Little League was in Gerritsen Beach, a neighborhood with fresh shore air, and flat expanse. Mostly private houses, not apartment buildings, there was lots of sky. The streets were wide and empty.
The first night (after school; after work for the fathers who brought us), we got oriented.
We met indoors, in a big gym.
We picked up the hats and t-shirts we'd ordered. We met our coaches.
"All right, fellas, listen up. I want to introduce myself, I'm Coach Lou."
Coach Lou had a gut and glasses. In real life he probably drove a Pepsi truck. Here he was General Patton.
His charges were sitting on benches. I was among the attentive few, not the fidgety.
"We're going to learn two things in the opportunity of Little League baseball for you fellas. One, the fundamentals of the game and the nature of the game. You're going to learn the basics of the game and maybe go beyond the basics a little bit, as well of course as the basics themselves.
"Me and the other coaches and myself are going to do our best to instill in yous, also, in the course of the season, the values of competition, developing and learning your skills and all that, and playing the game the way it should be played, with respect for yourselves, your opponents, and of course the great traditions of the game that we call the game of baseball."
Something like that. Coach Lou put his unlit cigar in his mouth and gave us a meaningful look. He was not just Patton, but Casey Stengel and Winston Churchill, in one. I was smiling, not out of disrespect, but pleasure. Ready for battle, Coach Lou.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Passing Out
Like a lot of kids, I could sit and watch ants a long time. Ants were great. They were industrious. On the move. A team. They had their own thing. They didn't need people.
Clouds were good too. They weren't alive, of course; but they always changed. Like ants, they came and went on some whim or power that had nothing to do with people.
Getting older, I was starting to feel less connected to people, myself.
I began to notice, and to mind, how unfriendly adults were to kids.
My nuns and family were fine, and spoke as if kids had minds. But so many adults were either bossing you around about something inane, or patronizing you, or ignoring you altogether.
I remember talking to a neighbor one time, Mr. Rohaly, while he was gardening his meager plot. I figured I'd do the guy a favor, kill a little time with him as he puttered.
In the middle of an off-the-cuff soliloquy, about someplace I'd recently been, he looked over his shoulder at me, on his hands and knees in the dirt. His head was furrowed. (He was completely bald-headed. Mr. Nolan lived next door to him and didn't like him. He called him Beetle-Head Rohaly.)
"Really, Stevie?," he said. "Did they have pickles there?"
This threw me for some seconds as I realized this is a remark by someone who really doesn't feel like talking to you.
He must have forgotten about it a few days later, when he was painting a patch of his garage as I walked by, and he said, "You know, Stevie, in the Army, we had the saying, 'If you own it, paint it'." I thought about asking him if he painted pickles in the Army, but just kept walking.
Meanwhile, getting older, kids were also becoming more tiresome, or difficult, or both.
In school wasn't so bad. There was order, and you were occupied.
But out of school, games were getting rougher, or abandoned altogether, for meaningless - what? I couldn't even put a name to it. Hanging around, on the street, on stoops, on bikes, ranking each other out, as it was called; doing nothing.
Talk was getting stupider. Younger kids aren't ashamed of what they don't know. Older, they want to fight about it.
"Your God can't take Hercules and Atlas at the same time," a Jewish kid named Scotty (improbably, but so)once challenged me.
"He can take everybody," I said, although I was not eager to explore anything at this level of idiocy. "He made everybody."
"He can't take Hercules, Atlas, and Superman at the same time," Scotty said, with an air of rigorous triumph.
"Maybe not," I said.
If Scotty was stupid, how about James Conley, who told me Superman was real, because he saw a Superman parade on TV?
"Didn't you see that on the Superman TV show?," I said. I knew the episode.
"They can't fake a whole parade," he said.
Or, relatedly, Robert Packus, who told me his brother was Superboy, because his brother told him so, and then raced down the street tearing off his shirt, into an alley from which he (presumably) flew away?
I started spending a lot of time alone.
I could throw a ball against a wall for hours. I would create a ballgame in my head, with two teams, 27 outs apiece. Sometimes they played two.
