The funny thing about tennis, my Grandpa used to tell me, is that no matter how good you get, you’ll never be as good as a wall. Grandpa didn’t like most sports. There wasn’t enough order; too much chaos. They didn’t appeal to his traditional sensibilities. Football players, he said, were nothing but drunks in training. Golf was what rich people did when they didn’t want anyone to call them lazy. And hockey? Well, as Grandpa used to say, “If I wanted to watch grown men beat each other to death with sticks, I wouldn’t have missed all those high school reunions.”
For Grandpa, there was only ever one sport in the American lexicon worthy of his attention. That sport, of course, was baseball. We used to sit on the porch in the summertime, listening as Marty Brenneman and Joe Nuxhall called the games on 700 WLW, the big AM talker in Cincinnati. Marty with his razor sharp wit and Joe with his everyman charm made for more pleasant evenings than I can count. I always enjoyed just sitting there as the sun set; grandpa with his leathery skin and tick glasses, me with my short arms reaching up for the rests, wishing I could be just a little bigger so I could rest my head on my hand the way he did.
“Don’t worry, Joe,” he’d tell me. “You’ll grow up one of these days.”
“Nuh uh,” I’d say. “I’m gonna be little forever.”
Grandpa was more than just your average fan. He knew all the statistics, he’d read each baseball book the library had to offer, and he devoured the morning sports pages like a Baptist reading his Bible. The man had an encyclopedic knowledge of the game, and he relished the chance to share it.
“Do you know who has the most career doubles?” he’d ask me.
“No, Grandpa,” I’d say.
“Tris Speaker. 792. Do you know who they called ‘The Sultan of Swat’?”
“Babe Ruth?”
“That’s right. He hit so many homeruns they called Yankee Stadium ‘The House that Ruth Built.’”
“Where’s Yankee Stadium?” I asked.
So he told me everything he knew. He told me about Lou Gherig, the Iron Horse, who played over two thousand straight games without resting. He told me about Cool Papa Bell, who could run the bases faster than Jessie Owens could run the same distance in a straight line. He told me about his favorite player, Johnny Vander Meer, who threw two no hitters in a row and how, for that week, he was the greatest pitcher to ever play the game.
“He gave me a ride home from the ballpark once,” grandpa said. “I was fifteen years old, and my friends and I were waiting outside for the bus when one of those big, black Fords pulled up next to us. He hung his head out the window and said, ‘Hey guys, you need a lift?’ Of course we said yes. And he drove us all the way home.”
“What was he like?” I asked him.
“Don’t know,” grandpa said. “We was all too scared to talk so none of us said anything the whole way.”
While he was fond of the majors, Grandpa’s love for the game was born out of a childhood spent playing it in the neighborhood alleys and parks with his friends. They’d run a game at any time of the day, in any season, as long as there was an empty field and enough people willing to put up with whatever atrocities the southern Ohio climate had in store. He spent most of his energy sharing these stories. There was the time he got thrown out of the game for tackling the catcher on a play at home. There was the summer when it rained almost every day and the local creeks spilled over their banks, washing out baseball for nearly a month. And there was the city championship of 1935, when, in the bottom of the ninth with the game on the line, Grandpa threw a ball ten feet wide of first base, hitting a woman in the stands directly in the face.
“What happened?” I’d ask, desperate to know whether grandpa’s team had won or lost.
“Well she started screaming at me, that’s what happened. It really hurts when you break your nose. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?”
“I mean what happened in the game? Did you win?”
“Sadly, no,” he said. “There were men on second and third and when I missed the throw they both scored. We lost the big game.”
“How come your team always loses in your stories, grandpa?” I said.
“Because all the good baseball stories end that way,” he told me with another crooked grin.
We’d sit like that for hours, listening to the radio, watching the sun set, willing the bullpen to hold the lead so at the end of the night we could celebrate a victory with Marty Brenneman’s signature phrase, “…and this one belongs to the Reds”
It was a good way to spend a summer. It was a good way to spend a childhood.
Like my grandpa, I jumped at the chance to play ball whenever I could, and when I was old enough I joined a league that played in the park down the street. Where grandpa had been the speedy second baseman with a heart of gold, I was the token fat kid, manning first base defiantly, smacking the ball to all corners of the field, and denouncing the abilities of everyone as I went.
