goldenponderbob

I looked over the topic categories and this one seemed closest. I may need a real geezer like myself to resolve my dilemma, or more likely, everyone else around here knows exactly the term I am referring to, and cannot believe there exists a person who calls himself a onetime ballplayer, but lacks this bit of glossary at first hand. Many years ago I played disorganized baseball every warm sunny of my life. I know there was a term for the baseball equivalent of tossing a coin. It would make perfect sense that having no money was why I, for one, spent all my time hanging around a 'sandlot' baseball field. Actually I hung around a great many such fields and none of which, to my recollection, had any sand on them, but that's the term people use for what I just remember as disorganized, or do-it-yourself, baseball. Anyway, I've been racking my brain trying to remember what we called the routine whereby two teams were picked and something needed to be decided such as who would be captain or which side would bat first, or it could have been anything that required a decision. One player would toss a bat perhaps two or three feet to another person; presumably one having a different opinion about something. The receiver would try to snare the bat at a precise calculated distance between the barrell and the knob so that later his hand would fit exactly between his opponent's last grab and the knob. The two would alternate grabbing one hand atop the other up the neck to the knob. Finally the one with no place left to grab would try to hold onto the bat just by the knob and the other would get one kick to knock the bat out of his hand. That's the way we did it and I saw it done exactly that way literally thousands of times. I know there was a specific term for this, but for the life of me I cannot recall it. If nobody here has any ldea about what I just described it will make me feel very very old. In fact, just the thought that I cannot remember a term that was an essential part of my daily routine for over a decade, ought to qualify for some degree of old-timers disease. If anyone has a grandparent maybe they would remember. Thanks to anyone even pondering the notion of helping me fill in this gap in my memory. Bob McDonnell AKA Schaumburg, IL

I have to confess; I'm here by accident. Some spammer using my old Soxtalk ID contacted my Yahoo account to pitch something. After tracking it back here, and quickly dismissing the reason, I found myself happy to be back where I had once enjoyed making contact with my ancient past. You see, I became interested, like vast numbers of Chicagoans in the White Sox after Ozzie, I was always and still am an Ozzie fan, took over in 05'. I'm sixtysix, and haven't done much more with a ball and glove than play catch in ten years. Having been more player than watcher for more than half-a-centuy, I witnessed three clear differences over the previous administration and looked to this website to find out if other fans were as aware as I was of the differences in the way the team was playing by the time that season ended. I wonder now, five years later, if anyone remembers what those changes were. They had to be significant because by June of the year following the World Series, a week-end sweep of the Cardinals, showed they were in a stratosphere so far above a really good team they looked as though they might never lose again. It was at that exact moment just as they were hitting their stride as the best team I had ever seen, that Ozzie let go that single infamous and ill-chosen word and succeeded in bringing the wrath of the politically sensitive aspect of major league baseball down on his head, and we saw the team's fortunes almost overnight crumble into dust. A hellofaride for White Sox fans, complete with an ending perfectly in keeping with the teams' star-crossed legacy. That's the too long version of why I visited this place, but it's not what I came to talk about today. I had, you see, played all my adult life in amateur leagues going back to something vaguely remembered by the name that "mid-teen" league (16 to 18 yearolds if memory serves). During my little league and high school years I mostly pitched when given the choice, but in later years more often than not I filled in off the bench, such as in over thirty and over forty leagues. My last contact with organized baseball was on a team called the Bloomingdale Orioles sponsored by Rizzo Ford. I sadly but appropiately was forced to quit for good after a change of jobs made it impossible to get to mid-week evening games. These days, after selling a too costly to maintain sailboat I mostly stick to canoeing and riding my bike. The reason for this post is mostly due to riding my bike around the streets of Schaumburg. With, as you may have figured if you're still reading, way too much time on my hands, not to mention the rest of my retired self, I see vast numbers of completely empty ballfields everwhere my peddling takes me. Dozens of fields totally deserted and perfectly manicured (at least by comparison to what I played on in my day). I have seen basketballers on blacktop slabs