Last night, on a whim perhaps, i turned on the movie “Field of Dreams.”
i don’t know why. If a baseball game or some favorite of Maureen’s are not on, i ask her if there is something she wants to which she demurs. i read or write something while she usually watches something on her laptop. It’s not necessarily a chick-flick, but it is some sophisticated something. This works well for us until she puts the cat to bed and retires to the bedroom. i often walk barefoot across the grass to my area in the back corner with my music.
As i often do, i play Antonin Dvořák’s 9th Symphony, the New World. i often just lean back in my chair, look up at the sky, and breath deeply, appreciating the good of our world. Tonight, i decided i wanted to tell of my experience watching “Field of Dreams.”
Since the first time Lord knows how many years ago, i have cried at the ending scenes. What can i say? i am a romantic.
Tonight, tears welled up and ran down my cheeks about a half dozen times. The movie is a totally unrealistic and moving fantasy, beautiful, and it touches me, especially tonight.
i kept traveling back to baseball then, certainly not now. Back then, even with all of its problems, it was, at the bottom line, a game. At least, it was for me, a game i loved.
i played by myself in our backyard. Jimmy Jewell would often play catch with me and taught me how to throw a knuckle ball and curve, neither of which i mastered. Yet, i can still see him in his mechanic’s work clothes with his sleeves rolled up above his elbows against the backdrop of our one-car garage tossing the ball to me — i suspect that memory produces my tears in the final scenes of the movie.
Tonight, as the movie rolled on, i went back: riding my bike down West Main to the recess field at McClain School to play “Pony League” ball. i was nine. Little League began the next year. Each team wore the same color tee shirts, jeans and sneakers. i was designated the team catcher, primarily because i was the only one who didn’t refuse to play the position and wear “the tools of ignorance.” Hey, i didn’t like the Yankees, but i was a huge fan of Yogi Berra.
The field was a recess softball field with a tree behind the backstop where someone carved “D. Crockett killed a bear here,” and i believed Davy carved that for years. The infield was all dirt, resplendent with pebbles and sporadic weeds. The outfield was stubborn grass and Johnson weed mowed sporadically by the school janitors.
i wanted to be the star outfielder or infielder, but it didn’t matter. So much that when i took a header on my bike on the way to a game and knocked out half of my front tooth with blood everywhere, my future seventh grade home room teacher, Mrs. Thompson (Lord, i loved that woman) stopped and took me home. When she told my mother she thought i should go to the hospital because i was crying hysterically, my mother dismissed the idea, saying i was crying because i didn’t get to play the game. My mother was right.
Little League was coronated in Lebanon in the center of Baird Park the next year (1956). Nokes Sports was our sponsor (the irrepressible Jimmy Nokes and his sporting goods store at the top of the East Main hill). Our uniforms were gray wool with green trim. i played center field, third base, and, of course, was a catcher (my reputation would hold for the rest of my baseball playing time).
We were just above a middle-of-the-pack team. Primarily, we could not beat Lebanon Bank with Mike Dixon, and i believe Earl Major. Earl beat me out at third base for the all-star team. i had good hand-eye coordination and won the batting title that year.
In addition to me, ha ha, Nokes Sporting Goods had R. Townley Johnson. Townley was a so-so fielder and struck out a lot, but i think he hit about six home runs over that fence. Other than us playing stick ball out behind the apartment house where he and his mother lived on West Main between Castle Heights and Pennsylvania avenues, i think that was the last baseball he played. He went on to have a band, playing the saxophone and became the drum major of the University of Tennessee band.
The team that beat us and eliminated us from the Little League tournament was Columbia. Their pitcher was phenomenal. When the summer was over, the Gannaways moved to Lebanon and Ed Gannaway opened a shoe store in the new Cedars of Lebanon shopping center. The Gannaways’ son was Mike Gannaway, the pitcher that beat us in that last game. We started our seventh grade year in September at Lebanon Junior High. i was Mike’s catcher on and off for the next six years.
To be continued…