On warm summer nights at home while it was still light I would tune my transistor radio to the ball game and grab my outfielder's glove. Then I would listen to the crackling play-by-play while I bounced a golf ball, swiped from my brother's leather bag, on the cement patio until it sailed high into the air so that I could attempt to catch it. Sometimes I tried to emulate what Monte Moore, voice of the Athletics, was describing. Usually I pretended I was making sometimes graceful, sometimes spectacular catches of fly balls to the delight of thousands of fans in a packed stadium. When my brother found out what I was doing he would complain to my mother and I would have to give the ball back. Sometimes he would even tease me for playing my silly game with the golf ball. When that happened, I was too embarrassed to defend myself by saying I was honing my baseball skills. I would remind myself that there was someone in my family I was sure would understand my mania for baseball. Uncle Henry was a living legend in the family because he had played minor league baseball. I was comforted by the knowledge that he understood, and he would never tease me about serious matters like baseball.
My family lived in two-story farm house on forty acres just south of the city limits. Though our property was much larger than a typical lot, we lived on a street in a neighborhood in which the homes sat on smaller parcels of land with houses large enough to accommodate families with children. So I grew up with the best of both the city and country worlds: I had plenty of open space with woods, fields, and a creek that snaked through our land, but I also played with loads of kids my age who lived down the street. With my early love of baseball and my secret desire to become a major league player, it was only a matter of time until I realized that we had enough land to build a baseball field on which all the neighborhood kids could play. The time came between my fifth- and sixth-grade years...
(Second installment in a series)
