Still Pitching (6 page)

After school, I ran home and grabbed a broomstick out of the closet. I put on my sneakers and old torn pants and raced down to Casey's Lot—a weed choked, rock-strewn open field on the corner of 129th and Beach Channel Drive. As I swatted handfuls of stones into Jamaica Bay, I pretended I was Duke Snider, then Jackie Robinson, then Gil Hodges. I kept it up until the broom handle was covered with nicks and cuts, and my palms had sprouted blood blisters.

It was early October
, just before the World Series was about to begin. Three days earlier, the Dodgers had lost the National league pennant to the Giants on “the shot heard ‘round the world”—Bobby Thomson's playoff winning homer off Ralph Branca. I could still hear echoes of the Giants' announcer, Russ Hodges, screaming above the Polo Grounds' pandemonium, “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!”

I'll never forget the moment and how I felt. It was late afternoon recess at Hebrew School. Mike Rubin and I were sitting outside on the back lawn, huddled around the portable radio I'd brought with me. We were tuned in to the rubber game of the Dodger-Giant playoff. The winner would face the Yankees three days later in the opening game of the ‘51 World Series.

I'd been counting on the Dodgers to win the pennant, if for no other reason than to take my mind off of the humiliation at the Saturday dance. Not to mention the schoolyard bragging rights that it would bring me. Wasn't it my turn to cop a break?

I'd been agonizing over the Dodgers' collapse since mid September when the Giants had cut a thirteen-and-a-half game mid-August lead to under five games. But now, in this crucial season ending game, the Dodgers were ahead 4-1 in the bottom of the ninth. I was certain that they had it locked up.

When the Giants scored a run to make it 4-2, I began to worry. Then with two on and one out, Thomson hit the game winning, season ending homer. I sat stunned under a tree and began to cry. I was so distraught that no one could console me. Not even Arthur Hoffman, my teacher, could coax me back inside.

For the next week the schoolyard taunts and epithets were cruel and merciless, just as I'd expected they would be. The entire chain of events, from the dance to the Dodgers' loss, had me so rattled that I couldn't bring myself to watch the World Series. The underdogs had lost again. Was it another portent? A signal that mine and the Dodgers' misfortunes were hopelessly intertwined?

A week after the baseball
season ended, my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Carlin, chose me to write the sports column for the class newsletter, the
6-2 Shooting Star
. How and why she picked me is still a mystery. Did she overhear the recess skirmishes? Did she feel sorry for me? Did she see something in me that other teachers had missed? Whatever the reasons, it came at just the right time.

My first response was to write something about the Dodgers' recent collapse. But once I got going, I found myself writing instead about their determination not to give up on the last day of the regular season.

The Giants had already won their game, putting them a half game up on the Dodgers. The Dodgers were playing the Philadelphia Phillies, the team that had beaten them out for the pennant on the last day of the 1950 season. They were trailing the Phillies 8-5 in the eighth. I'd just about given up hope, when they somehow rallied to tie the game and send it into extra innings. Even if they lost the game, the comeback made me feel proud to be a Dodger fan.

In the bottom of the 12th, the Phillies loaded the bases with two out. Their first baseman, Eddie Waitkus, hit a sizzling line drive just inside the second base bag. Jackie Robinson made a spectacular diving catch of what looked like the game winning hit. Then in the top of the 14th, with two out Robinson hit the most dramatic (and overlooked) home run in Dodger history. The Dodgers won the game 9-8. Three days later, they lost the playoff to the Giants.

As I scribbled pages and pages of notes, I was almost paralyzed with doubts. How would I find the right words to express what I was feeling? Would anyone like it? Would anyone even care? This was so different from writing alone at home. It would be published. My name would be on it. Everyone in school—including the teachers—would see it.

In the finished version, I mentioned the Bobby Thomson home run in passing. The column's real emphasis was the tenacity and courage the Dodgers, and Jackie Robinson in particular, had displayed in the last six innings of the must-win Philadelphia game.

