Memories of Baseball’s Past

I grew up loving baseball. At first, I was hesistant to play. I was shy and my first t-ball team was a leap for me to get into. I remember my first coach, who was also a member at my church, and his son, who was a classmate in both school and church school. He was so patient with us teaching us the basics of the game and encouraging us to try our best. Years later when I was the starting catcher for my high school team he mentioned that he first put me in as a catcher because I was afraid of the ball and he wanted me to be more comfortable in the game. I suppose the catching spot for me was destiny as I was a little shorter and a little chubbier than most of my teammates.

Those days spent at the Little League field in Topton, PA seem so long ago. Behind the field was a smaller, yet distinct field of play. Basepaths were worn in from countless games with a trash can for home plate, first base was whatever we could find and second and third were both fence posts. We didn’t play baseball on this field… that would have been forbidden to play outside of league activities. This was a cup ball field. We would dig out an old paper cup from the trash, crumble it up and we had a ball. If you were able to swat that pitched cup over the fence into Toad Creek you got a home run. If you fouled it off into the trash can.. you had to fish it out. We would get done with games and beg our parents to let us stay at the field to keep playing our cupball games that were occasionally interupted by having to play in league sanctioned baseball games. Now, growing up in the late 70’s and 80’s you will know the attitude adults took towards our game. If you don’t know this rent a copy of the original Bad News Bears movie and take note of the Yankee’s coach and how he treated the players. Baseball was supposed to be fun, but we had a better time playing on our own, by our own rules.

That was a long time ago. Nowadays kids are groomed to play baseball with camps and tutors and even acadamies for training youth to become pro baseball players. The book I’ve been reading about MLB players in the 1940’s has countless stories of children, born into the Great Depression, coming from backgrounds of farming, coal mining, blue collar communities that worked hard each and every day. Some of their families were grateful of the small amounts of money the players would make to play a game while others would scoff at the idea of being paid for such minimal work. When we look at players today, you might see a few that came from that kind of background but I would say we see more that have been catered and groomed into the career they now pursue. There are actual schools out there for teenagers that their entire curriculum is surrounded by baseball. They have professional coaches, trainers, facilities, cafeterias providing menus created by professional nutricianists. It makes me wonder how someone can come out of high school or college and refuse to sign a contract without a multi-million dollar guaranteed bonus before even playing one game professionally. I suppose this is what baseball has become, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t long for the past.

Those days when you hurried through the last few innings because it was dusk and soon would be dark.

Those days when a radio was kept near the dugout so you could listen to Richie Ashburn and Harry Kalas call the Phillies game.

Those days when an opposing team would be short a player and a subsitute would be drafted from the playground. My rate at that time to sub for another team was one hot dog. Like I said, I was a chubby kid.

Yesterday I took a longer route to Coca Cola Park and drove through Allentown on Tighlman street. Traffic stopped me next to a ballfield and as I watched, I saw no uniforms, I saw no adults… I saw one wooden bat with some tape around it (remember when duct tape was all you needed to fix a broken bat?) a bunch of kids wearing what was probably their school clothes and a lot of smiles and cheers.

As Archie Bunker would have said… Those were the days…