Walking alone, I could look at an old wire fence, say, buried in a hedge behind a building, and think, no one has ever seen this before in quite this way. That means it never existed this way before. It never will again. I'd stare, and work myself into a real state of Being and Nothingness, until I thought I'd pass out; if I hadn't already. Had I?
On the normal side, I drew, read, and wrote. But things were closing in on me. That's a funny feeling at age eight.
Clouds were good too. They weren't alive, of course; but they always changed. Like ants, they came and went on some whim or power that had nothing to do with people.
Getting older, I was starting to feel less connected to people, myself.
I began to notice, and to mind, how unfriendly adults were to kids.
My nuns and family were fine, and spoke as if kids had minds. But so many adults were either bossing you around about something inane, or patronizing you, or ignoring you altogether.
I remember talking to a neighbor one time, Mr. Rohaly, while he was gardening his meager plot. I figured I'd do the guy a favor, kill a little time with him as he puttered.
In the middle of an off-the-cuff soliloquy, about someplace I'd recently been, he looked over his shoulder at me, on his hands and knees in the dirt. His head was furrowed. (He was completely bald-headed. Mr. Nolan lived next door to him and didn't like him. He called him Beetle-Head Rohaly.)
"Really, Stevie?," he said. "Did they have pickles there?"
This threw me for some seconds as I realized this is a remark by someone who really doesn't feel like talking to you.
He must have forgotten about it a few days later, when he was painting a patch of his garage as I walked by, and he said, "You know, Stevie, in the Army, we had the saying, 'If you own it, paint it'." I thought about asking him if he painted pickles in the Army, but just kept walking.
Meanwhile, getting older, kids were also becoming more tiresome, or difficult, or both.
In school wasn't so bad. There was order, and you were occupied.
But out of school, games were getting rougher, or abandoned altogether, for meaningless - what? I couldn't even put a name to it. Hanging around, on the street, on stoops, on bikes, ranking each other out, as it was called; doing nothing.
Talk was getting stupider. Younger kids aren't ashamed of what they don't know. Older, they want to fight about it.
"Your God can't take Hercules and Atlas at the same time," a Jewish kid named Scotty (improbably, but so)once challenged me.
"He can take everybody," I said, although I was not eager to explore anything at this level of idiocy. "He made everybody."
"He can't take Hercules, Atlas, and Superman at the same time," Scotty said, with an air of rigorous triumph.
"Maybe not," I said.
If Scotty was stupid, how about James Conley, who told me Superman was real, because he saw a Superman parade on TV?
"Didn't you see that on the Superman TV show?," I said. I knew the episode.
"They can't fake a whole parade," he said.
Or, relatedly, Robert Packus, who told me his brother was Superboy, because his brother told him so, and then raced down the street tearing off his shirt, into an alley from which he (presumably) flew away?
I started spending a lot of time alone.
I could throw a ball against a wall for hours. I would create a ballgame in my head, with two teams, 27 outs apiece. Sometimes they played two.
Walking alone, I could look at an old wire fence, say, buried in a hedge behind a building, and think, no one has ever seen this before in quite this way. That means it never existed this way before. It never will again. I'd stare, and work myself into a real state of Being and Nothingness, until I thought I'd pass out; if I hadn't already. Had I?
On the normal side, I drew, read, and wrote. But things were closing in on me. That's a funny feeling at age eight.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The Day I Was Jewish
One case where the idea of not talking to strangers made sense was with religious people.
I found out one September. I was walking to the bus for school and a guy stopped me at 52nd and Lenox.
"Excuse me," he said. "Are you Jewish?"
If I was, I was a little early for Halloween, in my costume of a Catholic school kid.
"No," I said.
He looked relatively Jewish himself, with a yarmulke and a beard and all that, so you figure he would know the difference.
What did I care, though, and I turned to go, when he stuck out his arm like a bar and said,
"Wind my watch."
I was pre-bad language in my life, so it might have been the first time I accommodated a thought like, "What's with this crazy bastard."
