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As a boy, I enjoyed playing sports informally. But with one exception, I never sought to join a school-sanctioned team. After all, playing interscholastic sports took time after school -- precious time I needed to practice the organ (the church was a nice walk from the high school down to the other end of Fairview Avenue.)
But I decided to go out for baseball in my junior year of high school. Now why did I do such a thing? Did I enjoy playing the game? Of course. Did I want to get off on the bond of a common noble endeavor with my teammates? To be sure.
But the major reason was the uniform. I yearned to wear that thick flannel in the hot sun! I craved to be seen in those baggy knickers and those long stockings! I fervently wished to course the outfield grass with those black spiked shoes! Here was a costume which only lacked a powdered wig and some lace to complete the look of an 18th century country gentleman.
The trouble was, I had one perennial problem as a youngster: as I was pale and neurasthenic, I was always more coordinated, more adept at a sport than my physique suggested. This caused me to be chosen last (if at all) for teams -- which then would usually be pleasantly surprised at my true skills.
My appearance notwithstanding, I did get on the junior varsity baseball team. (I now wonder whether anyone was rejected? I don't think so: in a perversion of the Groucho Marx quote, any sports organization which would take me would take anyone.) There was only one problem: there were 16 players on the team, but only 15 uniforms available.
I was told that I was the one who would have to go without a uniform.
At that point I probably should have quit. In retrospect I suppose this was Coach Woody Litweiler's backhanded way of getting me to leave. Yet, as far as I can recall, neither thought occurred to me until this moment of writing 45 years later. For some strange reason ('strange' because of why I went out to begin with) I stuck with it.
It wasn't easy. Fifteen of our players came to the plate arrayed as baseball players. I was the only one to step up dressed in chinos and a sports shirt. Needless to say, I felt I stood out. Fortunately, a bit into the season Don Cereface, a friend on the varsity, heard of my plight and loaned me a uniform from a summer league he had played in. And so I wore a baseball uniform after all.
Even the fact that its colors were blue and gold, whereas our team uniforms were maroon and gray, didn't really matter too much.
One reason it didn't really matter was because Coach Litweiler almost never played me. I was put up to pinch hit exactly four times that season.
I have said that teams who chose me last were usually pleasantly surprised by my prowess. But it is difficult to demonstrate one's prowess if one is almost never played.
Well, how did I do? Four at-bats don't provide a very good sampling. As John Updike said, ‘ Baseball is a game of the long season, of relentless and gradual averaging-out.' I did not have this advantage; my season was brutally short.
Of the four at-bats, three resulted in outs -- whether strikeouts or ground-outs or fly-outs, I do not recall. But the fourth! The ball went between the shortstop's legs. Was it an error on his part? I prefer not to think so, for to score it that way would result in an abysmally low batting average. So I made the assumption that my ball was so viciously hit that no shortstop could have handled it.
That would give me a hit, and I would thus end the season with a .250 average. That's not bad for a third-string player!
Oh yes -- there was one time when I showed my true prowess. During a batting practice, I hit everything thrown to me over the fence. My fellow players were exclaiming in disbelief.
Unfortunately for me, Coach Litweiler was at a meeting that afternoon, and thus missed my handiwork.
And how was I as a fielder? Well, it seems I was serious enough about that role, that I had my father buy me a new glove. And that glove -- and my reputation -- received the ultimate test the one time I was playing center field. It was the ninth inning; there were two outs and two men on base; and our team was ahead by two runs.
The batter hit a huge towering fly ball to deep left-center field. I took off like a shot and ran as fast as I could after the ball. It was a similar sort of situation that MIckey Mantle faced in that 1956 World Series game, when he had to run down a long Gil Hodges line drive to deep left center: by catching that ball he saved Don Larson's perfect game. And so likewise did I just reach this ball. I put up my glove and the ball landed gracefully in it.
And then it immediately bounced out. For my glove, being new, wasn't broken in.
Since there were two outs, everyone was running on the pitch. And the hit was so long and deep that, by the time I could retrieve the ball and throw it in, the batter was able to score as well. So we lost the game by a run.
Mercifully, the baseball season -- and my school-sanctioned sports career -- ended shortly after that game. But I did go on to become a pretty decent organist!
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