Photo Captions: Top:At a Steinbrenner Field spring training game this April wearing my #9 Roger Maris shirt. Middle: My own personal "field of dreams" where I played baseball at Firemens' Field in Denville, NJ. Lower Middle: John sitting in Hank Aaron's locker at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Bottom: At the Yankees' ticker tape parade in 2009.
"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America is ruled by it like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good. And that could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will definitely come” Terence Mann (James Earl Jones) in Field of Dreams.
I cry at the end of this movie every time when Ray gets to have a catch with his dad. My father and I also had games of catch, and it wasn’t until many years later I realized the physical agony he went through to do it as one of his arms was destroyed in an auto crash. But I remember those days. Yes I do.
I was born in 1947 in Manhattan: 114 West 116th Street, Apartment 3A, to be exact. A few buildings to the West was Riverside Park where I spent many of my days from birth to about age five. Television was only an experiment and the radio reigned supreme. And even before I began to speak, I was listening to Red Barber and Mel Allen, Ernie Harwell and others. The same year I was born a man named Jackie Robinson became the first African American (we called them “Negroes” in those days) to break the segregation that had held baseball captive for nearly a century. He signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Yes Brooklyn. In those days there were 16 major league baseball teams and New York City had three of them. In addition to the Dodgers, the Yankees inhabited the Bronx and the Giants were in the upper area of Manhattan.
I cry at the end of this movie every time when Ray gets to have a catch with his dad. My father and I also had games of catch, and it wasn’t until many years later I realized the physical agony he went through to do it as one of his arms was destroyed in an auto crash. But I remember those days. Yes I do.
I was born in 1947 in Manhattan: 114 West 116th Street, Apartment 3A, to be exact. A few buildings to the West was Riverside Park where I spent many of my days from birth to about age five. Television was only an experiment and the radio reigned supreme. And even before I began to speak, I was listening to Red Barber and Mel Allen, Ernie Harwell and others. The same year I was born a man named Jackie Robinson became the first African American (we called them “Negroes” in those days) to break the segregation that had held baseball captive for nearly a century. He signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Yes Brooklyn. In those days there were 16 major league baseball teams and New York City had three of them. In addition to the Dodgers, the Yankees inhabited the Bronx and the Giants were in the upper area of Manhattan.
It seemed as if one team, and often two, played for the World Series championship nearly every year. The first time I every watched television, we went over to my friend Jerry’s apartment to see the Yankees and Giants face off in the 1951 World Series. The Giants and the Dodgers had tied for first place in the National League and there was a three-game playoff that ended with Bobby Thompson's "Shot heard round the world" homer. My Mother rooted for the Dodgers, also known as “Dem Bums” They played in a band box called Ebbitts Field and had many stars but never managed to win a championship until 1955. They were immortalized in a book by Roger Kahn called “The Boys of Summer.” It’s been in print nearly forty years. I have a place mat with a picture of that Dodger team. My father grew up in the shadow of the Polo Grounds where the Giants played. And that was HIS team. I didn’t know much but the Yankees always seemed to win. And so I rooted for them.
In an effort to be fair and since tickets were only a couple of dollars for the best seats in the house and only a 15-cent subway ride, I wound up watching all three teams. I don’t remember very much, for I was only around three years old, but I am told I saw Joe Damage play in his last year. I also have a vague memory of shaking Jackie Robinson’s hand, as well as the other Dodgers. If you waited until they left after the game, they would talk to you and sign autographs. Today, if you go to a baseball card show, they’ll charge you at least ten dollars.
.
Even though I was too young to voice an opinion with much to back it up, there was always talk around both the house and the city as to who had the best center fielder: the Dodgers’ Duke Snider; the Giants’ Willie Mays and, of course, the incredible kid from Oklahoma, the Yankees' Mickey Mantle.
There weren’t many team sports that were popular in those days. Pro football had not taken hold. It was well known that if you went to his church on a game-day Sunday, you could get free tickets from Wellington Mara, the owner of the football Giants. The National Basketball Association had just started and frequently relied on a double header featuring the Knicks and the Harlem Globetrotters to fill Madison Square Garden. The Trotters, now a famous international comedy act, was a national pro champion in those days and Knicks games without the Trotters barely drew a crowd.
The big draws besides baseball was horse racing and boxing. In fact, my father was a professional boxer n the 1930s. He had won five straight as a middleweight and got on the Garden undercard once. He started to pound his opponent and the guy just smiled and proceeded to knock the crap out of him in the first round and knock him out in the second round. He realized that he previous fights had been fixed so a white guy could make the card. Blacks dominated he sport at the time, as they continued to do so for much of the 20th century.
But baseball ruled. I really became involved with it when I was in third grade when my mother got me into the Denville, NJ Little League.