Crazy people were common in Brooklyn 3, with the mental hospital, and were no worry, because they knew they were crazy, and knew you knew. All they had to do to be reminded was to glance at their pants, which they did not select themselves, and were stenciled with the words "Brooklyn State Hospital."
Non-hospital crazies were common, too, but were also little worry. They tended to be foggy and benign.
But a religious crazy person was a sudden puzzle. Where does the religion end and the crazy begin? No doubt they don't know. They just think they're religious.
So it's up to you to decide. In this case, I didn't have much time, so to speak. The guy was nuts and there was no one else on the street.
He still had his arm stuck out. I thought about grabbing his wrist and kicking his feet out from under him. Or whipping off the watch, throwing it, and running in the opposite direction.
But first, I thought, try the easiest thing. Wind the watch and see if that's all he wants.
So I did.
He looked at it, and at me, and said, "Thank you."
"Don't mention it," I said.
I walked away, without turning my back completely. I made a left on Lenox, not the right direction, because I didn't want him to know my right direction.
That should have been enough crazy Jewish action for one day, but there was more that afternoon.
More craziness, but essentially the same thing, on the same block. On my way home from school this time, I'm stopped by a guy with a long beard, dressed in robes.
"Excuse me, " he said. "Are you Jewish?"
What is this, National Jewish Confusion Day? This guy is more Jewish than the other, by a lot, with the robes, straps, a scroll, and a pillow with Hebrew on it. What's he going to ask me, to fish him a herring?
Fool me twice? Forget that. So I simply say, "Yes."
"Good," he says, and starts moving. Not away: unpacking stuff.
He produces a yarmulke and puts it on my head. He takes a strap and wraps it around my arm. He opens his scroll, tells me to repeat after him, and starts reading.
Now what? I'm stalling for time while I figure this out. Meanwhile I have to speak Hebrew. Luckily I was good at accents, like a little Sid Caesar.
The guy is chanting; me too; and actually I am starting to enjoy the scene a bit, until I look up and see a bunch of my older brother's friends round the corner. Jewish kids.
They get a look at me in my regalia.
"Hey!," screams Mickey Kravitz. "He's not Jewish!"
Uh-oh. My rabbi looks quite alarmed, as the kids are running towards us, waving fists.
"See you," I say to the guy, whipping off my yarmulke and straps, and taking off in haste.
"You bastard! We'll kill you!"
Bigger kids, they are fast, but I am pretty swift myself, motivated as I am.
I tear up 52nd Street and take a right angle into the first alley I reach, to elude their sight; then another, and another. I hop an old wood fence and hide behind it.
Quiet for a while. I've lost them.
Now I have time to think, and realize what's happening.
It's September. Jewish holidays.
Religious Jews are out proselytizing: that was the p.m. guy. Regular Jews are out walking, and not working, and in fact are not allowed to work at all - not flip a light switch, not wind a watch. That was the guy this morning.
I found this situation quite ironic, but wasn't sure I could convey the humor of it all to Kravitz and crew. What they saw, or think they saw, was me in rather elaborate blasphemy on their faith.
So I sat there a while. I figured my mother would enjoy the story later - provided I arrived home alone, without a bunch of baying kids behind me. "What did you do this time?" was a question I heard enough already, without being chased home or converted.
I found out one September. I was walking to the bus for school and a guy stopped me at 52nd and Lenox.
"Excuse me," he said. "Are you Jewish?"
If I was, I was a little early for Halloween, in my costume of a Catholic school kid.
"No," I said.
He looked relatively Jewish himself, with a yarmulke and a beard and all that, so you figure he would know the difference.
What did I care, though, and I turned to go, when he stuck out his arm like a bar and said,
"Wind my watch."
I was pre-bad language in my life, so it might have been the first time I accommodated a thought like, "What's with this crazy bastard."
Crazy people were common in Brooklyn 3, with the mental hospital, and were no worry, because they knew they were crazy, and knew you knew. All they had to do to be reminded was to glance at their pants, which they did not select themselves, and were stenciled with the words "Brooklyn State Hospital."
Non-hospital crazies were common, too, but were also little worry. They tended to be foggy and benign.
