Called Up

It was paradoxical, even to myself, that a go-my-own-way kid like myself would be happy in school, and a little lost outside it.

It wasn't that I liked regimentation and rules. I wasn't an altar boy, or a choir boy. I wasn't a crossing guard.

I didn't need structure for its own sake. Some kids did. That was alright, although it seemed most such kids - the door-monitor type - soon were big on NASA, the FBI, and Hitler. See you later to them, although they tended to be polite.

I didn't need authority. I just needed things to do.

What provided that, just in time, was Little League.

It sounds a little square, of course: like, more Pennsylvania than Brooklyn.

But it was practically romantic to me. I was in love with baseball anyway. So, to be able to play with a team? It was like being a musician, and joining your first band.

It was adventurous from the start, because we played outside the neighborhood. You'd have to. There wasn't a single field of grass and dirt in all of Brooklyn 3.