The Game

We would need something to take our minds off of all that was going on in the world in 1961. Something exciting.
We got it that year in the form of two New York Yankee ballplayers. Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle would vie for the home run title of the American League, and at the same time they'd be in a race to see which one of them would break that most sacred record of all: Babe Ruth's home run output of 60 in one season.
I didn't know much about professional baseball then. I didn't pay any attention to it really. Sure, I knew about the Phillies and I played Wiffle Ball in our yard, and softball at school, but hardball, now that was a mystery to me.
My baseball/ WiffleBall field was our side yard, between our house and the Avises. First base was a cherry tree, second a bare patch in the lawn, third was the Avises' chimney and home plate another patch of dirt in the grass. The outfield was full of natural and man-made obstacles. Another cherry tree in left field, our old maple in right center, and the sand box and picnic table next to it. Let's see those major leaguers cope with that!
There were very few ground rules. You could catch a fly ball that got hung up in the tree branches and it would be considered an out, but if it ricocheted off of the windows of our houses it didn't count. Bouncing a ball off of the picnic table was fair, and you had to go around the forsythia bush coming in from third.
We had a variety of bats, too. First there was our original wooden Wiffle ball bat that looked a little like a broomstick. We had a broomstick as well. Those new plastic bats were out now, and we had a few of those. My secret weapon was a railroad brakeman's club. This was a heavy wooden affair that had a handle like a baseball bat, but it was flat at the business end, so if you hit the ball just right, it would go clear past the trees in the outfield and almost reach the woods at the end of the yard. It would wreak havoc on the ball too, so we used it sparingly.
The side yard would also serve as our kickball field and our badminton and volleyball courts. It's a miracle that we never broke one of our parents' windows.
I would read about the home run race in Life magazine. The affable Mickey Mantle, idol of American boys all over the country, and the soft spoken Maris, a mid-western boy who didn't get along well with the press. Babe Ruth was a giant, a baseball legend, and it seemed like no one wanted his record broken. 60 home runs in one season was the holy grail of all sports records, and there were those who didn't want The Babe dethroned. Roger Maris would get sick from the attention; even his hair would start falling out from all the pressure. Mickey Mantle would get injured and be out for several weeks, managing 54 homers by summer's end. Roger Maris would hit number 61 on the last day of the season, and still the press would not leave him alone. Ruth did it in 154 games, not 162, they'd say. The pitching was diluted from the league expanding from 8 teams to 10, so they tried to belittle his accomplishment even more.
I was fascinated by it all. I began to read more and more about baseball and its legends. I read biographies of Ruth and Cobb, studied the World Book encyclopedia, and learned about Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Sandy Koufax and Yogi Berra. I was captivated by the great tradition of the New York Yankees and their dominance of the game. I'd become a baseball junkie over the next few years, reading whatever I could on the subject. My cousins would give me their old baseball cards from the 50s, and I'd begin collecting my own.
I'd get my first baseball mitt using S&H green stamps that Mom got going to the supermarket. It wasn't as good as a Wilson or a Rawlings, but it was my first, so I'd have to make do. I'd begin playing hardball in 1962, after school on the sandlot with my classmates. I never joined Little League. I watched the kids playing, and they let me play a few innings once, but I didn't like all the parents shouting, and the umpire deciding that I should have swung. I was a purist, I played for the love of the game, I played for fun and I could play all day long in the heat of a summer day.
I'd try playing in the Babe Ruth League as a teenager. My friends talked me into coming out and playing on the team. My first season I could hit, but my fielding sucked. When I played for fun with friends I was fine, but putting on a uniform and playing in front of a crowd that expected something from you destroyed my confidence, so my first season in organized ball wasn't a good one. The following spring Dad and my Uncle Bob hit millions of fly balls to me so that by the time tryouts came I could catch anything hit to me. I was confident in my fielding now. Trouble was, I worked so hard on my fielding that my hitting suffered, and my team mates had no confidence in me when I was at the plate. My life in organized baseball was less than satisfying.
Baseball itself became a passion for me in 1961. Maris and Mantle. Clemente and Banks. Bubblegum cards and By Saam on the radio, the Phillies on TV. The New York Yankees and home runs by the score. Let's forget about Castro and H-bombs; let's not duck and cover anymore.
Play ball!