But a religious crazy person was a sudden puzzle. Where does the religion end and the crazy begin? No doubt they don't know. They just think they're religious.
So it's up to you to decide. In this case, I didn't have much time, so to speak. The guy was nuts and there was no one else on the street.
He still had his arm stuck out. I thought about grabbing his wrist and kicking his feet out from under him. Or whipping off the watch, throwing it, and running in the opposite direction.
But first, I thought, try the easiest thing. Wind the watch and see if that's all he wants.
So I did.
He looked at it, and at me, and said, "Thank you."
"Don't mention it," I said.
I walked away, without turning my back completely. I made a left on Lenox, not the right direction, because I didn't want him to know my right direction.
That should have been enough crazy Jewish action for one day, but there was more that afternoon.
More craziness, but essentially the same thing, on the same block. On my way home from school this time, I'm stopped by a guy with a long beard, dressed in robes.
"Excuse me, " he said. "Are you Jewish?"
What is this, National Jewish Confusion Day? This guy is more Jewish than the other, by a lot, with the robes, straps, a scroll, and a pillow with Hebrew on it. What's he going to ask me, to fish him a herring?
Fool me twice? Forget that. So I simply say, "Yes."
"Good," he says, and starts moving. Not away: unpacking stuff.
He produces a yarmulke and puts it on my head. He takes a strap and wraps it around my arm. He opens his scroll, tells me to repeat after him, and starts reading.
Now what? I'm stalling for time while I figure this out. Meanwhile I have to speak Hebrew. Luckily I was good at accents, like a little Sid Caesar.
The guy is chanting; me too; and actually I am starting to enjoy the scene a bit, until I look up and see a bunch of my older brother's friends round the corner. Jewish kids.
They get a look at me in my regalia.
"Hey!," screams Mickey Kravitz. "He's not Jewish!"
Uh-oh. My rabbi looks quite alarmed, as the kids are running towards us, waving fists.
"See you," I say to the guy, whipping off my yarmulke and straps, and taking off in haste.
"You bastard! We'll kill you!"
Bigger kids, they are fast, but I am pretty swift myself, motivated as I am.
I tear up 52nd Street and take a right angle into the first alley I reach, to elude their sight; then another, and another. I hop an old wood fence and hide behind it.
Quiet for a while. I've lost them.
Now I have time to think, and realize what's happening.
It's September. Jewish holidays.
Religious Jews are out proselytizing: that was the p.m. guy. Regular Jews are out walking, and not working, and in fact are not allowed to work at all - not flip a light switch, not wind a watch. That was the guy this morning.
I found this situation quite ironic, but wasn't sure I could convey the humor of it all to Kravitz and crew. What they saw, or think they saw, was me in rather elaborate blasphemy on their faith.
So I sat there a while. I figured my mother would enjoy the story later - provided I arrived home alone, without a bunch of baying kids behind me. "What did you do this time?" was a question I heard enough already, without being chased home or converted.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Eggies On Those Afghans
"Eggies on" something was similar to "Chips on" something in kids' legal code in Brooklyn 3, but it was acquisitive rather than compensatory.
It had exclusively to do with food.
Your friend comes walking out of the luncheonette with a bottle of RC, for instance. You say, "Eggies on that soda." He is now obligated to give you a sip.
Eggies on that ice cream, that sandwich, that pretzel, those Afghans (pistachio nuts). We were hungry.
Of course, like taxes for adults, you could get out of eggies if you were smart or stingy.
All you had to do was say "No eggies" first, to preempt any claim. That was for the smart and quick.
For the stingy, stung by an eggies claim, there was saliva.
"Eggies on that soda." Oh, yeah? So, Lee Mark Shimpkin drops a big clam into the bottle, and gobs all over the top of it.
That's alright. You'd have to be crazy to drink off Lee Mark's lips anyway. Crazy or dying of thirst, literally, and death is probably preferable.
The truth is, eggies claims were usually made between friends. It was sort of a street way to ask for a sip or a share. We generally did not ask for things, and never used words like share. Tough guys.
It had exclusively to do with food.
