I have had a love for baseball as long as I can remember. I dreamed of being a Major League Baseball player. Of course, I wanted to be the starting first baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6 foot 2 and 225 pounds and the slugger of the team just like my hero, Willie Stargell. I made one of those three goals.
My
Aunt Mary loved the game and the Pirates, worked at G.C. Murphy Company in
Beaver Falls and oversaw Pirate tickets sales. I
grew up attending games at Forbes Field and there was nothing like riding into
the Oakland section of the city, parking the car and walking into the ballpark.
My dream was to play there one day in that grand old park.
When I was a little boy I played baseball every chance I
got. I can
remember bouncing the ball off the side of the cement block porch, fielding grounders,
and pretending to throw that runner out at first. Even better was bouncing that
ball off the basement wall since I did not have to chase the ones I missed as
far.
There were only a few kids in the neighborhood so
many games were two on two in the front yard. The power line on the other side
of the driveway was an automatic home run. One thing dad never complained about
was the base-paths worn in the yard or the wear and tear as we played for hours. Dad preferred a whiffle ball to a real baseball while tolerating either.
When we were a bit older dad cut the field across the road
so we could create a larger playing field. I am guessing the ball getting
closer to that living room picture window might have something to do with it as
well. We spent hours creating games in our field of dreams with very limited
number of players. Still often two on two or three on three. The team at bat
provided a catcher, one of the outfield areas was an automatic out. Then there were the whiffle ball games, sometimes one on one,
batting toward the garage with different areas of the garage being the number
of bases you got and we had to keep track of imaginary runners.
The next step was being invited to play on a field across the highway on a team of 9. We were not part of
a league but somehow those dads worked hard to give us a baseball team experience
and my love of the game grew. I learned so many things about being a part
of a team, rules and having a coach.
While all this was happening, I continued to go to Pirate
games at Forbes Field, watch as many games as possible on TV. In those days home
games were never broadcast and only maybe 20 road games would be on the tube.
Every game would be on radio station KDKA and I grew up listening to many games
on my little transistor radio with Bob Prince and Nellie King.
I was in my last year of Little
League, about 12 years old, before I joined an organized league. I played the next few years through pony and colt league and while I loved being on
the field my skills were limited and I was often deep on the bench. Not sure I
knew that clearly at the time because I had great coaches that encouraged me to
keep on playing and not give up on my dream, a valuable life
lesson.
As a freshman in high school, I was finally able to
go out for the high school baseball team. I remember showing up for that first
practice and the idea I could play every day with this team was one of the most
exciting times in my life. It was then I actually began to realize
the limits of my skill. I also began to understand the politics of organized
sports and that skill and desire were not always the way decisions were made.
It was a humbling realization.
The day the final team was announced I remember my friends
telling me I had the team made because the starter was hurt, and I was the only
back up. I laughed since that was not going to be enough. My limited skills and the coach’s nephew was coming up next year and wanted to play
first base. I remember us all running down to the hall outside the gym where
the final roster was posted. Not seeing my name hurt and
the disappointment was deep. My friends expressed disappointment for me,then they went on into practice that I now wasn’t a part of. I grieved the lost
and went home on the bus to think about my future.
I still had one more year of colt league to play, still riding the bench most of the time. I had to deal with the reality that
being a MLB player was not in my future. I knew I wanted to be a part of the
game and still on the field. There were not a lot of coaching jobs, even for a
volunteer, for a 15 year old, so I started to look
for new ways to be a part of the game loved.
One day I got a call from one of the coaches asking me if I
would be willing to be the base umpire for a farm league game that night. I had
never thought about being an umpire. They were the guys everyone hated, yelled
at, were called names, and blamed for everything that went wrong on the field. I do not remember exactly what was said but it had
something to do with learning about doing one of the most important and difficult,
thankless jobs on the field. Most importantly it would keep me in the
middle of the action on the field.
I am sure I made a ton of mistakes, blew more than my
fair share of calls and found out how difficult the job sometimes was. I
learned I love it and knew that if I wanted to be good at it, I had a lot to
learn. I spent more than 20 years umpiring games from those early farm league
games to Legion and High School and never stopped learning.
I had found a way to be a part of something I loved! Not
what I dreamed of being but I took the opportunity to become better at what was
possible and play a role in the game I still love today.
Throughout my life I have had many disappointments when I
found I couldn’t become what I wanted to be, but the lesson learned on the
baseball field never left me. When life goes in a direction we don’t choose,
look for the way to make a positive impact on the paths available to us.
