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The Crack of the Bat
Tomorrow's April 1st -- don't look for some April Fool's blog where I tell you I hit the lottery and will give the first ten blog responses a share of my new-found wealth. I've never been big on April Fool's jokes, not even when I was teaching eighth graders. With the arrival of April and the approach of sixty-degree weather, there were always too many other more important things to care about. This is the time of year, more than any other time, when I wish I were twelve years old.
It meant baseball opening day was just a few days away. It meant playing pitch-and-catch with my brother, even my sister, or even the old guy down the street. I'd carry an extra baseball glove around with my own glove and ball, hoping to find somebody to play catch with. The dawn of April meant playing flies-and-grounders in Elizabeth Street schoolyard, right across the road from my house on Johnson Avenue. What was it? Catch 3 flies or 6 grounders and it was your turn to hit?
April meant running down to Burdo's Market to see if the first series of Topps baseball cards was in yet. A penny a pack. One baseball card and a stick of gum for a penny! That's how I got my Ernie Banks rookie card which now books at $1200. The arrival of April meant hoping once again that my Dodgers would be able to beat the Yankees in the World Series the way they did in 1955.
The warm sunny weather meant Little League baseball was just around the corner, that soon I'd be putting on my Nitzi's uniform and joining my teammates over at South Platt Street. Teammates who would become life-long friends, like Kenny Baker, David Baker, Jimmy Wells, Len Duquette, Robin Bouyea and Larry Ebersole.
It meant standing alone in Elizabeth Street schoolyard at 5:30 at night with bat, glove and ball in hand, waiting for my Dad to come walking home from the telephone company garage on South Catherine Street, so that he could hit me some "grinders," as he called them. It meant imagining that I was Duke Snider when I'd come up to bat in our pickup games behind Monty Street School.
Each spring meant oiling up your baseball glove, putting a baseball in the pocket and tying it up overnight. It meant loading up on the chewing gum, especially Bazooka or Double Bubble, so you could pretend you were chewing tobacco like Nellie Fox when you played those pickup games with your buddies.
Springtime meant that Mom would be making her michigan sauce and we'd have lots of summertime meals of michigans and her homemade potato salad. Springtime and warm weather meant that the world was all good. When I was 12, a Catholic would become President of the United States, and even though the Dodgers didn't make it to the World Series, the Pirates did, and they smacked the heck out of the New York Yankees' pitching staff. Bill Mazeroski became a baseball hero, and a National League team was World Champs!
And even though today I'm so far removed from being twelve that it's scary, I'd still like somebody to call me up and ask me to play catch. Today's the perfect day for it! Condominiums now fill in the ballfield at Elizabeth Street schoolyard, and I haven't been behind Monty Street School in decades. But I bet that the ballfield at South Platt Street is vacant. Let's plan an Old-Timer's version of flies-and-grounders.
Comments
hi foxy this is kenny and dave's sister and i can relate as i couldn't wait for spring to get out that glove and start playing.
thank god we had all those kids in our area so we could get a game up with one call.
keep those memories coming.
Posted by: ann lambert | April 6, 2006 11:41 AM
I enjoyed the baseball stories and comments. I live in Ft Smith, Arkansas. My Forefathers came from N Y. My GGGGGG/GF Cornelius Kuijkendahl (1686-1742) was born at Albany. Some of my kin spell the name, Coykendall and Cuykendoll. I recall a baseball game on radio in 1948 as a 13-year old, I'm now 71 years. My memory has failed me as to the teams that were playing. Maybe a Press-Republican reader might recall the game. At the 7th inning stretch, John L Sullivan let baseball pitchers throw balls at his chest.
(Foxy's note: Thanks for writing all the way from Arkansas, Irven. That John L. Sullivan was a braver man than I, that is for certain!)
Posted by: Irven Kuykendall(kirk-kin-doll) | April 6, 2006 8:13 AM
BATTER UP!!! Yup the season has started, and I am looking forward to attending to the MN Twins vs. N.Y. Yankees at the Metrodome 4-14-06. Maybe those Twinkies can beat them this year!!! NAAAAA!!!!!
Posted by: Steve P. | April 3, 2006 1:57 PM
heyy Uncle Foxy. Lora & I are a bit excited for the season to start and we've been talking a lot about how we always used to go there to watch the games with you.. we miss that
let's hope the Mets do a little better this season than they've been doing lately.. haha
miss you
hope everything's going well
Kels
(Foxy's note: When my son Erik was little, he and I spent a lot of time watching the Mets, his favorite team. After Erik became an adult and moved away, my nieces Lora and Kelsey would visit from Rouses Point and we would talk Mets baseball and watch the games. I never saw two girls who know so much about the Mets! And, if you ask me, a couple of the Mets' players flirted with them at games at "the Big O" in Montreal. It was so nice to get a blog response today from Kelsey!)
Posted by: Kelseyyy | April 2, 2006 1:04 PM
OK, so you've "never been big on April Fool's jokes, but...
I HAVE to tell it! One April Fool's Day in the far-distant
past, when Foxy lived outside the city in the woods, we pulled a good one on him.
Sorry Foxy...no apologies!
It was a snowy morning that April first, and Foxy had left his car parked overnight at the head of his long driveway in order to make his escape to school early that day without getting stuck. (I'm pretty sure Foxy didn't like country living.)
We arise early and my husband called Foxy on the phone to inform him that he had a flat tire on his vehicle, which we could see from across the road. We didn't expect to see Foxy shortly thereafter trudging
up his driveway donned in his ivy cap and long trenchcoat HAULING A SPARE TIRE through 2 feet of snow! After watching him check all four tires and stand there perplexedly, we yelled out our door, "April Fool !"
I wish we'd been close enough to see the look on his face as he stood there motionless while the truth
dawned. He finally did laugh, but not as hard as we did ! (He probably cursed us all the way back to his house.) It was, from our perspective, the best April
Fool's joke we've ever perpetrated and it gives us a good laugh every April first to this day.
Happy April Fool's Day, Foxy! from Tom & Dorie
(Foxy's note: I remember this well! I also think about it every April 1st ... and have always said a silent expletive in your honor!)
Posted by: Dorie Sweeney | March 31, 2006 9:36 PM
As a Pittsburgh native I remembered that great home run and we finally beat those mean Yankees. What an odd series that was.
Posted by: Denny Kane | March 31, 2006 4:04 PM
You are so right FoxMan, seems like just yesterday. But of course, us out of city guys had to travel a bit further. We would have to ride our bikes to the Miner Farm Fields, Chazy Rec. Park or the Chazy School to practice or play around like that. What great times you're helping me remember. Makes me want to leave work right now..........
Posted by: lsr | March 31, 2006 11:25 AM