Americana's Game

When baseball season rolled around growing up, it was time to sign up for Little League. We got the forms in school, maybe one of my friends was passing them out or maybe they were available in the main office, I'm not sure which. We'd take the signed form down to the hardware store on a Saturday morning to a table set up way in the back. I don’t recall how they chose the teams... I think maybe the coaches got together and had some sort of draft. We'd get a call from the coach a few days later and receive our schedule. It was always fun getting the schedule and circling the games, seeing which field we were playing at and picking out the biggest matchups. Games were either at the field above the middle school or out at the park. I preferred the cozy confines of the field at the park, the school field was very wide open. Neither had an outfield fence, so any homerun was an inside the park homerun. I think I hit one once... I was more of a singles and doubles guy.

We started with tee ball, then had a year where it was three innings off the tee + three innings pitched, then on to regular pitching. Games were six innings long. We weren’t part of the Little League, so there was never any thought of the national stage and playing in Williamsport for the World Series. It was all local. The Marcellus Optimist Club organized it all. I don't know who these optimists were, but I liked that they gave us a baseball league. All of our team names were regional tribe names... Iroquois, Crow, Oneida, Seneca, etc. No one wanted to be the Crappy Crows. I really like the local flavor. Iroquois vs. Tuscaroras sounds much better than the Marcellus Astros vs Marcellus Mets. We'd get colored tee-shirts and mesh hats. The hats were generic, but colored differently for each team - some got all gray, some got red white and blue, others got yellow, and to continue on, still others got other combinations of colors. At some point I decided I'd rather wear my fitted Yankees hat, that I believe was a hand-me-down. It was wool, just like the real thing. I didn't play long enough to wear the cool pants and stirrup socks, the full uniform. I don't think I ever wore shorts; I almost always wore jeans so I could slide and dive. If I didn't get dirty playing I would be disappointed. I never wore cleats.

There are pictures of me swinging a big plastic Snoopy bat when I was a toddler. I've always liked to play.

Another highlight of summer was playing softball at the King and King Architects office picnic. Looking back now, I imagine my Dad would have rather had a day away from the people at the office, but I was so psyched to play ball with a bunch of adults. I'd always bring my glove and bat and a ball. That was up there with Christmas... I always looked forward to it.

I don't know if the Optimist Club still runs the youth league in Marcellus. I assume they do. But I’m sure it's different now. And that's ok. There may be kids about 10 years old playing for the Marcellus Astros tonight. And that's ok, too.