and tennis galore. I have seen youngsters doing things with balls and such, close by these hallowed symbols of the culture of my youth, and I have wondered what they must think of those shrines to America's past. They are ancient like the pyramids in Egypt and just about as inconsequential to the culture of modern America. There is baseball, for sure; but always and only with a definite commercial twist. The game is now elitist; and the masses do not partake. So cute the chosen ones look in colorful little uniforms, with scorekeepers and umpires and really great equipment. Headgear more secure than the Bears wear, serving as a constant reminder of the danger. I played on fields strewn with rocks in whatever clothes I had with bats held together with nails and tape and black oddly shaped balls that mud puddles had converted into something other than round spheres. I remember dropping my glove on the field so another kid without one could use it when I went in to bat. Among a vast throng of memories I remember estimating how long it would take to run after making out to the public fawcett by the grammar school for a drink, if it wasn't broken. We all had to know where the best shelters were so we could play right up until the downpour hit. We had a kid named Eugene who every single night without fail, would play until the absolute last minute before pitch dark and then let out a shriek as he would suddenly lite out for home and the beating he would surely be in for, for being so late again. Nobody knew the exact source of our catcher's mask (actually a three bar umpire' mask) that seemed to change ownership every few days. The biggest thing that ever happened was the rubber coated hardball. It had no seams which was fine because none of us could pitch well enough to appreciate seams, but it was both waterproof and washable, and for maybe a dollar lasted far longer than the cheap horsehide kind. Well, that's a smidgeon of what was happening on schoolyard ballfields fifty years ago. I'm not out to challenge the conventional culture, but I would surely enjoy discussing the overweight problem from a perspective that gets scant attention. We never turned kids away and we never charged them money. We lacked proper equipment and uniforms, and if there was a score it was safely tucked away in some future CPA's skull. One other thing we lacked; we had no adults. No administrators, no league officials and no lawyers. As far as I know none of our parents had anything more than the haziest notion where we were. I do recall clearly that if I made it home before dinner that I could play catch with my father. That did actually happen more often than not from Spring until school started, and even on through high school. I was, looking back, monumentally fortunate. If anyone is still reading, they might want to consider running this little essay this past their eldest family members to see if any of this rambling makes sense. And, next time you pass a deserted ballfield on a perfect summer day, turn down the radio and listen quietly to the silence that wasn't always. Oh, I never asked if this was the right forum for this nonsense. Maybe someone can help me guide this to a proper final resting place, in the meanwhile, I am, Bob McDonnell AKA goldenponderbob@gmail.com

Thanks again for the comments. If anyone lives in the Schaumburg area and wants to meet at some otherwise deserted field, contact me via e-mail. I still have a half dozen usable balls from my playing days. A few leftover thoughts based on stuff brought up by other posters, I would like to share. My dad played his way out of the dust/bible belt during the 20's in and around Misouri and Kansas. He wound up getting a forrestry degree from a small religious college in Pennsylvania (very long story) even though, as he would have attested, he did't have a religious bone in his body. He was a small, skinny, and of course right handed, 3rd baseman. From the first time we played catch he said I naturally threw as though I were pitching. Being left handed and small myself, pitching seemed like the only decent fit. My high school yearbook lists me as a pitcher/firstbaseman, but that's only because a neighbor who worked for Wilson Sporting Goods made me a gift of a trapper. I didn't really mind playing first, but I detested the glove; probably as it reminded me of the power a big guy at fisrt ought to give a team that I couldn't. My dad, early on, discouraged me from throwing a curve, but worked almost daily with me to develop a slider. All through high school when catchers called for a curve, I just threw the slider instead. Not until I saw Mariano Rivera, did I have an inkling that anyone else on the planet did that. I've suspected these many years that some mentor once gave him similar advice. I may not have all the facts correct, but from what I've seen, that's mostly what he does, and he's had a relatively long injury free career compared with those who relied on their curve balls. About getting hurt. I never went to play thinking I might get hurt. I recall a few tmes when injury kept me out of a game. And another when it should