Baseball Dreams

“Hey Dad, wanna have a catch?” I have a Pavlovian response to these words. I can’t say no and I don’t think my boys have realized this yet. Not only do I hear their simple plea but through the decades I hear my own. I think of all the times, and all the ways I accosted my dad. Usually he was just returning from a hard day of banging nails and squaring boards. Physically spent, Jim Spinner Sr. would park the family wagon on East 4th Street and slouch toward the front porch, drained by another work day. I can’t imagine what his thoughts were as he was greeted by me, the Energizer Bunny of children…“Hey Dad, wanna have a catch?” “Not right now Butch, maybe later.”

I am a glass is half full kind of guy but the times my dad said yes, the times that we smacked that leather back and forth are so vivid in my mind I know it’s not as many times as I would have liked. Of course, if I was anything like my boys, maybe I was insatiable? Maybe my timing was off? Too eager, I probably should have waited until he actually got out of the car? Maybe during his after dinner cigarette on the porch would have had better results? What I think now, as a father, is how can you say no? This I am sure is connected to the fatalist in me. My father passed when I was in college and that peppers all the things I do, or don’t do, with my boys.

Now don’t get me wrong he was a great father, he coached my teams, he took me to ball games, he taught me things, about our national pastime. Taught me how to keep score. Taught me how to “bribe the ush” if we bought upper deck seats and we wanted to move down. Taught me that a pitcher will waste a pitch if he’s ahead in the count. Now when I watch the game with my boys I pass on the same knowledge to them. “No way Lester throws Guerrero a strike here. He’s a bad ball hitter, you really gotta waste one here. He’ll throw him a nasty curve low and away and Guerrero’ll whiff.” And when it happens my boys give that wide-eyed, Dad how did you know look. My dad taught me, that’s how I know.

I have an old cassette tape of my dad and I on the phone. It’s a one sided conversation. I was in 407 Fargo Quad, SUNY Buffalo, futzing around with a tape recorder. I was working on a class project when I made my Sunday night call home. For some odd reason, I never turned the tape recorder off; so I captured my end of the conversation…“Hey Padre, what’s up?” Many of you would recognize the conversation because as soon as we run out of things to say there’s a pause and I say, “Mets look good.” It must be 1984 because we are talking about Darling, Gooden and Fernandez as young pitchers. But the rhythm of the conversation is what strikes me. At first listen you might hear a desire for closeness but an unwillingness to delve into anything of substance. Dad and I seem to stay on the surface, with, baseball. But those of you trained in guyspeak would hear something different. The perceptive ear would recognize that’s not surface, that’s us, that’s tribal. I know Woody Allen or Billy Crystal has done this conversation in a movie with subtitles below it but...”Mets look good.” Really means, I miss you Dad, it would be nice to sit on the porch and watch the game with a few Schaefers. “Yeh, if the pitching holds up.” Means, I hear you and it would be really nice to grab a pair of tickets and head over to Shea.

"American Heritage" magazine deals with American history and a few years ago they conducted a poll. “If you could travel back in time to any moment in American history, where would you go?” Number one on the list was to travel with the Lewis Clark expedition. There were a lot of cool answers like Walk on the Moon with Neil Armstrong or On the dunes at Kitty Hawk with the Wright Brothers. The history teacher in me might say Philadelphia for the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. On a more personal level…

It would be my own Field of Dreams, one of the greatest baseball movies of all time by the way. One of the few movies guys will admit makes them cry. As I am traveling back in time, I can hear James Earl Jones’s deep voice as I enter Prospect Park at Park Circle, walking across the park towards the Eastern Parkway side…”The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.” I travel back through the years, past Three Devils Hill, past the band shell, as I travel the trees are changing, people's fashions change, the automobiles are getting bigger, shinier...

When I emerge on the other side of Prospect Park, it’s 1955 and the Dodgers are still in Brooklyn. I walk along Eastern Parkway and head east toward Ebbett’s Field. Closer to the ballpark, I follow the crowd, all in Dodger blue. I smell stale beer and peanuts. Engulfed in the pre-game bustle I am struck when the ballpark emerges organically, like Fenway, from the surrounding neighborhood. Trying to buy a ticket for the game I meet a 17 year old with a James Dean haircut; a wiry kid with blue jeans, a white t-shirt and a pack of smokes rolled in the sleeve. He spies me, “Wanna catch the game?” “You bet I do!” “Follow me.” His movements are familiar to me, the hair, the slouchy gait, the gray eyes. He’s only 17 years old, but I recognize my dad, Jim Spinner Sr. before life beat him down.

We sneak into the game, and root for Dem Bums, Brooklyn’s beloved team. It’s a game for the ages and I know the details from the stories my dad told me…Pee Wee Reese at short, Jackie Robinson at second, Carl Furillo (could throw a strike to home plate with his back against the right field fence)  in right, Duke Snider in center, Johnny Podres on the mound. I smile at the Abe Stark sign in right field, “Hit this sign Win a Suit." In the end, the Dodgers beat the hated Yankees. Brooklyn goes crazy. Leaving the ballpark cars are honking, people are hanging out of apartment house windows banging pots and pans, strangers are dancing in the streets, dad and I are caught up in the mayhem. Together we cross Prospect Park. And as we near Bartel Pritchard Square prepared to go to our respective boyhood homes, my Dad turns to me and says, “Hey kid, see you in a couple of years and we’ll have a catch.”

I know it’s a bit hokey but it’s my Field of Dreams and on the opening night of the World Series I thought it would be appropriate. I'm going to have a catch with my boys. Play Ball!