I was 11 years old in the summer of 1967, the first year that I really remember baseball. We lived in the Main South section of Worcester, one of those old, seen better days, industrial cities that Massachusetts is famous for leaving abandoned by the side of the road. If Worcester was bad, Main South was the bad of the bad. We didn't know it was that way back then because we lived there and it was home. Mom didn't drive so we walked everywhere. If it wasn't within walking distance, we took the bus. The nearest organized little league teams were down at Beaver Brook park and that was just far enough (and cost money) that I never played organized baseball.
Eleven was one of the last years before everything changed. The summer I turned twelve was the last summer I would go to school with all my neighborhood friends. After that it was Woodland Prep for two years, an inner city prep school, free to those that had the grades or those that the local grammar school didn't want anymore (you decide which one I was). Eleven was one of those summers that are vivid in a mind that has forgotten more of my child hood then I care to remember (that sounds like a Yogi-ism if there ever was one). We didn't have organized ball, but we had back yard wiffle ball. A "listen up" to my two poser brothers here: if you think you created that back yard baseball diamond, your are dead wrong. I wore in that pitcher's mound, that dirt patch we called second base, and I placed that home plate there, not you. As for third base, that used to be the clothes line when I was little and it was broken off at the base because I snapped that puppy off grabbing it rounding third once. Every afternoon we played ball back there and in the fall we had the world series with the kids from Hollywood Street (literally the yard behind ours).
In the summer of 1967 Mom was way too busy trying to keep sis well. By then she was well into a lot of the health issues that plagued and pained her childhood. Help came in the form of the "Little Sisters" (I think the official name was the Little Sister's of the Assumption). They would help watch her and provided support with whatever Mom needed. This was right around the time that reforms in the church were taking place, but the sister's still wore the full black and white habit, the kind the flying nun wore (with the exception of the "flaps" the flying nun had on the ends of the hat; come to think of it, which came first: the flying nun's flaps or the flaps on the end of airplane wings?). The nun's had a "compound" of several buildings behind gates on the corner of Woodland and Claremont streets and they ran a summer program there to keep the neighborhood kids busy and out of trouble. It was a place to meet up with your other friends and play games or attend organized activities. This particular summer, they got a big block of tickets to see a Red Sox game. Close your eyes and picture this. Twenty inner city kids walking in to Fenway Park with a bunch of fully habit wearing nun's. We were a beauty to behold.
Of course, during that summer the Red Sox were having their first good summer in many years. By the end of the summer we would all be calling them the impossible dream team and I would be listening to every game on the radio. There was no television coverage of baseball games back then like there is today. The Sox didn't get much coverage in those days because they just weren't very good up until then. By the end of that game I was hooked on baseball for life. My fanaticism would only temper when the Mets came to town years later (I still can't watch the clip of Buckner; I know, lots happened in that game before Buckner, but that was the final straw for me). My hero's in those years were Jim Lonborg, Tony C and Yaz.
I was originally going to write about the garden today, but once again I spent hours in the car traveling between home and Connecticut. The radio was on and the big news was that Yaz had been admitted to the hospital with chest pains. Now 67 years old he has been through some personal issues lately. Yaz is and was my hero growing up (other than my Dad). He is a quiet, dignified man that played ball the old way, without self promotion. The last man to win the triple crown (#1 in RBI's, average and home runs). Here is hoping Carl Yastrzemski recovers well and continues to provide sports with the dignity it so sorely lacks now.
No comments:
Post a Comment