have. Hoping sombody will get a chuckle, here are a few cautionary tales of my physical woes. Warming up before a high school game playing threeway catch, a forth person came up with a ball and motioned me to break off and throw with him. Thinking the guy next to him knew this was happening, I switched my concentration, which resulted in my getting plunked just above the eye, which partially closed it for the rest of that day and a few more besides. Exactly one week later, on a very chilly day, while running the perimeter with other pitchers, as we crossed the outfield the coach yelled for soneone close enough to catch up with a long fly headed out toward deep center. As I looked up to get a bead on it, still on a dead run, an icy blast of air hit my eyes making them unexpectedly tear up just as the ball smacked me in the face, just below the eye on the same side of my face as the lump from the previous week. Those are the only injuries I can recall up through high school and neither happened during a game. Later, two more odd little injuries occurred whle playing in amateur leagues. A week after gettng married, pitching batting practice before a game in an adult league in Skoke (1975), I reached out with my bare hand, pure unconcious reflex, to snag what appeared to be a little squibber off the end of a bat as it passed the left side of my head. My dad had taught me to properly cover up and protect myself after delivery, so I should have stabbed at the ball with my gloved hand, but some lessons in this game, I've found, are really learrned only through deep impression. I just now glanced down at the enlarged knuckle which still bares the reminder of that moment. I was fortunate to get my new wedding band off before the swelling set in. I switched the ring to my right hand where it remains. Moving forward to a perfect summer day, circa 1980, Des Plaines, and a little four-team league that folded in mid-season. I was going to be pitching and had been thinking about that all morning. But first I had a lawn to mow. As I pulled the cord to start the mower I felt a littlle pop at the base of my spine. Just a twinge, hardly noticeable, a little knot, nothing to worry about, I thought. The pain, what little there was, was nearly gone by the time I got to field (Maine West High School the little field near the mobile home park on Oakton for anyone interested in details). The more I threw the less I felt the ache. My focus on what I was doing must have had a morphine-like affect, because by an hour or so after the game I was really beginning tho hurt. The three incidents described above aren't in the same universe with what was happening to my back by later that evening, and that was just the teaser. The next morning it took me nearly an hour to get from my bed to the toilet and it was a week before I could walk normally. I often wondered how much of that stemmed from the initial pop and how much was exacerbated by my intention to pitch that day, no matter what. I had many little momentary agonies, among which the one I disliked most would be any pitch that hit the ground and skipped up into my ankle. That was always the most painful and, even though I could see it coming, I found it nearly impossible to avoid. Bsides disliking trapper gloves, here a few more miscellaneous thoughts from my daya as a player as well as a fan. As a fan, I most dislliked the "designated hitter" (I may be enormously wrong but I think White Sox fans probably can recall more great hitting pitchers than any other MLB team). I also dislike any kind of bat that differs noticeably from a Louisville Slugger. My mit since little league, bears the "Spaulding Trapocket" trademark and the name "Whitey Ford". On the cuff is a tag my mother sowed on that dates from when I went a baseball camp in 1958. I always used a thin piece of dried sponge to keep the pocket a little "soft" (making balls less likely to popout). That was a carryover from the rubber-coated hardball, a great invention for kids with fingers too small to appreciate seams. I was around when it first became popular and meant we could dispense with the nearly black balls with split-open seams that never played right after gettng wet. Eventually the rubber coated balls would also split, but in the meantime you could scrub them like golfballs. We typically played until you could no longer see the ball so this meant a few more precous minutes each day. My favorite player was Nellie Fox. I always tried to imagine myself copying his style of meeting the ball squarely and driving it as a natural extention of where it was pitched (like a billiard shot). Power is a great thing and a necessary balance, but contact hitters like Fox who are certain to put the ball in play keep constant pressure on the defense and force the mistakes that make it possible to beat the better pitchers. When the Yankees came to town in the 50's the Sox would have been swept everytime without that element. Does anyone here remember how Stengel always tried to make sure that Pierce faced Ford But for that, Pierce would have been our best chance to start the game as the better pitcher. (Stengel was famous for saying "you cannot win them all", but there's a lot of proof that he never believed it)! In case you are too young, back then beating the Yankees was that mattered, that was our season and our World Series. Next time I post, I'll relate what I recall about my first trip to Comiskey to see the awsone wonderful terrible Yankees! All for now, and thanks again for responding to my ruminations. Bob McDonnell (AKA goldenponderbob@yahoo.clom) Schaumburg, IL

