Well, only one person (my mother!) guessed who the other player on the Wise Cips Team was...and he hasn't mentioned his name so maybe he wants to keep it a secret. In any case, we'll give it another day and after that I'll contact him and ask if it's okay to reveal!
In the summer of 1963 a couple of things happened in the world. Bill Mazeroski was well on his way to becoming an all-time great Yankee target and an alltime great Pirate fan's dream player. I'm not sure which of these he preferred, but I only knew him only as the spoiler. Of all the things that 1963 was famous for like the deaths of Pope John XXII and President John F. Kennedy, I remember it as the year I got metal cleats and a "pitching toe." Where baseball practices with my new team, Wise Chips, and my new coach, Dad, reunited me with my best friend from childhood -Joey - and included "leadoffs" and sliding. It was where the pickoff move from the stretch was practiced incessantly and seriously, and it was the first time that actual girls came to watch the boys show off their skills on the diamond - a fascinating new tool in the player motivation game over which the coaches had no control that I could discern. For myself, a particularly cute freckle-faced young lady (whose name escapes me to this day but whom Tom Rennell must know since she was from the Fox Hill area) always made me run a little faster and try a little harder for the odd pop foul off first base. I loved to hear her intake of breath that sounded like "Ohhhh!" when I slammed into the chain link fence beside the 1st base stands in pursuit of these foul balls.
That season had a little magic and a lot of luck associated with it. We Americans were living our last summer of Camelot innocence and we didn't even know it. A guy, who at 16 played 3rd base for an opposing team that summer, would be dead in a jungle in Viet Nam in less than four years. We were still quite innocent though, except for the never-ending machinations of some of the less morally balanced coaching staffs. A new guy had been imported from outside of town to pitch for one of our opponents, and he was mowing down the best that the National Babe Ruth League of Plattsburgh had to offer. He was unhittable to me (as were most of the pitchers in that league), and all the other teams appeared to have no hope of doing much better against him. We never complained that this was an imported "ringer," and we took our lumps along with the rest of the league. But a nasty rumor was circulating that he had already had his 16th birthday, which made him ineligible to participate at our level.
Wise Chips had had a very good year otherwise, though, and we stood in second place behind the "ringer" and his team. And then, something right happened - the commissioner reviewed the evidence, discovered that our villain was just too old, and enforced a forfeit of every game in which he had played. Was this fair for the boys on his team? Probably not, but it taught a lesson in the necessity of the law and in the consequences of not following the law. In any case, We were suddenly awarded enough wins at the very end of the season to win the National League title and face the American League winner "Merkle's" for the city championship.
In the 1960's, summer baseball was taken seriously in our little town, and this was no excpetion. A three-game series was agreed upon, with the first played at our home feld and the remaining two at the Bailey Avenue Recreation Center field which had lights, stands, wooden fences, and had actually hosted a semi-pro team once - in other words, the big-time! Alas, the first game was rained out and we were forced to play our first game "under the lights" on the home field of our opponents. And we were promptly and thoroughly beaten by the American League champs. Down 1-0, we were forced into needing two wins in a double-header on a hot muggy Saturday. Given how poorly we had played in Game 1, we were not enthusiastic about our chances.
I only remember one play from that double-header, a routine 6-4-3 double play ball that Joey Bebo started and I finished. I remember seeing the ball smack firmly into my glove at first base. It wasn't a game-winner and it wasn't a game-changer. I just remember that we made short work of Merkle's that day and that the newspaper commented on the number of double plays that we turned. We won the city championship and I sometimes wonder what happened to the green Wise Chips logo jacket that I was given for winning that game. I wore it proudly for years. And that young girl, Tom. What ever happened to her?
2 comments:
Jerry-- The stories are great but how do you do it. I can't even remember my wedding to Carol in 1971 (I need to look at pics of it to prove I was there) and you expect me to remember the girl with the freckles from Babe Ruth games :-) besides she got all worked up seeing YOU hit the fence :-) I remember some of the girls from the Hill but not yours! Keep the stories coming -- Tom
I did know, Jer. I remembered you saying something about that at the class reunion but I didn't want to say it last night..keep Tom in the dark :-). He, he. Bill Wray was on the opposing team? Now...who was the ringer who was too old? I wonder if I search the Northern NY Historical Newspapers if I could find it? What year was it...hmmmm. A quest. The girl with freckles probably isn't in the news articles, though. Good luck on that one.
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