Baseball

I was eleven. I had a baseball mitt with Jim Finigan's name inscribed in it that my dad had bought for me. I went to Timber Lane Elementary school in Falls Church, Virginia. My teacher's name was Mrs. Groschan. I was in sixth grade. The principal's name was Miss Snodgrass. We had some fun with that. She was a large, kind woman. Not pretty. None of us marveled at the "Miss" in her name. This was before the advent of "Ms".

The United States was on the gold standard then. Not that I cared. I was more concerned with baseball and the little dark haired girl named Carol Skalnik who sat in the back of the room.

But baseball was king. Mickey Mantle was my hero. The humid spring days were full of running, catching, hitting. Joking with my pals. Little League tryouts. I was "drafted" by the Braves. The Howard Johnson Braves. You see back then private enterprise supported Little League. Different organizations or businesses would sponsor the teams which would then sport their names along with the team mascot. McGonegal Plumbers. (They were the best team.) The VFW Veterans. And one more that I can't remember. But I didn't care who sponsored the teams, I was just glad to play. I still have the team picture. There I was squinting in the sun (I still do that.) and wearing my bright orange hat. It was embroidered with a black "B", for Braves. My mom sewed it on and it was just a little bit crooked.

I remember that season as if it were yesterday. I kept track of my batting average on a piece of white paper inside one of the kitchen cabinets. We came in third out of four teams. I played center field. Just like my hero, Mickey Mantle. My son Richard plays center, too. And, I reluctantly admit, he's much better at it than I was.

My next door neighbor, Kalvin Moore, was the catcher on the McGonegal Plumbers. My first hit that year was a home run. Right over the left field fence. We were playing the Plumbers and Kalvin slapped me on the back as I crossed home plate and said, "Good hit". But, that was a long time ago. I haven't talked to Kalvin in twenty years.

Dad went to work. Mom stayed home. We had one car. An old one. One TV. Black and White. I shared a room with my younger brother. I didn't worry about money. Except for my allowance, which was always there. I worried about baseball and how I was going to pass Mrs. Groschan's test on the capitals of the South American countries.

But baseball was my biggest concern. And I never did figure out why the Senators couldn't win games to save their lives. But we went to Griffith Stadium and cheered them on anyway. Or, we would watch them on TV. Hot humid nights in front of the old Motorola when my dad and I would drink beer and root for the home team. Except when they played the Yankees. And especially except when #7, Mickey Mantle, came to the plate.

I didn't worry about how much he made. I didn't want his rookie card because it was worth more than his 1956 card, the year he won the triple crown. (.353 BA, 52 HR, 130 RBI) I wanted his card because he was my hero. It never occurred to me that it might be worth something. I didn't care whether or not he smoked or drank. I just loved to watch Mickey Mantle play. The swing. From either side of the plate, was magic. I never really noticed that he was white. He'd have been my hero if he had been black or yellow for that matter.

I was just a kid. Concerned about kid stuff.

It was before Viet Nam divided our nation and well past the unification brought on by WWII. Nobody really talked about Korea. At least not to us kids. Deficits, national debt, welfare, unemployment and affirmative action were all things of the future. Things about which I couldn't have cared less.

I didn't know what a homosexual was. Wasn't paranoid about sex. Had never heard the word abortion. I never concerned myself with racism. I said the "N" word once, not really knowing what it meant. My dad corrected me and said I should never use that word. I never have.

Dad paid the bills. Mom cooked meals and made sure I did my homework. Sometimes. Things weren't perfect. We fought. I got knocked around once in a while. My brother and I were always at each other's necks. But we survived. Sort of. On our own.

Remote controls, CDs, boom boxes, cruise control, Nike's, and designer jeans were not part of what I thought was important. We didn't have computers or even calculators. But we did learn to read. I didn't care about Europe or the Middle East or Southeast Asia. Falls Church, Virginia was the beginning and end of my world. Except for our occasional trips to Connecticut to see relatives. I thought the New Jersey Turnpike was the longest road in the world.

I was just a normal kid. Concerned about normal things.

I collected baseball cards. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them. I collected them because the ball players were my heroes. I knew everything about them that the cards would reveal. I marveled at the way the Yankees won. And at the way the Senators lost.

I don't have the cards today. Some people say: "What a shame. Do you know what they'd be worth?" That's okay. I didn't collect them for that. I would rather remember them the way they were. Worn at the edges. Folded in the middle, some of them. Fastened with a clothes pin to the front fork of my bike to make it sound like a motor cycle. Stuffed inside my pillow at night so that I could be close to my heroes and have some of their magic rub off on me.

I choose to remember them that way.

Somehow baseball threads its way through my life. My father and uncle both played for the University of Connecticut. I used to watch my Uncle Edgar play the University of Maryland. He was a great catcher. My grandfather played semi-pro ball in the thirties. My great-grandmother, we called her Great Ma, was one of the world's biggest fans. Especially of the Red Sox. I used to sneak a small transistor radio into school so I could listen to the World Series. This was when they used to play all the Series games in the daytime. Regardless of the financial ramifications.

I still go to games when I can. I'll go over and see the Rockies play this year.

But somehow, baseball has changed. Right along with life. The salaries, the strikes, the egos. The steroids. The self aggrandizement that players go through.

Where am I going with all this? I'm not really sure. Maybe I'm trying to say that somehow I think life was better then. More innocent. More naive perhaps. But better. My parents lived better than their parents and believed that they would hand me a better world than they had. I suppose they did. But I can't make that promise to my children. I am afraid for them. I fear for their safety and sanity in a world bereft of both. I worry about America becoming so debt ridden that the only answer will be rocketing inflation and interest rates that won't allow anyone, including my children, to pursue what we called the American Dream.

And I'm afraid that baseball will kill itself. It will go down swinging as we read headlines with words like "Free Agency", "Fifteen Million Dollars a Year", "Drug Scandal", "Unions", and "Strike".

I try to deal with all this. I try to maintain a positive attitude. I do have hope for my children along with the fear.

But I must admit I sometimes yearn to be a boy again. A small boy with sandy brown hair, big brown eyes, and his baseball cards. Sleeping with his Jim Finigan mitt. Dreaming about the home run he hit in that game against the McGonegal Plumbers.

What? You've never heard of Jim Finigan?

No matter.

It's the best mitt I've every owned.