Green Baseballs

by Lloyd B. Abrams

When we played baseball when I was growing up in the middle and late fifties on Long Island, we were allowed to use a large open area on an estate just a few houses away from my ranch-style home. We played on a narrow grassy field surrounded by trees and our clean white baseballs quickly and inevitably turned a dark shade of greenish brown from the moisture and the color of the grass. Fly balls, and especially pop-ups, then became virtually invisible when the sun shone from the west behind and through the tall trees. It was a challenge to try to locate and then catch a fly ball while squinting through the fingers of our leather gloves, which we’d hold in front of our faces so we wouldn’t get hit with the ball.

I always looked forward to playing baseball and enjoyed the game so much that I used to go looking for games on my three-speed bike. I’d hang my glove on the handlebar, stick my bat into the rear basket, and then ride all over our small town to the several schools that had playing fields, looking for a game of some sort or more to the point, of any sort. Only infrequently was there an unorganized or “pick-up” game going on, especially on midsummer weekend afternoons, when it seemed as though the listless town had been evacuated. The deserted fields then looked so barren and sterile and I always wondered where everybody could have gone.

On one particularly gray and windy Sunday afternoon, on the playing field behind my old high school, which has long been turned into an annex of the town hall, a baseball team seemed to be having a practice. Only seven men were on the field; there was no pitcher. The eighth man was hitting balls “fungo” style to the other seven players he’d toss the ball up into the air and then hit it on its way down. No one was out in centerfield. I thought that maybe I’d get a chance to play the field and then, possibly, a chance to hit. When I spotted my friend, Eddie, the son of the village’s Lutheran minister, standing out in left field, beckoning to me, I knew that they’d let me fill in during practice. Excitedly, I put my bike down on the ground, put on my glove, and ran out to the vacant area in center while fielding practice continued. Fly balls, line drives and grounders were hit out to each fielder, with me included. It felt really good to be out there playing along with the team.

As practice ended, as the custom seemed to be, each fielder “brought it home.” It started when the third baseman had a grounder hit to him. After catching it, he threw the ball to the catcher standing at home plate, who quickly tossed it to the fungo batter. The fungo hitter then hit successively shorter balls toward him as he ran in toward home plate, attempting to successfully make each play on the run. His last play was fielding a bunted ball. When he was done, he stood along the third base line, watching the action and waiting for the other players to finish. The next fielder involved was the shortstop, followed “around the horn,” in turn, by the other infielders, and then, finally, the outfielders.

Out in centerfield, my turn came last, and the batter hit a long drive to deep right centerfield, to my left and apparently out of reach. I turned and ran backwards, caught the ball on the fly over my head, and in one motion, turned and threw a perfect strike to home plate. I continued to run in with a big grin on my face, “bringing it home,” proudly knowing that the fielding play was so unbelievable and so exceptional, and that all the other players had watched me make it. But my expectations were shattered when Eddie took me aside and told me the bad news that even though they’d love to have me on their obviously short-handed team, I wouldn’t be able to join them, for this group of boys and men, these warm people who allowed me to participate were, sadly, a church team. And I was not a member of their denomination.

Right there, in that one magical moment after making the quintessential play the one I choreographed while running down the hallway of our suburban home the one I dreamed about making for the New York Yankees, in my fantasy role as Mickey Mantle, my idol, in the bottom half of the ninth inning of the seventh game of the World Series at Yankee Stadium to protect a one-run lead broadcast to millions by the mellifluous Mel Allen, whose distinctive voice was drowned out by 70,000 roaring fans that that one perfect play wouldn’t ever count it couldn’t even help to get me on the small town’s Lutheran church team.

Now, it’s only a wonderful memory, one of my own internal legends, yet an integral part of me. At 38 years of age, 24 years later, I’m still searching for a game, but the boy’s game of baseball has been replaced by the man’s game of paddleball. I’m more aware now of the special melancholic emptiness of a park with no people or of a baseball field with no ballplayers. It’s my own referential tie to the metaphor of an amusement park after closing. It’s somehow always windy, always overcast, always with the chill of autumn in the air, always gray and bleak. There’s the promise of excitement, but all too often, there’s a sense of inescapable disillusionment, with my hopes and dreams going unfulfilled.

Since I’m older now and perhaps slightly wiser, I bring a pair of running shoes and a change of clothing, along with my paddleball racquet, sweatsuit and gym bag, when I leave the house to drive around to the parks looking for a game. Though the glorious dream of being a Yankee and making the great play is seemingly far in the past, its echo is there inside me, still resonating deep within. By bringing my running stuff, I’ve learned to protect myself against the disappointment of walking up to a desolate, abandoned court, silent except for the clanging against a flag pole of a pull rope flapping in the wind.

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April 3, 1985, with major revisions, March 12, 1998…Copyright © 1998, Lloyd B. Abrams

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