Spring Training about to begin brings back memories

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.