Wow! What great responses! Thanks for triggering some long dormat memories. While I didn't get any takers to start a workout group (not that I intend to give up), I enjoyed rekindling thoughts about days long gone. I especially appreciated reading Texsox's recollections about playing with guys who let if be known they had been on their college teams. I remember a fellow who claimed to have been a starter for "Michigan" and had the practice jersey to prove it. He was a centerfielder, and although he flubbed more than half his chances. you could count on him to say on his eventual return to the bench, "Can you believe that? Me? Dropping one? For the record, I'm content, as greg775 indicated, to not "play" in actual games anymore. At my age I don't want to promise to show up anywhere; as I have no idea what part of me is going to ache on that day. My intention is more on the order of . . . What if there were a place you could go, only if and when you felt like it, where regardless of age (or gender for that matter), you could just get some exercise by way of playing catch, or chasing a few flies. You knew people would be there, there would be no cost and there would be no pressure. If you're on my wavelength here, you might understand that just playing catch can connect you to the game in a way no boxseat ticket can. Your old mit need not be just a family relic. Feel the seams against your fingers as you throw, and perhaps you will sense a kind of magic that connects you to the likes of Fox, Minoso and Baines. The responses I've read indicate that there are others here at soxtalk who know what I'm talking about. Lastly, I'd like respondees to please answer the age-old chicken/egg question as it applies to baseball. Namely, "Which came first for you, playing or watching"? In other words, did playing lead you to becoming a fan, or did some diamond hero challenge you to see what you could do)? Take care, and thanks again for responding. Bob McDonnell, Schaumburg, IL

Calling soxfan geezers to respond, if you see this. . . When I was a kid I lived a half-block from a schoolyard ballfield. It was a pretty crappy place to play. The infield was lumpy, and an old lady screamed and tried to keep balls that landed in her yard across the street beyond left field. But, to the kids in my neighborhood circa 1950 though 1960, roughly the years between my discovery of baseball and my eventual discovery of the opposite sex, it was the place where we learned to play the game. Say what you want about organized leagues, on that schoolyard field, along with bats held together with nails and all kinds of tape, and a three-bar catcher's mask of very mysterious origin; we had two things that organized leagues didn't have. We had no adults, and we had no sitting. I played in organized leagues, where nine and ten year olds watched eleven and twelve year olds until they became the eleven and twelve year olds, like some rite of passage. We may have had "pitcher's hands out", "no hitting to right", and "ups provide the catcher" but nobody went home having not played the game they prepared themselves to play when they left home that morning. That's a smidgeon of what I remember from those days. I eventually played for many years in various leagues, some of which failed for lack of players, until a job assignment in the loop kept me from getting to mid-week evening games. That was nine years ago, and I miss it everyday! How many of you greybeards, iI wonder, would still put on the glove if you had the chance? I've been thinking about that quite a bit as this really nice summer passes mid-season, and wondered if anyone at this forum had similar thoughts. I ride my bike around Schaumburg everyday for exercise. I pass totally deserted, beautifully manicured fields continually. I have yet to see anyone having so much as a catch on one! I wouldn't be surprised to find it's against the law; or perhaps there's a permit you have to buy. I'd like to put together a group of geezers in my neighborhood for a little baseball workout, if anyone here is interested and not afraid of gettng arrested. I've tried the park district, but they didn't want to have anything to do with a senior activity that didn't have a cashflow incentive attached. It seems all their senior progarms are, in one way or another, moneymakers for somebody! Could anyone reading this imagine a kid or two seeing the "old-timer's comedy of errors", coming over, just out of curiosity and getting hooked the way we once did. Might that, in fact, be the objective I had in mind for starting this thread!. Thoughts please . . . Bob McDonnell, Schaumburg, IL AKA goldenponderbob@yahoo.com