Lately, I’ve been returning to baseball after a long time spent away from the sport I once loved, lived and fantasized about. As I got increasingly fed up with all the machinations and overrule of George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees from 1973 to 2010, I drifted away from the game. After all, the Yankees were my team. But George became bigger than the team and I was having none of it.
So, in the 1980s, I left. I did not change my team – I changed my sport. Ever since I can remember, I was watching Yankee games on TV. The old black & white TV in my parent’s house in the mid-1950s was often on as I tuned into Channel 11, WPIX, to watch my team play. Back then, I was fascinated by Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Bobby Richardson and the rest of the team. Whenever I stayed with my grandmother in Richmond Hill in Queens, NY, we watched one of two sports on her TV: her favorite team the New York Yankees or professional wrestling. I clearly remember watching Bruno Samartino but the other wrestlers of that era now escape me. But Grandma loved her wrestling and her baseball. When we could not watch either, we’d tune into some Abbott & Costello reruns. It was a healthy lifestyle. Well, it worked for us; it was 1958 or so.
Anyway, I got older and then I was trying out for Little League. Well, I guess you don’t really try out for little League, you just sign up and show up. That’s how you make the team. Your father pays a fee and you’re now a member of the team sponsored by the local dry cleaner or swimming pool supplier or car dealer or millions of local sponsors across the U.S.
Yes, you make the team. But do you play? Well, it’s complicated. You begin learning pretty early in life that there are A teams and B teams. Starters and subs. Athletes and wannabees. The hope is fierce, but the talent? Maybe it’s in short supply. Or not even there. So, some play a lot, some sit a lot. On the bench. But most Little League teams are fair and make sure that all players on the team spend some time off the bench and on the field. And a lot of kids see the writing on the wall so to speak, and retire after one year of Little League. Hang up the cleats – or the sneakers.
My first Little League team was while I was in 3rd grade and my only real baseball experience had been having an occasional catch with my dad. I’m sure I practiced hitting a baseball back then but I have no memories of hitting before 3rd grade. So I had a lot of catching up to do on that LL team. I sat on the bench a lot. But I stayed with it and I practiced a lot on my own or with friends. Eventually, I became pretty good and within three years I became one of the starters. I was beginning to grow and so was my arm. I had a pretty good arm and loved playing outfield. Quickly, I moved up to pitcher and I loved the challenge of facing batters and trying to win games for my team.
I moved up from LL to Babe Ruth League and later, Senior Babe Ruth League. At the onset of a new baseball season in Babe Ruth, my new manager called me to ask which position I played. Back then, sponsors and their coaches usually changed every season. I guess the burnout factor for coaching a Little League or Babe Ruth team is 100%. You just don’t do more than one year. So much for stability, when you are a player. Anyway, I told the manager I was a pitcher.
A few days later he gathered us all for our first practice and everyone warmed up and we got the field ready. Then when he called out everyone to their positions, he said to me, “Okay, why don’t you go suit up – the catcher’s gear is over there.”
“What? “ I thought. Catcher? Who said anything about catcher? But I was a young, dumb kid and the Authority Figure had just told me to suit up. So I did. Without a cup. Because who the hell wears a cup in Little League baseball unless you’re a catcher? I put on the ridiculously long, orange chest protector that seemed to go down to my knees. I put on the shin-guards – after several moments of figuring them out. That manager must have thought I was some kind of loon. And then the catcher’s mask. Thankfully, the team supplied a catcher’s mitt so my not having one went unnoticed.
Now it was time to get behind Home plate and take some pitches. Our pitcher made a few tosses and it seemed okay. Then the Manager told one of our teammates to step in for some Batting Practice or BP. Alright, so now I’m crouching down behind the plate with a batter a few inches in front of me and a pitcher looking in to me as I raise my catcher’s mitt to produce a target for him to throw at. To throw at me. On one of the first pitches, the batter swings and he hits a foul tip. A foul tip that skips off the bat and makes the ball come screaming into my catcher’s mask. Wait for it…
It was amazing. I am now 69 and I still remember that moment, that feeling. It was nothing, didn’t stun me, didn’t phase me. I picked up the ball, threw it back to the pitcher’s mound and I was hooked. Catching was a totally new world and I avidly took to it.
