Baseball, but not White Sox or Even MLB

[goldenponderbob]

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

[email protected]

Edited July 27, 2010 by Bob McDonnell

[lord chas]

Amen. im only 26 i would kill for the fieldturf. lights, and even fences we didnt have when i was a kid.

[zenryan]

I might email this thread to my dad. He grew up in Akron and went to high school in the 60s and talks about how his HS team didnt have a fence and the school's track ran through right field. After hearing his stories I'm sure he will appreciate yours.