BASEBALL EVERY DAY

I REMEMBER PLAYING BASEBALL EVERY DAY DURING THE SUMMER

Yep, we played baseball every day during the summer. The only reason we didn’t play it every day before school was out for the summer was that we had school, and there were often other things to do after school, hide and seek, tag, strawberry drop, home chores, and homework. We almost always played at the schoolground in Kantner, but sometimes we got to play at the ball diamond in Stoystown, a mile away. But, we usually played in Kantner. The infield was hard dirt, with clumps of grass, but it did have a pitching mound. Home plate was about the same place every day. Some days we used a flat rock for home plate and other days we just drew a home plate in the ground. First, second, and third base were much the same as home plate. The base paths were at a somewhat lower level than the rest of the field because they had been used so much without any grading or upkeep on the field. Just beyond the infield the rocks started. We called it shale, but I don’t think that’s the correct name. The stones were about ¼ to 3/8 of an inch across, not rounded, gray, and in some places, several inches thick. In other parts of the outfield the shale barely covered the ground, and in some places was absent. It was harder to run in the places where the shale was inches thick. You couldn’t get a good grip.
There were no fences, but there was a four-foot drop off in foul territory on the third base side. At the bottom of the drop off was State Route 53, so most foul flies were not caught on the third base side. About ten yards to the right of the first base and right field line was a field with many high weeds a foot or more high. A ball hit in there was always tricky to find, but boys desperate to play ball will look until they find it. Left field and right field had no real boundary for hundreds of feet, but center field was intruded upon by the corner of the gym at the school. If you could really hit the ball hard, it would bounce off the gymnasium wall. AND, if you were a slugger, you could break a window in the gym. None of us were sluggers, but we did witness older boys put it through the window. We may have witnessed it, but we didn’t tell anybody.
We never had enough players for two full teams, so right field was out of bounds – that is, a ball hit to right field was an out. When a left- handed batter was up, we reversed it and made left field out of bounds. There were usually enough guys for a pitcher, two infielders, and one or two outfielders. ‘Hit ‘em where they ain’t” wasn’t too hard. When we had only a total of four or five guys, only two guys could be at bat, and if you didn’t drive the guy in from first base, you took his place on base while he batted. A catcher was a luxury. Usually, the batter had to get the balls that got past him. We all learned to be “bad ball” hitters. Yogi Berra would have been proud of us. It wasn’t much fun for the batter to run back toward the weeds to get any ball that got past him. (And, it slowed the game down a lot.)
We had a great deal of fun, and we played some close games, 18 to 16, 12 to 11, 24 to 20. Pitcher’s battles they were not. If the batter struck out, he had to chase three balls behind the plate in the weeds along with the humiliation of striking out. Sooooo, the pitcher, knowing he would be batting next inning, usually didn’t try to strike anyone out. We were interested in getting the ball in play. Of course there were no umpires. How did we settle the arguments about safe or out at first? I really don’t know. I’m still sure I was safe at first at least one time that I was called out. There may not have been many strike outs, but there weren’t any walks. If the batter saw the pitch wasn’t going to be hittable, he would drop his bat and catch the ball rather than chase it.
Sometimes we didn’t have enough players to play a “real” game, so we would play “Three Flies Up.” One player would hit balls to the rest of the players in the outfield. If a player caught a fly ball, he got seven points; if he caught the ball on the first bounce, he got five points; and if he caught it while it was rolling (before it stopped), he got three points. When a player accumulated twenty-one points ,it was his turn to bat. So, if he caught three flies, he was up. Besides catching the ball, the fielders had to fend off the other fielders. There may have been three or four players trying to catch the same fly ball.
Where did boys in a small town (200 people) get all the equipment to play baseball? Everyone had to have his own glove or else share one with someone on the other team, BUT we got baseballs, old ones of course, from the Stoystown Pioneers, the local grown-up baseball team. They played in a league with teams from other small towns in the area. Not only did we get old baseballs, we also got bats after they had been broken. It was not unusual for us to have three bats, two with nails holding them together and one that was only split a little bit. So, here’s thanks to the Stoystown Pioneers for their generosity to a bunch of kids. Once in a while one of the guys would be given a new baseball bat as a present. We all wanted to use it, but the lucky owner was often reluctant to lend it to just anybody. “Be sure you don’t hit the ball with the trademark.” Of course, the bats were all wooden.
When we went to Stoystown to play, it was on a real baseball diamond, but more about that next time . I’ll just mention that we did have to outrun a group of four bulls one day on the way to a game in Stoystown.