Your friend comes walking out of the luncheonette with a bottle of RC, for instance. You say, "Eggies on that soda." He is now obligated to give you a sip.
Eggies on that ice cream, that sandwich, that pretzel, those Afghans (pistachio nuts). We were hungry.
Of course, like taxes for adults, you could get out of eggies if you were smart or stingy.
All you had to do was say "No eggies" first, to preempt any claim. That was for the smart and quick.
For the stingy, stung by an eggies claim, there was saliva.
"Eggies on that soda." Oh, yeah? So, Lee Mark Shimpkin drops a big clam into the bottle, and gobs all over the top of it.
That's alright. You'd have to be crazy to drink off Lee Mark's lips anyway. Crazy or dying of thirst, literally, and death is probably preferable.
The truth is, eggies claims were usually made between friends. It was sort of a street way to ask for a sip or a share. We generally did not ask for things, and never used words like share. Tough guys.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Chips On That Ball
If you ever threw a ball onto a roof, or hit one up in stickball, that was the end of that ball, and time for a new one.
Even though you knew where it was, and it was a good, live ball, and rubber balls were a major expense, it didn't matter. Retrieval was ill-advised, as roofs were forbidden terrain.
Of course, in private houses they were inaccessible. You might get a homeowner to throw a ball back from a yard. If they liked you. Which was unlikely. No adult liked any kids playing ball by their house. You sure didn't even want to tell an adult you got a ball on their roof. That means it could have been their window.
Apartment house roofs could be reached, but this was as close to felonious behavior as a kid could get.
We all understood the rationale. No one could see you up there. A kid on a roof meant trouble.
Every once in a while, a crazy kid would start a fire on a roof. Young lovers would get caught up there. Kids threw bottles (non-deposit) and rocks down onto look-out-below.
Cops hated people on roofs more than anything. My father had a brother and friends on the job. I knew from trade talk that when cops arrived on a scene of trouble, one would emerge from the squad car eyeballing the street, and the other the roofs. The roofs were considered the bigger threat. A psycho up there is harder to see, chase, or shoot.
Once in a while, though, you had to take a chance. Say you hit it up there, and it wasn't your ball. If the owner of the ball had the presence of mind to holler "Chips on that ball" on its way, you are financially responsible. If you don't have the coin to replace it, you are either entering a debate (You found that ball; It was half-dead anyway), or going on a vertical journey.
The bad part, besides what is already described, is that one of the kids in the game might decide to have fun as you are sneaking up, and start shouting "Hey, super!," hoping to alert the caretaker of the building. "Kid going up that roof!"
This usually didn't happen, as it would bust up the game, but it might, if everyone was tired of playing anyway.
The good part - if no one rats you, and you have a safe trip - was that there were usually a number of good balls up there to come back down with.
If you are lucky, and the super isn't standing by the front door waiting for you, you hit the street with a trove of treasure.
If he is, and quick begging for mercy doesn't help ("They made me!"), you need those balls to pitch at him to unblock your pathway out. Ping-ping-ping, balls ricocheting off the big guy, then a couple of quick feints from you, then out the door, and run like hell.
You might yell to your friends, "The super!," though this is really unnecessary, to any observant parties. You all run, and by a block away laugh, though you will make like John Dillinger for a few days. This week's games will be somewhere else.
Even though you knew where it was, and it was a good, live ball, and rubber balls were a major expense, it didn't matter. Retrieval was ill-advised, as roofs were forbidden terrain.
Of course, in private houses they were inaccessible. You might get a homeowner to throw a ball back from a yard. If they liked you. Which was unlikely. No adult liked any kids playing ball by their house. You sure didn't even want to tell an adult you got a ball on their roof. That means it could have been their window.
Apartment house roofs could be reached, but this was as close to felonious behavior as a kid could get.
We all understood the rationale. No one could see you up there. A kid on a roof meant trouble.
Every once in a while, a crazy kid would start a fire on a roof. Young lovers would get caught up there. Kids threw bottles (non-deposit) and rocks down onto look-out-below.