My teammates returned the favor by intentionally throwing the ball over my head just to watch me try to jump for it, and everybody laughed when, after watching me leg out a useless infield grounder, the coach said I was so slow he had to time me with a calendar instead of a stopwatch.
I made the All Star team my second year in the league. It didn’t have anything to do with my ability, though. You see, there was this rule about All Stars. Each team needed a representative, and my team was in dead last place. As the saying goes, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. I was one of the few people on my team who actually had a batting average, so I won by default, despite the fact that it took me a month of Sundays to run to first base.
The Little League All Star game was hotly contested that year; more so in the minds of the parents than the kids. Local political disputes pitted one suburban community against another, and the opposing All Star teams fell along the same lines. Winning this game was a statement of pride for both the kids who played and the parents who cheered from the stands. This, of course, added that extra bit of masochistic tension you find only in small town, suburban America.
I didn’t start, of course. I probably wouldn’t have played if Jason Hester, the big first baseman and heart of the All Star lineup hadn’t sprained his ankle trying to stretch a single into a double in the seventh inning. He went into second base hard, came up limping, and just like that I was in the game. We were up by three runs at the time and I wasn’t expected to have to bat, so this new hole in our lineup didn’t look to be much of a problem.
We got into trouble in the eighth when Andy Bello, our star pitcher, gave up a two run home run to tie the game. When we came to bat in the bottom of the ninth, Andy had been replaced by the tall and gangly Tony Holt, and we faced a two run deficit. Two runs to tie and go to extra innings. That’s what we needed. Three would win the game, of course, but you don’t want to get that far ahead of yourself, especially in baseball. If you get caught up in what-ifs and might-be’s, you might find yourself staring at a cold and desolate could-have-been. Even at ten I was old enough to know that.
Tim Schuller led off with a groundout to short and Scott Woods followed by flying out to center. Two up, two down, and just like that it seemed as if the game was all but finished.
But in the very next at bat, Mike Flynn took advantage of a misplayed shot to third to grab a single. Adam Blake came through next, smoking a liner to right that left him standing on second with a double while Flynn grinned like a Cheshire cat as he pulled himself up at third to swat at the dust that had collected on his jersey. One minute all is lost, and the next hope springs eternal. That’s the way it goes sometimes, Grandpa would tell me later. That’s the way it goes.
Wouldn’t you know it? There we stood, a fraction of an inch away from tying the game. There was an unseen momentum that had guided us to brink. It was a high and beautiful wave that seemed like it would never break as it carried us on to victory.
And, of course, it was my turn to hit.
I stepped to the batter’s box, drew a square on the plate with the end of my bat, and looked toward the pitcher as he shook off the signs. There would be no junk balls this at bat. It was the heater, hard and fast. Having decided the inevitable, he reared back and let fly a ball that moved so fast it broke the sound barrier, causing neighborhood dogs to bark and little kids to cover their ears.
“Strike one!” the umpire yelled, and we were underway.
The next pitch was a brushback, ripping off part of the “S” from the “Reds” name sewn into the front of my jersey. He followed that with two changeups just off the corner, bringing the count to three balls and one strike. For a moment, I thought maybe he’d walk me, loading the bases. I thought that maybe I would get to stand on first and watch as one of the real All Stars battled this monstrosity for supremacy of the Greenhills – Forest Park Little League. The next pitch changed my mind. It was the heater again, numero uno, and I swing and missed like Ray Charles fighting Muhammad Ali.
The count stood full at three and two. The next pitch would determine whether our game would continue or whether we would go home in defeat. I stepped back from the plate to gather myself, and as I glanced toward the pitcher’s mound, I could see the evil look in his eyes, that menacing pitcher’s glare. He’d only been toying with me. He meant to throw his fastball again. He knew I couldn’t touch it. He knew he had me beat.
Just then I remembered a story my Grandpa told me. He was a small kid, batting against a behemoth from across town in the midst of a perfect game. Nobody could touch him all day, and the situation looked dire. I could hear grandpa’s voice in my head.
“I was scared to death, but I didn’t let him know it. You can’t show weakness. That’s when they got you beat. These monsters work on fear so you have to show them who’s boss. I took two big practice swings, and then looked the pitcher directly in the eye. He growled at me so I did the only thing I could.”
“What was that, grandpa?” I remember asking him.
“I winked at him,” he said. “I winked at him, and then I laughed. He was so mad he grooved a meatball down the middle of the plate, and I swatted it out of the park for a home run.”
