Baseball, Part 3

 Okay ... now the part I’ve been dreading ...

When I entered Hiram College in the fall of 1962, the baseball coach approached me right away. He asked me if I was going to try out for the team. I was pretty sure I wasn’t: By then I knew my, uh, limitations. So I gave him some kind of noncommittal reply.

“We hope you do,” he said. “We need a good backup for Slotta.”

Jake Slotta was Hiram’s catcher—a junior—an all-conference player. I knew I’d be spending at least two years on the bench—and hitting about .142.

I went out for tennis instead—made the team (we weren’t very good)—ended up getting four varsity letters. Made some great friends, some of whom still haunt me on Facebook.

But the summer after my freshman year, I got a call from the coach of an American Legion team in nearby Newton Falls, Ohio. He invited me to join the team.

I did. Didn’t catch much (they had a guy with a much better arm—and I was ... rusty). I played mostly in the outfield. Nothing remarkable.

Until the end of the season when we were in the Legion finals and were playing the championship game in a park in Alliance. It was a nice infield, but the outfield was roly-poly—like a golf course.

My dad was there watching the game—I think my younger brother, too. I was in right field.

Early in the game (I was batting 9th, which tells you all you really need to know), I came up with two out and a runner on third.

The pitcher threw so hard I could hardly see the ball.

I swung blindly at one and lined a clean single into left-center. I ran, stunned, to first while the Newton Falls fans gave me a standing O.

That would change fairly quickly.

About midway through the game, a batter hit a long fly to right. Certain I could catch it, I turned and ran. And, eye on the ball, I did not notice that I was dipping down into part of Roly-Poly Land. Before I knew it, I was on the ground, and the ball was rolling merrily away from me. (Can a ball laugh?)

I caught up to it, whirled and fired toward the infield, missing the cutoff man by, oh, a half-mile or so, and the batter trotted on home.

To a standing O from the non-Newton Falls fans.

I dreaded the end of the inning, but it came swiftly. As I neared the bench, the coach, without looking at me, told me I was out of the game.

And I was—in more ways than one.

TO BE CONTINUED ...