Whereas recessions tend to wreak havoc on other communities, we, it has been written, don’t notice it very much because, well, we’ve become accustomed. Mom used to tell of the time one of her sisters, in a family of 16 siblings, left the family comb at school overnight. The brouhaha quickly followed, as brothers and sisters needed to comb their hair with their hands, or perhaps with a fork or a whisk broom.<\/p>\n
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In contrast to Mom’s childhood, my childhood was rich (but yet nothing like the great amount of “stuff” many kids have today). An old photo of our childhood living room shows only one set of curtains over a small window, a simple painting on a wall, a few nic-nacs, several doilies, a pipe rack, a radio-phonograph, a table lamp, a chair and a sofa.
\nThere was no carpet and certainly no “extras,” as TV, stereos, computers, MP3s, cell phones and DVDs were as yet undreamed of. In my teens, I may have been the first kid of the block to own a new bat, ball and glove. The rule in the Railroad barrio was that we all shared. On his first swing, a great young player named Don sent the ball across the tracks, and half of the bat in the same direction. We retrieved the ball once it landed–about 15 minutes later–but no amount of tape rescued the bat.
\nI borrowed a dollar and a half from friends to buy an identical bat, available at J.S. Torres’ store on Grand. I feared Dad would never forgive such carelessness with stuff he had helped me buy. He never learned about the switcheroo.
\nRailroad was not a heavily trafficked thoroughfare. Most of the time we played baseball uninterrupted. Railroad was also unpaved. That big rock over there is first base; that dog is second base, unless he moves; home plate is my sister Bingy’s school books, etc. Later, playing once on a manicured field, in this case Lopez Park, was wonderful. We’d so feared grounders taking erratic hops–usually toward our right temple–that experiencing a level playing field, literally, was great.
\nDuring the summer, other neighborhood boys got their own baseball equipment, and just in time. My baseball had begun to resemble an egg with millions of loose strings. As a repair operation, I criss-crossed black friction tape with white masking tape, making it a zebrall, more visible in the evenings. The fact that neighbor boys got their own equipment changed my status. Because I’d gotten a head-start, I imagined myself comparable to DiMaggio or Campanella. Observing how much better every neighbor kid was, I soon was relegated to the minors.
\nOur games were played in the short block of East Columbia, between Railroad Avenue and the tracks. We came up with a rule that any ball hit over the tracks was an out, not a homerun. That prevented people like Don, Franklin, Tony and Joe from murdering the ball. But if we hit a moving train–and there were many in those days–the game was over and we all raced home, not to home plate.
\nOver the years, both sides of the Gallinas have produced fine baseball players. Two east-siders I was acquainted with were brothers Tony and Leroy. As a kid just entering my teens, I observed, especially in Tony, the older brother, what seemed like great-caliber play. As one of the gang, I earned the nickname “No-hit Art.” I wasn’t a pitcher.
\nOn the few occasions when I thought I’d really smacked that ball, I’d soon realize it was an easy pop-up to the shortstop, located close to the sleeping dog but nowhere near the outfield.
\nWithout ascribing to myself the title of the world’s worst young player, I need to say that as a youth, I watched admiringly as the boys performed in our “stadium.” A good hit for me would have been any ball that reached the tracks, not to mention going over them.
\nEven by “self-pitching,” I was never able to knock the ball over the tracks. And yet, around my 55th birthday, I was rummaging through some of my childhood stuff at my parents’ house. I found a bat and three scuffed baseballs and thought, “What the heck?”
\nStanding where home plate used to be, I self-pitched and knocked the first two balls over the tracks, with surprisingly little effort. The third swing made the ball hit my shin, but that’s another story.
\nThe two solid hits gave me a Field-of-Dreams-type feeling, and for a few minutes I was transported to the early ’50s. In just a mini freeze-frame, I imagined myself as an actor, perhaps someone in a sports movie such as “Remember the Titans,” or “The Natural,” in which trained athletes serve as body doubles and actually perform the athletic feats. Often the actors are those whose only forte is being able to recognize a ball two out of three times.
\nBut in my case, the balls sailed via power provided by my own bat and my own biceps.
\nThough I felt the soreness the next day, the “high” of finally smacking the horsehide endured.
\n‘Twas a pity, however, that nobody but my pre-teen son was there to witness the “shot heard around the block.”
\nNot to be outdone by his old man, my son, who’d never played organized baseball, grabbed the bat and ball and . . . well, let’s not get into that now . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whereas recessions tend to wreak havoc on other communities, we, it has been written, don’t notice it very much because, well, we’ve become accustomed. Mom used to tell of the time one of her sisters, in a family of 16 siblings, left the family comb at school overnight. The brouhaha quickly followed, as brothers and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}