UNWRITTEN RULES OF SANDLOT FOOTBALL WRITTEN

                                    

 by

Bob Petras Sr.

First Down Markers—toboggans, ball caps, jackets and sometimes houses placed strategically anywhere from ten to fifty yards apart, depending upon the length of the sandlot.

 

Regulation Kicking Tees—The elevated toe of one fearless and sometimes stub-fingered placekick holder and occasionally a divot dug out with the heel of the kicker’s Converses.

 

The versatile toboggan, used as first down markers, penalty flags, footballs  and sometimes helmets.

Two-hand Tab—A supposedly non-contact version of sandlot football, played on Sundays by players wearing their Sunday clothes.

 

One-hand-after-the-other Rule—In two-hand tab, the tackler’s hands must simultaneously touch the ball carrier for the tackle to count.

 

I’ll-take-my-ball-and-go-home Rule—The undiplomatic leverage by a player who has sole ownership of the sole football used during a sandlot game, usually invoking this rule on a disputed one-hand-after-the-other rule.

 

Halftime—Communion services at St. Francis when Father Cappelli turned to face the altar and one hundred and three boys would spill out the back of the church.

 

Next-touchdown-wins Rule—Usually cried when mothers and sisters caterwauled “Supper!” from back porches, though occasionally invoked by a team trailing by six or more touchdowns.

Blitz—Designated pass rusher, eligible to rush qb after counting out loud a cadence of three to five Mississippis, not skipping a syllable. 

 

Safety—A defensive back positioned a medium of 40 yards away from the line of scrimmage, often manned by a player needing a rest or a smoke.

 

Touchback—Not to be confused with the safety.  A touchback is called when a kick returner fails to move the football out of his own end zone, whether by running or by passing, the kickoff team awarded anywhere from ¼ to two points.

 

Toboggan—a knitted wool cap often used as first down markers, though occasionally substituted for footballs after the I’ll-take-my-football-home Rule has been invoked.

 

New One—Option of kick returning team if it does not like a punt or a kickoff, even an onside kick, and has an unlimited number of them.

 

Hiker—The offensive player who hikes the football to the quarterback.  He could be anyone on the line or the quarterback himself, picking up the ball or toboggan from the ground.

 

Punt Pass—Option to use a forward pass  instead of your foot to punt.

 

Punt Check—Call by hiker-punt-passer to make designated pass rusher stand ten yards back and spell Mississippi.

Designated Pass Rusher—A great pass rusher has the legs of a cheetah and the lip speed of a country auctioneer.

 

Time-Outs—Unlimited number of them with no duration limits, unless one team strategically calls “No More Time-outs!”

 

Steady Quarterback—Sandlot rule that allows the use of the same qb on both teams, usually invoked when an odd number of players shows up or the kid simply was still wearing his Sunday clothes after sneaking out of church at halftime, or has a leg in a cast, the injury suffered from a previous sandlot game.

 

Trick Play—Wide receiver feigning to limp with a broken leg and then sprinting past an unsuspecting safety playing sixty yards deep while puffing on a Lucky Strike, or a running back executing the old hidden toboggan trick.

 

Piling On—Occasion when players on both offense and defense avalanche upon a dude for behavior unbefitting the gentlemanly game of sandlot football.  

About the author:  Bob Petras Sr. is a graduate of Toronto High School and West Liberty University.  His single season record of 16 quarterback sacks still stands after 50 years as does his career total of 27.  He went on to play on scholarship with the Young Thundering Herd featured in the Matthew McConaughey film "We Are Marshall."  He has never been in Mississippi and preferred  playing safety on the sandlots.

MEMORIES OF MEMORIES--The day little Toronto, Ohio took on the Pittsburgh Pirates

1911 Toronto Athletic Club, John Petras third from left

        

     I have memories of memories.  They were my grandfather's memories.   Mostly my grandfather, John Edward Petras Sr., talked about baseball, how he played for a semi-pro team--the Toronto Athletic Club--after the turn of the century.