We were the Hornets and played in tee shirts (which we had to return at the end of the season), bluejeans and PF Flyers or US Keds canvas sneakers. I was the worst player on my team, but a classmate was also on the team and we played every day in his back yard after school. In those days, I moved frequently, but I do remember one magic summer in a small town called Victory Gardens. The town had cleared a ball field and put up a batting cage and we would play on that field just about every day. There were no grown ups to supervise us, and that’s the way we wanted it. Every day after school and endless days throughout the summer we would spend from early in the morning until dark without going home. We didn’t even have water and didn’t care.
By then, television had become popular and at night I would watch the Yankees. I remember one stretch in the summer of 1958 where Yankee Catcher Yogi Berra had hit late inning home runs in about four straight games.
But we moved yet again and I eventually wound up at Bonnie Brae Farm for boys. And there we also played every day, usually in a sloping field where first base was a tree. We had a Little League team there but I couldn’t play. In most Little Leagues in the area, the maximum age was 12, which I was. But in this league, it was 11 and I watched helplessly as my friends played to an undefeated season.
In the 1960 baseball season, the Yankees had traded for a Cleveland Outfielder named Roger Maris, who won the most valuable player award that year. All the kids in school favored Mickey Mantle, but I stuck with Roger as my favorite. The next year was the incredible summer of 1961. That year Roger and Mickey hit home run after home run and both were in a race to beat Babe Ruth’s single season record of 60 homers in one season set in 1927. Towards the end of the season, Mantle had an ulcerated hip and couldn’t play but Maris hit his 61st on the final day of the season.
By then, my father had forced my mother and Bonnie Brae to permit me to visit him and we went a few times to Yankee Stadium. He wanted to buy good seats, but I insisted in sitting n the 75-cent bleachers in right field so I could watch Roger. One day, the love of baseball was forever sealed in my heart. In one game, I saw Roger hit two homers into the area were I was. I wasn’t close enough to catch them, but “my” hero had come through. But then Mantle came up to bat. He drove a ball into the back wall of the upper deck in right field. I swear it was still rising when it hit the wall. If it had been a few feet over to the left, it would have been out of the park. And no one, not even the immortal Babe Ruth, had ever hit one out of Yankee Stadium. I later learned that Mantle’s right arm was severely injured and he had hit it with only one arm. About seven years later, in 1967, my company had given me some seats for a game at Yankee Stadium. I took my best friend, Bill Stevens, to the game and it was the last game Mickey ever played.
Some people describe those days as the “golden” era of baseball. And it certainly was, but I will never forget the last day of the season when Roger hit the record breaker. The stands weren’t even half filled.
In eighth grade, I was on the junior high team, but one day I hurt my elbow and my arm was pretty much shot for that year. The next year I played Freshman Baseball at Morristown High School. I wasn’t very good at baseball, and I rarely played in the field, unless we were getting clobbered, which happened a few times. I usually would get to pinch hit late in the game. But I had an incredible string over the course of the season. I never got a hit, but never made an out. In my first at bat, I was hit by a pitch. Other at bats resulted in walks. I hit a grounder to a second baseman who bobbled the ball and I reached safely on an error. And one day I struck out, but the catcher dropped the ball. If a catcher drops a third strike, the batter could try to get to first and I made it. But my spikes caught in the bag and I wrecked my knee. I tried to play football that autumn and baseball the next year but the knee just wouldn’t hold up. Not that I had much talent anyhow, but that group of freshmen won the state championship when we were seniors. It would have been fun just to have ridden the bench for that great season.
By then, the Dodgers and Giants had left for the West Coast and there was suddenly a new team in town, the Mets. I can’t say I have been much of a Mets fan, but I did see them play the Dodgers once at the Polo Grounds in their first year. When I became a father, I took John to a few games with our church’s scout-type group, the Royal Rangers, and we also visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. He still has the baseball cards we bought that day and I think some of them are worth quite a bit of money.
By then, television had become popular and at night I would watch the Yankees. I remember one stretch in the summer of 1958 where Yankee Catcher Yogi Berra had hit late inning home runs in about four straight games.
But we moved yet again and I eventually wound up at Bonnie Brae Farm for boys. And there we also played every day, usually in a sloping field where first base was a tree. We had a Little League team there but I couldn’t play. In most Little Leagues in the area, the maximum age was 12, which I was. But in this league, it was 11 and I watched helplessly as my friends played to an undefeated season.
In the 1960 baseball season, the Yankees had traded for a Cleveland Outfielder named Roger Maris, who won the most valuable player award that year. All the kids in school favored Mickey Mantle, but I stuck with Roger as my favorite. The next year was the incredible summer of 1961. That year Roger and Mickey hit home run after home run and both were in a race to beat Babe Ruth’s single season record of 60 homers in one season set in 1927. Towards the end of the season, Mantle had an ulcerated hip and couldn’t play but Maris hit his 61st on the final day of the season.