I later found out my manager had misunderstood me on the phone when I told him pitcher and he heard it as catcher. I guess there is serendipity in life sometimes. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot becoming a catcher. Like the communication and relationship between a catcher and a pitcher. The infielders have their own communications with each other on covering the base, backing up each other and on handling double plays; the outfielders also have their own communications in calling for a ball in shared outfield territories and also on backing each other up and on relays of doubles and triples.
But the catcher and pitcher are in on every pitch together and after a few years, you learn you are devising a strategy – for every batter, every pitch. You’re not daydreaming like that rightfielder who is watching the plane overhead getting ready to land at LAG.
No, as a catcher, perhaps you noticed that the batter likes the ball pitched to the outside of the plate. So now it’s your job to give the pitcher a target on the inside of the plate – still a strike but one which the batter will not like. As we got older, it became more than placement. As young pitcher arms developed, they began throwing curveballs and other “junk.” So now the dialogue between a pitcher and catcher began to get a lot more interesting. Fastballs, curves, sliders, knuckleballs and changeups gradually became a part of the conversation. And of course that was communication by hand signals: one finger for a fastball, two fingers for a curve and so on. This was fun stuff: trying to confuse and strike out the hitter.
Family legend has it that my dad’s younger brother, my Uncle Bob, had a tryout with the New York Yankees back in the early 1950s. Uncle Bob had been a semi-pro catcher and he was the athlete of the family and I looked up to him.
So, when I became a catcher, he worked with me and we would go out in the back yard or off to the ball field to practice throwing. The most important thing he taught me was that a catcher throws from behind the ear. “Behind the ear” became a mantra between us. Instead of winding up like a windmill when a baserunner is trying to steal second base, the catcher needs a quick release and throwing a dart from behind the ear was a brilliant but simple suggestion. It became my mission.
I stayed behind the plate for most of my baseball years although I continued to pitch every 4th game or so. I had graduated from LL to Babe Ruth League and then Senior Babe Ruth League for 16 to 18 year-olds. I could also hit the ball a “country mile” as they say and in the summer of 1969, in the Championship game, I hit a grand slam and we won the game and the title by a score of 7-4. Top 10 memory? Oh yeah, and I’ve still got the trophy in my den to remind me.
Oddly, I do not remember why I did not try out for the High School junior varsity team when I was a freshman. I did try out in 10th Grade but not in 11th Grade. Then, my senior year, I tried out again. What I did not fully understand was that by senior year, that team is set. Only new kids making the varsity team are going to be outstanding freshmen and improving players from the previous year or moving up from the JV team. I made it through all the tryouts but yes, I was the last player cut.
I’ll never forget my great friend Bobby being next to me when the team was announced on a piece of paper listing the players that was posted in the gym. My name was not on the list. Bobby just silently walked away with me by his side as we left the gym. Later he told me he had been praying my name would be on that list.
What has always haunted me – to this day – is that I played Senior Babe Ruth with most of the guys on that Varsity team. I might not have made the Varsity team, but I was one of the starting nine on the Senior BR team. And I batted 3rd or 5th often. I wasn’t even on the bench. That meant another Varsity player might have been on the bench. Go figure.
I realize it’s a team. It is also a club and the Varsity coach didn’t need a senior coming onto the team, thus knocking out a player the coach had invested time in developing over four years. I had waited too long.
Perhaps it was the fact that physically, I had developed later than some of my peers. By the time I was 16, I began to catch up in the growth department and I filled out and I began hitting and throwing much harder than just the previous year. But now that my body had caught up to my timeline, there were other factors. Timing is everything in life.