When the purple-inked newsletter came out, the two teachers who'd told my mother that I was a slow learner were among the first to praise my writing. Boys who'd ignored me for years sent notes saying things like, “I never told my friends, but I was crushed when Thomson hit that home run,” and, “I don't care about baseball, but I felt the same way when my cat died.” Even though they'd missed the point of the column, it was gratifying to hear the praise.

Bolstered by those responses, my second piece was more ambitious, even self-aggrandizing. It was about Jackie Robinson's quest to break professional baseball's color line. In it, I compared Robinson's struggle with my own determination to become a better ball player. I got fewer reactions to this one. “Jackie Robinson is my hero too,” a classmate lamely told me one day at lunch. Then a couple of other kids came over to tell me that they liked the column.

It wasn't exactly immortality, but I was savvy enough to see that this 300-word sports column had gotten me more attention than anything I'd ever done. Hopefully, in my classmates' eyes, I'd no longer be just the short, chubby baseball nut who sat behind Myrna Stein in the fifth row.

Just before Christmas break, word got out that in April the sixth grade softball team would be competing in the newly formed Rockaway Peninsula League. The winner would get to play for the Queens championship. For the next three months, the only thing I could think about was making that team. I'd show Alice and Elaine what “stupid baseball” meant.

Ever since I'd watched
Smitty Schumacher, the slick fielding shortstop for my dad's team, I'd wanted to be a shortstop. Most shortstops though, were big and rangy like Smitty was. Except, that is, for Phil Rizzuto. The Yankee shortstop was only five foot six.

In an interview with
The Sporting News
, Rizzuto said that he'd compensate for his lack of size by cheating a few steps to the left or right depending on a hitters' stance or swing. The interview also said that Rizzuto carefully scrutinized his catcher's signs so he could anticipate what the pitcher would be throwing. It all made perfect sense to me.

When school started again in January, I convinced Peter and Mike to work out with me after class in the gym. Peter wasn't the least bit interested in tryouts, but Mike was as driven as I was to land a spot on the team. On those gloomy winter afternoons, we took turns hitting dozens of ground balls to each other. For batting practice, I concocted a new drill. I thought we'd improve our batting eyes if we used stickball bats and tennis balls instead of baseball bats and softballs, both of which had a larger circumference.

In class that winter I was just going through the motions. When I tried to do my homework, I could only concentrate for a few minutes before I started thinking about tryouts. I skimmed the assigned readings and I daydreamed in class. I even began to lose interest in writing the column.

One day in mid February, Mrs. Carlin asked me to stay after school. Never one to hedge, she asked me point blank why I seemed so preoccupied. I wanted to tell her that I loved her class, to say how much I appreciated her picking me to write the column. But I didn't want her to think I was a brown nose. So the only thing I could muster was a meek, “I'll try and work harder from now on.”

Soon after that, I began to feel guilty. Mrs. Carlin was the first teacher who showed any confidence in me. Now, I was letting her down. I was also becoming aware that lately my love of books and writing was beginning to wane. My obsessive desire to make this team was starting to monopolize almost all of my sleeping and waking thoughts.

In late February
, I found out through the grapevine that the team's co-captains, Rob Brownstein and Ronnie Zeidner, had already selected the four guys in the clique—Mandel, Klein, Nathanson, and Pearlman. Plus, Stan Weingarten, Zeidner's best friend, had volunteered to catch—a position nobody else wanted. That left only two open spots on the starting team.

I didn't expect an invitation, but I was still upset by the news. Brooding about it though, wasn't going to do me any good. So two weeks before tryouts began, I snuck into a dark corner of the gym and watched the team practice. I could see right away that Mandel was a far better shortstop than I'd ever be. Like Smitty, Louie was slender, fluid, and very agile. In contrast, I had only average reflexes and virtually no experience at the position. And despite what Phil Rizzuto had said, at five foot two I was too small to compete.

As I watched Louie glide into the hole to backhand the ball, I was burning with envy. Ever since early grade school he seemed to possess everything I yearned for. He played lead trumpet in the school band, he was a great dancer, and he was voted class president three times. The popular girls, of course, loved him. To make it even worse, he was now going steady with Elaine Hirsch.

