diamond. We were fenced in and had a scoreboard, spectator stands and
dugouts. There was even a small monument out in centerfield, where the American
flag was raised before games, just like at Yankee Stadium.
That first spring practice, they made me a catcher. It
didn't matter that I wasn't going to pitch anymore. In practices, I rivaled the
big hitter, no 20 of my new team, the FILS, which stood for Farmingdale
International Laundry. Number 20 was a
great big kid, who to my eleven year old eyes looked more like a major leaguer
than most guys playing big league baseball. I don't remember his name. He
couldn't run fast, so the story went, so he hit homers. When I was up at bat in practices, number 20,
who was a whole year ahead of me, would cry out as I hit, "A homer for
sure. Oh yeah!" But nobody really knew since there were no fences in
practice.
Truth is in the games I choked. I struck out most of the
time. I couldn't see the ball because the pitches came in too fast and every
one of them seemed aimed at my face. My knees used to buckle and the bat felt
like a sledge hammer, and as I raised it to my shoulder, I thought I would
topple over from the weight. I got on base by walks. But they kept me on the team because they
needed a catcher who would prevent runs from scoring. All I had to do was stand in front of the
plate and let the kids run full tilt at me as I waited for the ball to tag them
out. I wasn't exactly super boy, and I got hurt enough times to be taken out of
games. But we still practiced three times a week and every practice I drove the
ball deep, causing number 20 to exclaim, "Homer for sure!"
The memorable event of my first year, a year fraught with
performance anxiety, bruises, sprains and cuts, along with constant
self-ridicule, came when I got my first and only clean hit. It was an eyes shut
swat that whizzed by the second baseman into the alley between center and
right. The whole team leapt out of the dugout and cheered as though I'd just
hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth and won a world series. I put my
head down and tried to stretch it into a double and got nailed by a grinning
second baseman that was just standing there waiting with the ball already in
his mitt. I had totally misjudged the play. When I got back to the dugout,
nobody, not even the coaches said a consoling word to me. I sat sulking in a
corner of the dugout for the rest of the game, having been taken out for making
a mistake.
My team came in last place that year and the next. And I always felt personally guilty for this
failure to win. Yet, in my experience on the team no coach drew a distinction
between a player's performance and winning or losing games. By the time my second year was drawing to a
close, I began to dread having to play another game, even though I was
beginning to hit the ball some. But the fun was gone. The competition had become the champion. How much humiliation could one small boy, who
thought he was very big, put up with? I finished that year and never went on to
play organized baseball again. Still it took me a long time after to stop
fantasizing about being the best.
Actually I did play organized ball again in two softball leagues as pitcher and 1st baseman and always was good until my ankles couldn't take it anymore at the rather young age of 35 but that's another story.
Actually I did play organized ball again in two softball leagues as pitcher and 1st baseman and always was good until my ankles couldn't take it anymore at the rather young age of 35 but that's another story.
