Summer Days Are Over ~ Part 2

Well continuing the saga from yesterday, here is the 2nd part of my day........

August 19th, 1983(cont.)

Since it was lunchtime we headed to West End Park for the “Free Lunch.” We arrived at the pavilion and parked our bikes amongst the 20 or so others. We hoped it was fried chicken day. It was the only thing that was truly edible. We filled our bellies then took off up the street for Herschel Field again.

This time we decided to look for balls. Softballs, baseballs, tennis balls, anything at all. We started behind left field of the Big Field near the Tamilia residence. This is where we found most of the baseballs we collected. Back then there were a few high schools that called the place home as well as the 20th and 28th Ward Federation League teams. Elliott did not have Pony, Colt, or Legion teams. These were added much later. In addition to Home Runs, these woods contained balls that rolled under the fence just about anywhere. We navigated these woods as if we were expert hikers on some type of expedition for National Geographic. We knew every nook and cranny from there to Ducky Pond and to the the Dumps. We also knew where to look for the balls. We knew exactly where they hid from the players who nonchalantly looked for them when the first entered this domain. In about 15 minutes, we found about 15 baseballs between left and center. Some of them were brand new, others were scuffed and dirty, but good balls nonetheless. There were also a plethora of waterlogged and mud covered baseballs with the covers half off that my dog wouldn’t play with. We left them to rot. My friend rode his bike over to the bleachers and found an empty beer box that was perfect for carrying the balls. We filled it up and rode our bikes over to the right field hillside below the tennis courts saying hi to Jules who was lining the field for the days games. We always found a few baseballs here, but this was the most likely place for softballs and tennis balls. We loved finding tennis balls (especially orange ones), since we used these for our many games of “Off the Step” or “Curb Ball.” We would play this on the Big Field cement bleachers in the morning when no one was around. Some people used a racquet ball, but we preferred the good old tennis ball. Different sections of the tall fence behind us represented singles, doubles, and triples. Of course over the fence was a Home Run. Sometimes we would even set up beer and pop cans that were laying around from the night before on the top step, give each one a point total and try to knock them over with the tennis balls while standing at the bottom.

After we loaded the box with our treasure trove of balls, we headed home. By now it was about 2:00 and about 90 degrees. In the basement I had plastic milk cartons full of balls that were organized by ball type. We filled them up accordingly to what we found.

After a short break sitting inside and watching TV, we made a few phone calls to get a pick up game of ball going. We met the gang at 3:00 up at the little field. Friends told friends, and we ended up having a good pick up baseball game of 5 on 5. We had a pitcher, 3rd baseman, Short stop, Left Fielder and Center Fielder. If you hit the ball to right field, you were out. We played Pitchers Mound Poison, meaning the pitcher was essentially the First Baseman. We made bases out of anything we could find. 1st base was half a pizza box, 2nd base was an old chewed up Newport frisbee that somebody’s dog left out in the field, 3rd base was a smashed up beer box. We always had that one left hander, that would make everyone switch sides of the field, therefore if he hit to left field he was out. We would play this for hours almost everyday in the summer. If we didn’t have enough players, we would play some other baseball related game, home run derby, 500, Indian Ball, or just make something up as we went.

………………..To Be Continued.