            My grandfather played first base and sometimes second and batted cleanup for the town of 4000 residents.  I just remember bits and little chunks of his stories, but these odds and ends of this patchwork memory stick out like a seam in time.

            My grandfather played during the Dead Ball Era; so home runs were hard to come by, even on some fenceless fields that sometimes resembled more pasture than stadium.  He did tell me he hit a pitch at the old Kaul Field that landed on a fly beyond the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks, 400 and some odd feet in all.  Pappap wasn't a big man, standing 5-8 and weighing perhaps 150 pounds, and a pound of that was probably chaw tobacco.    But he had wrists and forearms as sinewy as cable steel, developed from working the sewer pipe factory since he was 12 years old, when he had to support his family of seven because his father, Joseph Petras, had become infected with tuberculosis. 

              I grew up in the 60s, my favorite players being Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski and Mickey Mantle.  My grandfather always complained that the modern ball players were prima donnas, that they never played hurt like the old-timers did.  Maybe he held such sentiments because he took a high hard one that left his nose disfigured for life.  The dead ball was not so dead, after all.  

              My grandfather also played when the spitball was still legal, and besides taking an occasional high hard one to the kisser, a batter also got an occasional shot of Mailpouch squeezins right between the eyes.

            Pappap would tell me about trick plays the semi-pros would pull off once in a while, like one time a pitcher was attempting to pick off a runner on first base and he threw an errant pick-offf attempt down the right field foul line.  Turned out that errant toss was a potato and they nabbed the runner between first and second with the real ball.

            I was in my Biltmore Avenue backyard, pretending I was Whitey Ford, when suddenly out of the visitor's dugout via back porch next door appeared Fred Maple.  "Your grandfather was the greatest ballplayer from Toronto I have ever seen," Mr. Maple said.  I don't know exactly why he told me this, maybe because I was throwing rocks into his backyard.  After he told me this, I never threw rocks into his yard again.

            My grandfather, despite dropping out of school at such an early age, could speak several languages, including Slovak, Polish and German, and occasionally served as an interpreter in the trenches of Belgium and France during World War I.  He told me only the humorous anecdotes about capers he and his chums pulled off upon the officers, never about the horrors of the trenches.  But of all his tales of Army life and sports, the one I remember most is about the time the little town of Toronto, Ohio took on the mighty Pittsburgh Pirates.

            Back in the Dead Ball Era, the major league's regular season ended late September.  The players, by no means, earned the exorbitant salaries today's prima donnas do.  After the regular season, the Dead Ball Era players would supplement their incomes by returning home to farm or factory or by barnstorming against local nines.  The Pirates were one such team that regularly vied against semi-pro teams from Western Pennsylvania, and Ohio teams such as East Liverpool, Steubenville and Toronto.    

            I remember one Sunday afternoon.  My grandfather was sitting upon his threadbare red recliner, his hands clasped behind his neck, a plug of Union Workman bulging from his cheek.  My grandmother's house smelled of rhubarb pie, Neapolitan ice cream, cabbage rolls, Pinesol and Lemon Glade when suddenly I was smelling the coal soot from the kilns and giant smoke stack from the old wooden stadium across the tracks of parent company Kaul Clay.            

             The Pittsburgh Pirates came to town, hopped right off the train behind left field.   The Toronto Athletic Club had beaten their rivals East Liverpool and Steubenville and now had a star player on its squad to make this contest against the major league club more interesting.  Alva "Pick" Nalley was back on the Toronto nine.  Nalley had just returned from a stint on the Toledo Mud Hens and was looking to have a good showing against a Big League club to show he belonged. 

           

Toronto Athletic Club around 1906 or 1907.  John Petras third from the left, Pick Nalley, front row second front the left.  Nalley's presences this photo suggests it was taken during barnstorming season.