When I went off to Rider University, I showed up for baseball tryouts. But there were no tryouts. Rider had a pretty good baseball team and the coach thanked me but told me the team was already recruited for 1971. Of course, recruited. I knew but I was in denial. And that was the end of my baseball career.
Baseball life, that’s another story. The transition to softball was immediate and I began playing intramural softball at Rider. In later years, after I graduated, I played in a softball league for years and with my strong arm, I roamed the outfield and was often respected by our opponents for my arm. I remember a runner testing my arm on a single hit toward me and I rushed that ball and using my body’s momentum and my whip of an arm, I threw that bastard out at home plate. Yes, I can still see the play unfolding in my head. Another top 10 memory? You betcha.
And then it all came to a stop. Things change, career was taking off, and later, kids came along. My son Alex played LL for one year but he later admitted he was doing it for me. I never pushed him to play so I was relieved to learn he just wasn’t interested. My daughter Kate was an athlete and she became the starting first baseman on her high school Varsity softball team and she had a good run. But she did not continue at the college level – she hung up her spikes back in 2011.
As for me, I gradually became a huge football fan rooting for many teams as we moved. The George Steinbrenner problem had alienated me from being a baseball fan and I lost interest in watching the game. Sure, an occasional World Series game or so, but outside of Derek Jeter, ARod and a few others, I honestly couldn’t tell you the names of many pro players in the past 30 years.
The game just failed me – or I failed the game. Whatever. Bitterness combined with a faster, more explosive sport.
And now, I seem to be waking up to the game I once worshipped. I’m noticing a few sports headlines now although I am not yet watching any baseball games in their entirety. Instead, I’ll see an occasional recap on ESPN and I’ll watch for a few moments.
Then we went to a game. No, not a pro game in a faroff city. Right here in the Lehigh Valley, PA. In the town of Center Valley exists DeSales University. DeSales is a small, private college with 2,300-plus undergrads and about 950 students in graduate programs (MBAs and Health Care grads top the list). From time to time, my wife and I would see that a game was in progress at Weiland Park, a brand new baseball park and mini stadium recently rebuilt with university and alumni funds. It’s a beaut.
No traffic, seats right behind home plate, free admission, supportive students and moms and dads. Best of all, no tee shirts being “shot” into the stands, no music blaring throughout the game, no gymnastics taking place on the side.
What the hell has happened to minor league baseball? A few years ago, we went to see the Lehigh Valley IronPigs play at Coca-Cola Stadium in Allentown and I was appalled at all the distractions to the game. I felt like standing up and shouting out, “Hey, there’s a baseball game being played here, ya really should check it out.” Of course, everyone would have begun throwing drinks and hot dogs at the cranky old man so I didn’t dare. Never again.
I remember back in the late 1980s and early 1990s attending more than a few minor league games when I would be on the road during my career. Back then, the distractions were minimal. Now they have gotten to the point where they are more boisterous than the game being played between two Triple A teams.
This season, I have adopted the DeSales University Bulldogs as my team and I am in heaven, learning the players, diving into their stats, even scoring the games. This I do to gain a better handle on who is doing what each game and I am slowly learning their strengths. And my wife and I sit only 20 feet from all the action. It is exhilarating and right now, the Bulldogs are 18-15 and heading for the MAC (Middle Atlantic Conference) playoffs.
I’ve finally come back to baseball and have finally found my team! No more worrying about salary caps and trades of key players, no more $20 hot dogs or $30 beers. Just rooting for a bunch of 17-22 year-old guys trying to claw their way ahead in life, trying to win one more championship before they each “retire” and then become the health pros, info techies, businessmen or other professions that await them.
It’s fun, it’s local and it’s free. I love being a fan again and it’s right in our own backyard, only a few miles away.
The Kid is back – or at least I am back to the game I once loved.
Chris Ebel
4/25/23
Photo credit: @jupiterimage