Baseball Life Lesson

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.