With Grandpa’s voice in my head, I did just as he said. I took two gargantuan practice
swings, and then looked at him with what I imagined was my grandpa’s crooked grin.
I winked. Smoldering hatred was The Beast’s only response.
I stepped to the plate, laughing as I stood confidently with my bat dancing just above my shoulder in preparation for the work it had to do. I glanced at the men on second and third as the pitcher went into his windup. They were held to the ground on springs, waiting for the right moment to take off towards inevitable victory. I could feel the crowd tense as the pitcher twisted back, heard them gasp as he stepped toward home and rocketed a fastball in my direction.
This is it, I thought. I gritted my teeth, shifted my weight from back to front, took a mighty swing, and . . .
Later that evening, I sat with my grandpa in our customary spot, listening as the Reds gave up three in the bottom of the eighth, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against the Atlanta Braves. I told the story of the All Star game, how I was excited just to play, how the final at-bat came down to me, how I remembered his words as I swung, and how I eventually struck out, losing the game.
He smiled his crooked smile. “Sounds like you had fun,” he said.
“No we didn’t, grandpa,” I said with a bit of that patronizing tone you use with the elderly when you suspect they’ve lost a few marbles. “We lost, remember?”
“Didn’t I tell you the best baseball stories end that way?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “But it doesn’t make it any easier.”
“No, it doesn’t. But don’t worry. You’re a good ballplayer. You won’t always lose.”
Everybody says that when you lose the big game. They tell you to buck up, that everything will be ok in the end, that the joy of just being there is the worthier part, but they’re usually just trying to make you feel better. When grandpa said it, though, he meant it. He meant it and, most importantly, I believed him.
“Next time you tell the story, you might try making yourself out to be the winner, though” he said. “Just to see how it feels.”
“But Grandpa,” I said. “That didn’t happen.”
“So what? It’s just a story. You can make it end however you like.”
“I thought all the good baseball stories end badly.”
“Sometimes they don’t,” he said. “Hey. Did I ever tell you who has the most career doubles?”
“Yeah. Tris Speaker from Boston and Cleveland. He’s one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game, except nobody knows who he is because he played in the shadow of Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.”
”Right,” he said. “I forgot I had told you that.”
I leaned against the chair, resting my head in my hand the way Grandpa always did. It was the first time I had done that, and I remember thinking he was probably a lot smarter than I had given him credit, even if he was really old.
We sat like that for hours, telling stories, watching the sun set, and listening as the sounds of summer and baseball danced together in the darkening air.
Grandpa died when I was sixteen years old. That was the year the strike shortened the major league season and there was no World Series. Grandpa would have hated that but, to me, it was somehow fitting; like flying a flag at half mast.
I still catch a game on the radio every now and again. We’re in Florida, now, and you can get a signal all the way from Cincinnati when the skies are clear and the weather is right. Marty Brenneman is retired, and Joe Nuxhall passed away almost two decades ago. I remember reading the news of his passing in my cubicle at work. I had to step outside for a few moment so none of my co-workers could see that my eyes had started to sweat.
I don’t listen as often as I used to, though, and even when I do I sometimes find myself turning it off as early as the sixth inning if the Reds down by more than a few runs. It’s not that I’m disgusted or that I lack faith in their ability to overcome a deficit. Things are just different. The lazy summer days of sitting on the porch, listening to the game as the sun sets are over, apparently, which is sad because I don’t remember ever deciding such a thing. It just kinda happened. I guess what I’m saying is when you’re a kid you can’t wait to grow up, but what nobody tells you is you lose most of that youthful magic along the way.
I guess I just miss my Grandpa.
We have five kids, now, and most of them have found other interests: Boy Scouts, Art, Science Fairs, Robotics, and Cartwheels. All that is good. My youngest son is a constant blur of motion. I watched him running around the yard for nearly an hour one evening, and when I asked him what he was doing he said he was in training for Cross-Country in the Fall.
“Why would you want to do that?” I asked him. “Why would you want to run around in the Florida heat when there’s air conditioning all around you?
Surprised comprehension crossed his face. “Yeah,” he said. “Why would I want to do
that?”
He sat on the porch next to me and tried to rest his head on his hand. Tried, but failed. He’s not quite big enough, yet..
I smiled a crooked smile, leaned in close, and said, “Do you know who has the most career doubles?”
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