            On the visitors' squad was arguably the greatest Pittsburgh Pirate of all time, shortstop Honus Wagner.  He watched with interest my grandfather take batting practice and asked whether he could borrow my grandfather's bat for the game.  It was longer and heavier than most bats of the era and had a handle as thick as most men's wrists. With such a stick of lumber,  a batter needed strong shoulders to start the swing and whiplike wrists to finish it.  My grandfather said that it would be his honor for the Pittsburgh legend to use his bat. 

The legendary Honus Wagner would go on to play for the Toronto Athletic Club  in 1919 under  manager Bill McKechnie, another future Hall of Famer, who took up residency in the Gem City.

      

          I don't remember the details about the game, just those about the bat and that Toronto won.  I suspect my grandfather must have made the bat himself.  He and Honus Wagner rapped out a few hits apiece with this wonder bat that predated the real Hollywood Wonder Bat.  I don't know what happened to this bat, or maybe I was afraid to ask, to know like all things forgotten forever.

            Pick Nalley never did reach the big leagues, but he did play 13 years in the minors.  Throwing right, batting left, Nalley rapped out 1429 hits during his minor league career. After baseball, he worked as a longtime custodian for Toronto City schools.

            My dad once told me my his father was a little too slow a runner to play in the majors during an era when the main strategy relied upon stolen bases, the hit-and-run and bunting--small ball, they still call it.  The Dead Ball Era unofficially ended1919 when Babe Ruth hit a Major League record 29 home runs, the year after the Great War ended.   At 29, my grandfather was too old to be considered a prospect, and, besides, after taking that high hard one to the snoz, my dad also revealed, Pappap was never the same player again.

1913 Toronto Athletic Club.  John Petras standing third to left,  Pick Nalley kneeling in uniform.

            After the Kaul Clay riots of 1935, my grandfather became custodian at St, Francis Church.  My favorite story of his janitor days was when he learned World War II had officially ended and then sprinted from his Loretto Avenue home down the church to St. Francis to ring its massive bell, joining the resounding peels from all the steeples in town.  The bronze peels must have been the most melodious sounds ever heard in the Gem City.  

            The only rocks I throw nowadays are the stones I skip across the ponds of time; they ripple with memories, memories I like to share with five grandchildren, with another grandchild on the way, memories when I, like them, was a child, memories ever green, ever-sweet and wild-eyed, memories of memories.

          

See related stories: "The Kaul Clay Riots of 1935," and "Kaul Field Revisited."

THE HANGING TREE OF GEM CITY

            The name is forgotten, maybe because those who remember simply want to forget.

            But the memory lingers like a child’s nightmare, the repressed one deep in the seat of the subconscious, this one deep in the woods outside Toronto, taking one deep in time, back to Camp Crumb, where time seems to cease.

            The tale of the Hanging Tree has been passed on from generation to generation until now it looms high with other urban legends.  Is it truly legend, a myth worthy of the lunatic with the prosthetic hook, or just another haunted forest yarn to scare schoolboys on pitch dark, campfire nights?

            As the legend goes, a distraught man hanged himself near the cliffs at Camp Crumb sometime during the 1930s.  Camp Crumb is situated a quarter-mile up Sloane’s Run along the northeastern base of Wallace Hill.  During the latter decade of the 19^th century and the first decades of the 20^th, it was a popular site for picnics and other outdoor excursions.  Hundreds of initials tattooed into the bald gray beech trees still attest to this day how popular Camp Crumb once was. 

            These ancient gray trees cast gentle shadows of upon a terrace tasseled with ferns rimming bench-sized sandstones velveted with moss and lichens, a site during the day Zen-like, an ambience tranquil enough to meditate.  But after the sun goes down…“That’s where a man hanged himself,” s said Dick Walker, who has lived all his 54 years in Toronto. 

"My mother and some old-timers told me how the man hanged himself with a chain at Camp Crum and 
that he remained missing for two weeks until his dog drug his hand home.  When the search party 
arrived at Camp Crum all they found was the man’s head swinging from a chain wrapped around a 
limb of a beach tree near a cliff.”

