Sandlot Ball

Having Lou visiting us always dredges up memories of the things we did growing up. I’m beginning to realize, as the members of my family die, that these unique family memories whether valuable or not are dying with us. I think there is some value to these memories because they were formative to my personality. If nothing else, perhaps my generation will be remembered as more than just an old picture or fading video. I’ve decided to write about some of these memories from time to time as I feel the inspiration.

Once again my inspiration comes from Karen. She got me blogging. Recently she loaned me a book written by Johnathen Franzen, The Discomfort Zone. It’s a series of short stories of his experiences growing up-some interesting; some forgettable. One story tells about the attempt of him and a group of his friends to throw a automobile tire over their school flagpole. It brought to mind the many exploits I had with my friends back in Connecticut. The final push is Karen’s blog today about narrative writing.

As I contemplate those experiences it seems that most of the memories are about games we played. Some were standard such as touch football in the street and sandlot baseball on the paved hilly Bullard’s parking lot. The games were standard but the ground rules had to be invented. For example, our baseball field was laid out in the following manner. Home plate was in one corner of the L-shaped lot. First base, a scrap of wood or cardboard that we found in the lot was placed on the intersection of the yellow parking space markers (when they were visible). When the paint wasn’t visible there was a gouge in the asphalt we used as the marker. The right side foul line was defined by the first base placement. The lot wasn’t big enough to have a second base. Third base was straight down the last parking stripe on the left—a well-defined and more visible foul line.

We used a hard ball wrapped in many layers of electricians tape. Without the tape the leather cover of the ball would quickly wear off. Periodically as we played a well-used ball would wear out and when hit would either shed its cover immediately or fly weirdly with one flap of the cover acting as an air scoop. We didn’t have spare balls so when that happened it was game over until we could scrape up the money to get another one.

There were several ways we had to lose balls. Streets bordered our field—fairly busy ones. Alfred Street was on the right. Canfield Avenue on the left. There was no automatic home run on the right field side. A well-hit ball could be pursued across Alfred Street and a runner could be thrown out if the pursuer was fast and had a good arm. On the left field side the parking lot had a small curb separating it from the sidewalk on Canfield Ave. A ball clearing that curb and not caught was a homerun. That was an important rule from a safety standpoint. Canfield Ave. was very busy. We hit more than one car with well-hit balls—at which time we would sometimes scatter and run away. Most of the time the cars just kept going. I can’t remember anyone ever getting in trouble for hitting a car. Of course, being the 98 lb weakling I was, I never hit a home run. Across Canfield Ave. was the Bullard’s factory and it had a tall chain-link fence (8-10ft?). The better hitters, Johnny Slater and Jerry Marcus, could hit balls onto Canfield Ave. Sometimes they would bounce over the fence. We had to retrieve them without getting caught by the guards there. More on this later. Through the laws of that genius named Murphy, sometimes a ground ball would accurately find its way through the gap between poles on the gate to that lot. Any time a ball went over the fence it was imperative to track it as long as possible. Depending on where it entered the Bullard’s lot it would either fall into a not so well kept grassy area where it would hide from us or roll off into a parking lot—sometimes penetrating deeply into the forbidden grounds of Bullard’s property. The other significant ball-eater was the sewer drain at the end of Alfred Street. Good old Murphy was at work here also and many balls were swallowed between the grate and the curb.

Over the years we developed into a crack ball-retrieval squad. At first the Bullard’s fence was a formidable foe. The only way we got through was to scale it. The risk was great to body, it had those pointy ends sticking up on top, and the exposure was lengthy, endangering being seen by a guard or employee. We needed to get the ball or the game was over. I never was a fence climber (see the 98 lb weakling comment above). I was too small to get over the fence easily or safely. Once over the fence the group on the safe side would yell directions to the retriever. Retrieval was usually successful.

Later we found that a couple of us could grab the bottom of the fence and lift it out far enough for someone small, like a 98 lb weakling, to roll under. The danger here was the fence was trying to spring back to the closed position while the holders strained to keep it open. The fence bottom also consisted of those pointy things and there was a real danger of the retriever being impaled on his way in or out. We developed a well timed routine. The fence was lifted and the retriever would drop and roll under and the fence would be released. This was much faster than scaling the fence and thus involved less danger of detection.

The sewer presented a more interesting problem. If there had been sufficient rain water filled the sewer but it was about 6 ft down the shaft. In dryer weather there was just muck down there. We learned we could lift the heavy metal grate off the top and provide access to the sewer. Depending on the conditions we would improvise some way to scoop the ball out. I remember one time we got my Dad’s pear picker to scoop the ball out.

After retrieving the ball we would continue the game where we left off.

We pitched overhand but not real fast. When there were sufficient numbers playing we had someone umpire. Otherwise we just pitched until someone struck out, hit out, or successfully got on base. I usually pitched for our team. I was a terrible outfielder and too short for first base. I could pitch and play infield well enough, however.

I was fortunate that our neighborhood kids were all good guys. The big guys were not bullies. There was no prejudice because someone was Italian or Jewish. Of course we did the normal ribbing, but no one was mean-spirited. Best of all they were tolerant and accepting. I don’t remember initially meeting any of them. They were all just there and that’s the group we hung around with through 8th grade.