Cops hated people on roofs more than anything. My father had a brother and friends on the job. I knew from trade talk that when cops arrived on a scene of trouble, one would emerge from the squad car eyeballing the street, and the other the roofs. The roofs were considered the bigger threat. A psycho up there is harder to see, chase, or shoot.
Once in a while, though, you had to take a chance. Say you hit it up there, and it wasn't your ball. If the owner of the ball had the presence of mind to holler "Chips on that ball" on its way, you are financially responsible. If you don't have the coin to replace it, you are either entering a debate (You found that ball; It was half-dead anyway), or going on a vertical journey.
The bad part, besides what is already described, is that one of the kids in the game might decide to have fun as you are sneaking up, and start shouting "Hey, super!," hoping to alert the caretaker of the building. "Kid going up that roof!"
This usually didn't happen, as it would bust up the game, but it might, if everyone was tired of playing anyway.
The good part - if no one rats you, and you have a safe trip - was that there were usually a number of good balls up there to come back down with.
If you are lucky, and the super isn't standing by the front door waiting for you, you hit the street with a trove of treasure.
If he is, and quick begging for mercy doesn't help ("They made me!"), you need those balls to pitch at him to unblock your pathway out. Ping-ping-ping, balls ricocheting off the big guy, then a couple of quick feints from you, then out the door, and run like hell.
You might yell to your friends, "The super!," though this is really unnecessary, to any observant parties. You all run, and by a block away laugh, though you will make like John Dillinger for a few days. This week's games will be somewhere else.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
The Home Team
What set Earth apart as a living planet was air, light, water, and baseball.
In spring, baseball came like buds on the trees. It stopped in fall like colorful leaves.
In the meantime, it was all around, every day.
It was on TV, the radio, in newspapers, gigantically. Everybody talked about it. Kids played it.
Baseball equipment was one of the first things you saved for in life. I had hand-me-down stuff, but I looked forward to buying my own glove someday. That would be great, like buying a suit or a car.
Good gloves were modeled after major league players' and had the player's signature etched in them. You wanted a good guy, not some stiff. That was as important as the fit.
You could pick a player from any team. That was considered sophisticated and genteel. It didn't have to be a player from your own favorite team.
In my case, it couldn't be from my own team, because my team was the Mets, and they didn't have any guys good enough to name a glove after.
The Mets were lousy, but beloved. Neither word is too strong.
The Mets were sort of a replacement team for the Dodgers, who left Brooklyn for Los Angeles in 1957.
The New York Giants left for San Francisco at the same time. Both teams were in the National League. New York went from being the only city with two National League teams, to having none.
New York still had the Yankees, which counted, kind of. But the Yankees were from the slow league, the American League. They won a lot of games and championships and were famous, but dull.
New York needed a National League team and got one, the Mets, beginning the 1962 season.
The Mets were made up of players the other teams were willing to give up in a draft, a funny word for getting rid of garbage. Of course, we did not think of the Mets in these terms. We thought about potential.
It didn't matter that they lost more games their first season than any team ever had: a lot more. We were happy to have them. The newspapers called them the Amazin' Mets. That was purposely ambiguous, jokingly so, because they did not mean amazingly good.
Their legacy team, the Dodgers, were also not very good, for a long part of their history. Their nickname was the Bums.
The Bums thrived on daffiness and fatalism, both major traits in Brooklyn at all times.
One game, the Dodgers had two guys sliding into a base where a third guy was already standing. This is not supposed to happen.
It took the Dodgers decades to get good, and that really only happened because they were the first team to hire black players - reason enough to like them.
The Mets, sadly, did not have players like Jackie Robinson, black or white. They had players like Choo-Choo Coleman, black and white.
It didn't matter. We rooted hard for Choo-Choo, and all the Amazin's.
A nice part of having two teams in town - two very different teams - was being able to dislike the other one close up.
The Yankees were good, in fact the best, but thought who they were, so forget them.
For some reason, the Jewish kids I knew liked the Yankees. I couldn't reckon out why. At least it made things more varied when we'd choose up a game, and pretend to be our favorite players.
