I am not yet nine years old, sitting more or less behind first base in the old Tiger Stadium in 1968. The game is a double header between the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees. I look down and see a scorekeeping pad on my lap. It doesn’t make sense that I am about to keep score. I don’t know the symbols and figures, and I only know a few of the players’ names. My brothers and I all had some baseball cards, but I spend little time looking at them. I’m pretty sure I have a Tom Tresh card, and I’ve seen the Joe Pepitone, but nobody around has the Mickey Mantle. These are the only Yankees I know. I know a few more of the Detroit players: John Hiller, Mickey Lolich, Denny McLain (Mike has the Denny McLain Magnetic Baseball Game), Bill Freehan, Norm Cash, Dick Tracewski, Dick McAuliffe, Jim Northrup, Mickey Stanley, Norm Cash, Al Kaline, and Willie Horton.
I never imagine myself playing professional baseball. On the whole, I have spent much more time with my microscope. Still, it is stuff of mortar, one of the several and varied things that holds us together in the sixties, and one of the few ways we try to relate to dad, as my father is a baseball fan. Clearly, this statement needs clarification. My father is a Nineteen Sixties Baseball Fan. This kind of fan is someone who will shout at the television, read every last dot of printed information on the sport every day in the newspaper, will laugh derisively at his children, and consider avoiding adult coworkers who commit baseball blasphemy. Any mention whatsoever of the name “Ruth” and dad will launch into his spiel on Lou Gehrig, and tell everyone in earshot they are hereby assigned to watch “Pride of the Yankees.” I don’t really get this, as I am quite certain Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig both played for the Yankees.
I never imagine myself playing professional baseball. On the whole, I have spent much more time with my microscope. Still, it is stuff of mortar, one of the several and varied things that holds us together in the sixties, and one of the few ways we try to relate to dad, as my father is a baseball fan. Clearly, this statement needs clarification. My father is a Nineteen Sixties Baseball Fan. This kind of fan is someone who will shout at the television, read every last dot of printed information on the sport every day in the newspaper, will laugh derisively at his children, and consider avoiding adult coworkers who commit baseball blasphemy. Any mention whatsoever of the name “Ruth” and dad will launch into his spiel on Lou Gehrig, and tell everyone in earshot they are hereby assigned to watch “Pride of the Yankees.” I don’t really get this, as I am quite certain Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig both played for the Yankees.
As the game gets underway, I realize I cannot keep score. By the time I ask Mike what has happened and how to mark it on every play, the next play is already over and I am increasingly behind. I am frustrated, and tears well up in my eyes. Mike gives me a kindly look, and asks,
“Do you want me to do it?”
I am grateful. He takes over, and in what seems like seconds, has the score pad in order. We all settle in for a full afternoon of baseball. It goes on and on. At some point, the crowd goes crazy, seething like a restless ocean. I can actually see movement around the stadium, in spite of how far away everyone seems.
“What is it?” I ask.
Mike enthusiastically tells me, “Mickey Mantle hit a home run.”
“Oh, okay.”
It has more impact forty-three years later when I absently read about a guy named Derek Jeter and find out that the great Mantle retired the year I more or less saw him hit a home run.
It has more impact forty-three years later when I absently read about a guy named Derek Jeter and find out that the great Mantle retired the year I more or less saw him hit a home run.
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