The two starting positions still open were third base and right field. I didn't want to be dispatched to right field again, so I'd have to settle for third base, the least glamorous infield slot. The big problem was that third base was also Mike Rubin's position.

All of a sudden, the stakes were much higher. If one of us was chosen over the other, I knew it could be the end of the friendship. Yet, I wanted to make this team so badly.

I agonized for days before I told Mike. He was predictably surprised and disappointed. I'm sure he took it as a betrayal of the friendship. For the next two weeks, he stopped talking to me. Poor Peter was caught in the middle, so he proposed a compromise. He and Mike would work out together every other afternoon. On the days in between, Peter would work out with me.

At tryouts on the school playground, neither Mike or I looked particularly impressive. Both of us were jittery and on edge. But Zeidner and Brownstein picked us both for the squad. I was surprised and elated that I'd gotten past the first hurdle. I was also relieved that Mike had made the team. Things were still strained between us, but the next day we were at least talking to each other again. There was still a month of practice before the first game. Rubin and I were an equal match. One of us was going to be the third baseman.

Right from day one
, practices seemed poorly organized. If you weren't up at bat, you stood around in the field waiting for your turn to hit. Even infield and outfield drills felt chaotic. I knew I'd be a better organizer than either Zeidner or Brownstein—neither of whom, I could see, really wanted to spend their time setting up practices. I'd watched enough Dodger games to know how to set up a fast-moving “around the horn” infield drill, while at the same time keeping the outfielders busy shagging fungos. I also had an idea for setting up a batting practice routine that would involve everyone on the team. But who was I to think I could take over? I was still auditioning for a starting position.

In time, I began to sense an opening. When it got warm enough to go outdoors, I took the liberty of arranging practices, reserving the field at Riis Park, and telephoning all the guys. That alone wouldn't be enough to sway things in my favor. But it wasn't going to hurt my chances.

During the first scrimmage, neither Zeidner or Brownstein wanted to take charge. Ronnie wanted to concentrate on pitching, and Rob simply was not an assertive type. I took a chance and volunteered to coach third and relay the signals. Both of them seemed relieved to be off the hook.

It soon became evident that I knew more about game strategies and tactics than anyone else on the team. So the co-captains agreed to let me run the next practice and coach the last game scrimmage.

It paid off. On the day before the first game, they picked me to start at third. Then they surprised us all by appointing me team manager. It would be my job to coach third and give the signs. I was grateful and flattered. But I knew I'd earned it.

Once I became part of the brain trust, I had some leverage. I suggested to Zeidner and Brownstein that Mike Rubin and I should alternate positions. For the first few weeks, I played third for a game and he'd play right field. Then the next game we'd switch positions. Mike quickly became one of our best outfielders and hitters. By the middle of the season he chose to stay in right field.

Now that I belonged, or so I thought, I looked forward to every practice and game. I was even able to concentrate better on my schoolwork. The team went undefeated, and on Memorial Day weekend we beat a team from Jamaica to win the Queens championship.

At parties and dances that spring I got a lot more attention than ever before. The big disappointment was that away from the ball field the guys in the clique continued to ignore me. Plus, they'd get all riled up whenever any of the popular girls so much as even talked to me.

From the time I was appointed team manager, it was clear that the guys in the clique weren't happy to be taking orders from an underling like me. This was their way of retaliating—by letting me know that on their turf, they were still the top dogs.

Even at eleven, I knew that team sports aren't a popularity contest. If you can help the team win, it doesn't matter if you're well liked or the most obnoxious s.o.b. out there. Still, the clique's off-the-field rejection was hard to take.

That season, I played well enough to make a contribution. I hit for a pretty good average, and my limited range and slow reflexes were offset by a strong and accurate arm and by my ability to position myself in the right spot. But my greatest value was as team manager. In the last year or so, I'd become a passionate and informed student of this game. Making tactical decisions on the field seemed to come easily to me.