It was hard to have a favorite Met player based on merit. I liked Warren Spahn, a pitcher who was once great, but by then old, in his forties. I liked him for his history, and his exotically plain name, but also because he looked exactly like Satch from the Bowery Boys. But this didn't make you want to be him.
In 1965, the Mets brought up a guy named Ron Swoboda. He was young and athletic, though raw. He used to get hit in the head by fly balls from time to time. He was known as Rocky, I think for those catching abilities, and maybe that noggin.
He was cool. "Swoboda" was a good baseball name. He was from Baltimore, and had a Chinese grandfather.
His first year, he hit 19 home runs, great for any Met, but phenomenal for a rookie.
I wrote him a letter predicting his place someday in the Hall of Fame. That reflected my enthusiasm rather than measured judgment, but he seemed to appreciate it. I got back an autographed photo. I'm sure I still have it.
In spring, baseball came like buds on the trees. It stopped in fall like colorful leaves.
In the meantime, it was all around, every day.
It was on TV, the radio, in newspapers, gigantically. Everybody talked about it. Kids played it.
Baseball equipment was one of the first things you saved for in life. I had hand-me-down stuff, but I looked forward to buying my own glove someday. That would be great, like buying a suit or a car.
Good gloves were modeled after major league players' and had the player's signature etched in them. You wanted a good guy, not some stiff. That was as important as the fit.
You could pick a player from any team. That was considered sophisticated and genteel. It didn't have to be a player from your own favorite team.
In my case, it couldn't be from my own team, because my team was the Mets, and they didn't have any guys good enough to name a glove after.
The Mets were lousy, but beloved. Neither word is too strong.
The Mets were sort of a replacement team for the Dodgers, who left Brooklyn for Los Angeles in 1957.
The New York Giants left for San Francisco at the same time. Both teams were in the National League. New York went from being the only city with two National League teams, to having none.
New York still had the Yankees, which counted, kind of. But the Yankees were from the slow league, the American League. They won a lot of games and championships and were famous, but dull.
New York needed a National League team and got one, the Mets, beginning the 1962 season.
The Mets were made up of players the other teams were willing to give up in a draft, a funny word for getting rid of garbage. Of course, we did not think of the Mets in these terms. We thought about potential.
It didn't matter that they lost more games their first season than any team ever had: a lot more. We were happy to have them. The newspapers called them the Amazin' Mets. That was purposely ambiguous, jokingly so, because they did not mean amazingly good.
Their legacy team, the Dodgers, were also not very good, for a long part of their history. Their nickname was the Bums.
The Bums thrived on daffiness and fatalism, both major traits in Brooklyn at all times.
One game, the Dodgers had two guys sliding into a base where a third guy was already standing. This is not supposed to happen.
It took the Dodgers decades to get good, and that really only happened because they were the first team to hire black players - reason enough to like them.
The Mets, sadly, did not have players like Jackie Robinson, black or white. They had players like Choo-Choo Coleman, black and white.
It didn't matter. We rooted hard for Choo-Choo, and all the Amazin's.
A nice part of having two teams in town - two very different teams - was being able to dislike the other one close up.
The Yankees were good, in fact the best, but thought who they were, so forget them.
For some reason, the Jewish kids I knew liked the Yankees. I couldn't reckon out why. At least it made things more varied when we'd choose up a game, and pretend to be our favorite players.
It was hard to have a favorite Met player based on merit. I liked Warren Spahn, a pitcher who was once great, but by then old, in his forties. I liked him for his history, and his exotically plain name, but also because he looked exactly like Satch from the Bowery Boys. But this didn't make you want to be him.
In 1965, the Mets brought up a guy named Ron Swoboda. He was young and athletic, though raw. He used to get hit in the head by fly balls from time to time. He was known as Rocky, I think for those catching abilities, and maybe that noggin.
He was cool. "Swoboda" was a good baseball name. He was from Baltimore, and had a Chinese grandfather.
His first year, he hit 19 home runs, great for any Met, but phenomenal for a rookie.
I wrote him a letter predicting his place someday in the Hall of Fame. That reflected my enthusiasm rather than measured judgment, but he seemed to appreciate it. I got back an autographed photo. I'm sure I still have it.
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