His late mother told Walker the hanged man’s name, but he can only remember the gruesome details 
and that the man worked for Mike Henry probably during the 1930s at the White Front Café.

“I heard too many people talk about the Hanging Tree to pass it off as some campfire tale,” Walker 
said.  “Besides, something is weird up there at night. Just makes your skin crawl.  Me and five other 
guys tried camping out there overnight when we were young, but it’s just too spooky.  Plenty of other 
guys have tried sleeping out up Camp Crum and nobody can claim he made it to daylight.”

“I remember one night like it was yesterday, said Pat Daughtery about an adventure he shared with 
Walker at Camp Crumb.  “There were six of us laughing up a storm, telling stories and suddenly we 
heard a chain clanging high in the beech trees.  We took off so fast we forgot to pick up our beer.”

“We called it the Hanging Tree,” said Joe Nemitt Sr. recalling boyhood excursions to the tragic site.  
We got scared quickly and didn’t stick around long.”

Some old-timers believe this lightning-charred beech tree is the notorious Hanging Tree of Camp Crum.    Others claim  the victim boosted himself upon "Scaffold Rock" before completing the deed.  

“I wouldn’t camp out there with 50 guys and two kegs and a bucket of holy water,” added Daughtery, 
“and I bet no one else would last there more than a couple of hours.”

EDITOR'S NOTE:  I, too, tried camping out at Camp Crumb.  I did not last two hours.

SISTER MARY JEAN CONNER: A Heroine and Angel

Toronto, Ohio Nun Falls Victim to 1918 Pandemic

            Toronto, Ohio is truly the Gem City because it’s streets are jeweled with hundreds of banners depicting photos of its military heroes.  Its annual Independence Day fireworks display is arguably the best in the Upper Ohio Valley.  And the city erected the first ever World War I monument November 11, 1919.

            If you look closely at the bottom of the southwest side of this masterpiece by artist Giuseppe Moretti, you will see the name of Sister Mary Jean Conner.

Mary Jean Conner front row first on left.

           

 Perhaps Sister Mary Jean’s sacrifice has special meaning today, 102 years later—2020—a year of a 

pandemic, because this Toronto, Ohio native succumbed to a pandemic, the Spanish influenza.

Full Military Funeral

            The first peak of this deadly 

disease occurred during October of 

1918 and infected 20-percent of 

the US military, overburdening the 

country’s medical system.  Volunteers 

were needed and many orders 

of nuns filled this void, including the 

Sisters of Loretta, to whom Sister 

Mary Jean, a St. Francis Church 

parishioner, was a novice.  Although 

training to become a teacher, she and 11 other Loretta nuns arrived 

at Fort Zachary Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, the largest training facility in the country with as many 

as 64-thousand soldiers at one time within its combines.

          

  The sisters, wearing their white long-sleeved robes, tended to the soldiers stricken with the Spanish 

influenza, performing such duties as taking vitals, cleaning wounds, administering medicine, providing 

general comfort and writing letters to the patients’ families—all under the direction of the American 

Red Cross.

            Four Loretto nuns became stricken with the Spanish flu, including Sister Mary Jean.  She succumbed to the pandemic 29 years of age, a casualty of war, October 28, a mere 16 days after arriving as a volunteer at Camp Taylor, less than two weeks before the war ended.  She was given a full military funeral at Camp Taylor and later buried at the Loretto Community at Nerinx, Kentucky.

            The Loretto Order was the original order of nuns at St. Francis Assisi Church in Toronto, later 

Sister Mary Jean's Funeral Procession.

replaced by the Ursuline Nuns in 1948.

            The Spanish influenza was estimated to have killed 675,000 Americans.

Loretto Compound Grave.

TORONTO WWI MEMORIAL STATUE

(related articles: See "The Nation's First World War I Monument)