With the SuperBowl football game over, it's time to move to baseball...one, two, three strikes you'er out! Visitor writer Jim accomodated our Writers Group blog with his story, Pinch Hitting, which will appear in three parts starting tonight. It was a warm and sunny late spring day. I don't recall for sure, but it was probably the month of May. It was about 6:00 o'clock in the evening, and my teammates and I were milling about, waiting for the game to get under way. I don't remember the name of the league, or if it even had a name, but it was composed of five teams. Perhaps it was called the Dunbar Township Little League. Each team was named for a village or coal patch located in the various parts of Dunbar Township (Pa.), which bordered the western boundary of Connellsville, the second largest city in Fayette County, which is just south of here. If you cross the southern border of Fayette County, you'll be in West Virginia. The five teams in the league were Trotter, Morrell, Leisenring, Monarch, and Dunbar. My team was Trotter. On this particular evening we would play against Monarch. We were the home team. As I recall, we were always the home team, because the league played all of its games on its only decent Little League field, which was located in Trotter, our village. It had a dirt infield, which was pretty typical for our area, but it also was relatively level, and the potholes were usually small enough to patch before each game. It had a batting cage to provide some control for unruly foul balls, and it was big enough to accommodate the batter and the opposing team's catcher. The umpire, however, had to stand behind the pitcher, calling balls and strikes from over the pitcher's shoulder. The field also had a home run fence, sort of. It was actually what I think is called a snow fence, which consists of thin slats of wood held horizontally in place with thick wire. The fence was about three and a half to four feet high, and it stretched from the left field foul line to right center field. Then there was about a two-foot gap. The rest of the home run fence, from right center field to the right field foul line was also the outer wall of the Dunbar Township High School football stadium. This corrugated metal barrier was at least six feet high, maybe seven. I recall seeing only one home run hit over that wall. By Little League standards, our left field was probably average in depth, and our center and right fields were respectively deeper. There were also two additional sections of the same kind of wooden-slatted fence as was in the outfield. These stretched from each back corner of the batting cage to just beyond first base and third base respectively. The areas between the fences and the foul lines were restricted. Only players, coaches, and the team manager were allowed to be in this area. I guess you could say that this was our imaginary dugout. Spectators who didn't bring lawn chairs could lean against the outside of the fence to watch the game. We didn't have any benches, so the players who weren't actually in the game or were not on deck to bat would usually sit on the ground and lean against the fence. Strategic placement of one's glove would help prevent grass or dirt stains from appearing in the wrong place, and thus help one to avoid embarrassing comments after the game. "So, I see by the grass and dirt stains on your pants that you didn't get to play today." Perhaps the best measure of our league's financial situation was evident in our uniforms. Although all the players had uniforms, each team had a variety of styles. For example, on my team, Trotter, some of the players wore an off-white uniform with a large red letter 'T' on the left breast of the shirt. Others on the team had shirts with the word 'Trotter' spelled out across the breast. Their shirts and pants were gray with red lettering. The other teams had a similar mix of styles. You could say that we were ahead of our time in our ability to celebrate diversity. At least every player on each team had matching hats. Ours was dark blue with a red bill and a red letter 'T' made of felt glued to the front. Most of the teams in the league had fifteen to twenty players. Once in a while a team would show up with only eight of its regular players. On those occasions, they would usually be allowed to borrow a player from the other team. I think our team always had enough players show up, because we all lived close enough to walk or ride our bikes to the field. Nearly all of the players on the other teams had to be driven, because they lived too far away. On this particular day, although it was a great day to play baseball, I was not feeling so hot. In fact, I was sick to my stomach. Just before the game was about to begin, I walked up to Mr. Dillon, our team's manager, and told him that my stomach was hurting really bad, I felt like I might throw up, and I didn't think I could play. I told him that I thought it was the Jell-o that I'd had for dessert after supper. As I spoke I rubbed my stomach, and I might have also cried. Mr. Dillon apparently believed me, and he scratched me from the starting line up. Although I was usually part of the starting line up, I thought it was really no big deal to replace me. I was an okay player, but I wasn't a star player. I was twelve years old and among the six or seven other twelve year olds on the team. I usually played left field, and I batted sixth or seventh in the batting order. But, even though I was among the older players on the team, this was actually my first year on the team, my only year actually, because you could only play in this league up to age twelve. I had wanted to play the previous year when I was eleven years old, but I had broken my arm just prior to the start of the season, so my mother wouldn't let me. Return tomorrow night for Part 2 of "Pinch Hitting." |
