LITTLE LEAGUE

My first solid recollection of the national pastime was returning home one afternoon after second grade, watching my father dance a thousand jigs the moment Bill Mazeroski swatted a home run over the ivied left field wall of Forbes Field to win the World Series over the New York Yankees.

I was immediately addicted.

Unfortunately, the dance lessons did not quite pan out; so I put my efforts to make the big time by playing Little League baseball.

One evening, I received a telephone call from Ron Farrell, coach of Catrell's P & H.  I thought P & H stood for power and hitting but soon learned it meant plumbing and heating.  Either meaning, I contributed little, unless when you consider keeping my end of the bench warm.

Back in 1963, my first year of Toronto Junior League baseball, we had about 20 boys on each team while no such rule existed that every boy had to play at least one full inning and one at bat.  Those boys who did not play during the week had the opportunity to play on Saturdays against the benchwarmers on another club.

That was the year of expansion for Gem City baseball.  Added to the already existing ten-team league were the Frosty Creme and Hughes Furniture, known as F & H as their ballcaps indicated, and the Knights of Columbus, or simply K of C.  Othe teams included Peerless Clay, Titanium, Hancock, Union Bank, Kaul Clay, American Legion, Toronto Lanes, Lions Club, Kiwanis and, of course, Catrell's P & H.

The outfield was arced by a red snow fence pockmarked by line drives or outfielders whose P.F. Flyers and Keds failed to halt their momentum while attempting to run down drives swatted by the likes of Jerome Gabis, Mike Dilly, Bill Fisher and other talented 12-year-olds who were big enough to wield 31- and 32-inch wooden Louisville Sluggers.

Personally I preferred a 28-inch model endorsed by Roberto Clemente, one which Coach Ferrell advised me to choke up about six inches.  Some kids choked up so much they appeared to be swinging three-celled flashlights, with the same results I was having.

I got the choke part down, all right, striking out all three at bats on Saturday.

My father had one piece of advice for hitting: "Keep your eye on the ball."  On my first official Little League at bat I faced twelve-year-old Hancock righty Robert "Rabbit" Harris, whose fastball had more heat than the entire bench of Catrell's Plumbing and Heating.  After swatting air on the first pitch, I discovered Harris was nicknamed Rabbit because his fastball darted and skipped like a cottontail chased by a hound.  I took my father's advise to the batter's box, keeping my eye on the ball, in fact, both eyes, as the hand-sewn Rawlings stuck me right on the forehead.

I had taken a mighty Mickey Mantle cut at the baseball, but I doubt that even the Mick could so much as pop a blooper when he's swinging 20 inches of stick.

During my second year on Catrell's P & H, we had one kid, J.R. Pope, who swung the 32-inch model without so much as choking up one smallicule.  His Rocky Colivito bat looked like a caveman's club, and when he connected, the ball not only soared over the red snow fence, but also the silver chained-linked one no less than 50 feet farther back down left field line.

To me, J.R. appeared old enough and big enough to buy 3.2 beer, his size making him equally feared at the plate as well as from the mound.

For lesser players like me, the outfielders positioned themselves upon the bare spots that had been worn into the grass straight away in left, center and right field.  For J.R., however, the outfielders just leaned upon the slatted wooden fence, jawing away on their Bazooka bubble gum.

Occasionally they would spear a ball Pope had slugged, usually one returned by a spectator who was sitting on a lawn chair near the tennis courts, some 50 feet beyond the silver fence.

We went 19-1 that year while winning the championship, only losing to Kaul Clay and Oink Coulter's mysterious curve ball.

Oink, younger brother of former St. Louis Cardinal and New York Met Chip Coulter, was the best athlete between the ages of 12 and 16 I have ever seen.  Oink was the only pitcher amongst all twelve teams that could bend the ball more than two inches.  His curve appeared to drop two feet as though rolling off a table.

The 11-year-old strategy for hitting such a pitch was to stand at the front edge of the batter's box in order to swing before the pitch started to break.  The, Oink would blow his fastball by you.

The Little Leaguers who did swat a home run off Coulter or anyone else during that era were rewarded with a giant ice cream cone, the highest such priced at 25 cents, at the Frosty Creme, located at the southwest junction of Biltmore and Franklin avenues.  The 25-center was at least the size of a four-cell flashlight and needed choked up on just to tilt toward one's mouth.

The closest I came to collecting this tasty trophy was the first pitch on opening day against Peerless Clay pitcher Chris Molchan when I hit a towering shot to right field.  As I rounded first base, I could taste the cold chocolate custard, I could feel it dripping down my wrist and--crack!  The top of the snow fence splintered, my ball trickling back onto the playing field.

I would later hit a record 159 homers that summer, but they happened in my backyard with a wiffle ball, and I would have to buy my own ice cream.