By then, my father had forced my mother and Bonnie Brae to permit me to visit him and we went a few times to Yankee Stadium. He wanted to buy good seats, but I insisted in sitting n the 75-cent bleachers in right field so I could watch Roger. One day, the love of baseball was forever sealed in my heart. In one game, I saw Roger hit two homers into the area were I was. I wasn’t close enough to catch them, but “my” hero had come through. But then Mantle came up to bat. He drove a ball into the back wall of the upper deck in right field. I swear it was still rising when it hit the wall. If it had been a few feet over to the left, it would have been out of the park. And no one, not even the immortal Babe Ruth, had ever hit one out of Yankee Stadium. I later learned that Mantle’s right arm was severely injured and he had hit it with only one arm. About seven years later, in 1967, my company had given me some seats for a game at Yankee Stadium. I took my best friend, Bill Stevens, to the game and it was the last game Mickey ever played.
Some people describe those days as the “golden” era of baseball. And it certainly was, but I will never forget the last day of the season when Roger hit the record breaker. The stands weren’t even half filled.
In eighth grade, I was on the junior high team, but one day I hurt my elbow and my arm was pretty much shot for that year. The next year I played Freshman Baseball at Morristown High School. I wasn’t very good at baseball, and I rarely played in the field, unless we were getting clobbered, which happened a few times. I usually would get to pinch hit late in the game. But I had an incredible string over the course of the season. I never got a hit, but never made an out. In my first at bat, I was hit by a pitch. Other at bats resulted in walks. I hit a grounder to a second baseman who bobbled the ball and I reached safely on an error. And one day I struck out, but the catcher dropped the ball. If a catcher drops a third strike, the batter could try to get to first and I made it. But my spikes caught in the bag and I wrecked my knee. I tried to play football that autumn and baseball the next year but the knee just wouldn’t hold up. Not that I had much talent anyhow, but that group of freshmen won the state championship when we were seniors. It would have been fun just to have ridden the bench for that great season.
By then, the Dodgers and Giants had left for the West Coast and there was suddenly a new team in town, the Mets. I can’t say I have been much of a Mets fan, but I did see them play the Dodgers once at the Polo Grounds in their first year. When I became a father, I took John to a few games with our church’s scout-type group, the Royal Rangers, and we also visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. He still has the baseball cards we bought that day and I think some of them are worth quite a bit of money.
One of the first dates with my wife was to take her to a Yankee game. She hated it. So I sometimes took my mother to a game. We shared opening day weekend when Yankee Stadium was refurbished in the late 1970s.
Although I did have some catches with John as a child, it was less often than I wished and he never really became interested in doing sports. Matthew was a big basketball player and fan but despite his coach and I trying to have him play baseball, he refused. Neither boy is a fan of the game today, though Matt has followed it loosely. The closest major league baseball team near John is the hapless Seattle Mariners and I doubt if he would ever make the trek to attend a game.
In the last years of my marriage, we got cable television and I was able to frequently watch my Yankees on the YES network on a little 13-inch television in my room. This was the Derek Jeter age and championships were won. But I couldn’t afford to go to a game where the prices had ridden up to $35 for a nosebleed seat. The last major league game I took in was at Yankee Stadium in the spring of 2001 when I chaperoned a group of the children I was teaching to a game. We watched Roger Clemens pitch in a year he won the Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in baseball.
As I write this, Clemens was just found innocent of lying to Congress when he claimed he never took steroids. This issue has made dramatic changes in the game and we may never see the incredible home runs or power pitching we saw in the 1990s.
In 2009, the Yankees won the World Series. I managed to go to the ticker tape parade down the canyon of heroes in
lower Manhattan. I couldn’t get anywhere near the players, but managed to have a blast anyhow. It was the only ticker tape parade I had ever attended. In 1959, I begged and pleaded with my mother to let me go watch the one for the original seven American astronauts after John Glenn had gone around the earth three times. I was in 6th grade and mom wouldn’t let me go. I stayed at home that day and watched every minute of the television coverage.
For the past two winters, I have managed to get to Florida to watch spring training games. One year I was lucky enough to be there when they gave away replica World Series rings. I sometimes wear mine, but keep in safe in my dresser. I might wind up watching spring training this winter in Arizona.
Living on the road has its issues with baseball. I don’t get to see many games unless the Yankees are playing a nationally televised game on ESPN or Fox and I happen to be in a campground with cable television. I'm looking forward to seeing the Yanks and Mets square off on Sunday night. But I did attend a game with a friend recently that reminded me why I love the game so much. It was a Little League game her grandson was playing in. It was filled with errors, bad pitching, poor hitting and a bunch of kids who just loved being there. It brought me back to the time when I fell in love with a game more than half a century ago. If only my other love lives were that successful.
Living on the road has its issues with baseball. I don’t get to see many games unless the Yankees are playing a nationally televised game on ESPN or Fox and I happen to be in a campground with cable television. I'm looking forward to seeing the Yanks and Mets square off on Sunday night. But I did attend a game with a friend recently that reminded me why I love the game so much. It was a Little League game her grandson was playing in. It was filled with errors, bad pitching, poor hitting and a bunch of kids who just loved being there. It brought me back to the time when I fell in love with a game more than half a century ago. If only my other love lives were that successful.
