A GIRL AT HER BEST

My introduction to playing baseball came on a warm April morning in 1958. It was a Saturday and I was watching my favorite show, THE THREE STOOGES with my older brother. My father entered the living room of our house on Falmouth Foresides and b shut off the Zenith black-and-white.

“It’s too nice a day to waste in front of the boob tube.”

Coming from the age of radio my father hated TV’s grasp on his children.

“But___” He had cut off a slapstick routine between Moe, Larry, and Curly.

“No, buts. I have something for you both out in the backyard.”

My older brother and I looked at each other.

“Yes, sir.”

We hadn’t wrong anything wrong and our school grades were good.

“Stop dawdling.” He motioned for us to follow him and we left the house by the rear door.

Only two weeks ago the last snow had melted from the ground. I could feel the old cold beneath my sneakers, but green buds were sprouting from the branches of trees separating our yard from the Davis family and at the end of the street the sun sparkled off the million mirrors scattered across Portland harbor.

April would soon be May.

“Here.” My father handed us two brand-new leather baseball gloves.

“It’s time for you to learn how to play baseball. Put them on.”

My older brother and I had seen baseball games on TV and we slipped the gloves onto our left hands. I could barely close the stiff leather glove.

“They’ll get softer the more you play ball.”

My father gave us two Boston Red Sox baseball caps. They were our team. We put them on our heads.

“What do you say?” He hefted a baseball in his right hand.

“Thank you, sir.”

“First things first and that’s learning how to catch. Go stand over there.”

He pointed in two directions and the three of us formed a triangle. My father had served with the Army Air Force in World War II and fought the Great Maine Fire of 1949. He believed that there was nothing more American than baseball.

“Here’s how you throw.”

My father demonstrated the overhand pitch several times and we mimicked the motion.

Both of us had thrown rocks at seagulls at the fishing pier beneath the bluff. The movement felt the same.

“Throwing is easy. Catching the ball is hard.”

He underhanded the ball to my brother. It bounced off his glove. Frunk retrieved the ball and my father said, “Throw it to your brother.”

His toss veered to the left. I ran to the ball and grab it. My father opened his glove and I chucked the ball at him.

It hit the house.

“Nice arm.”

Mine was even worst.

After an hour we had improved to the point where we could throw the ball between us several times in a row.

“Okay, now it’s time for batting.”

My father demonstrated the proper stance for a right-handed batter.

“Legs apart with your body square to the plate and your eyes on the mound."

“Yes, sir.”

“Ted Williams can see the stitching of the ball.”

“He’s the best.” The Red Sox legend’s number was 9.

I was 6.

Maybe one day you'll be as good as him."

"Yes, sir," I answered knowing that my mind was better suited to Hide and Seek. No one could find my secret places.

“Okay, let’s play some ball.”

My father crouched behind the piece of wood serving as the plate and told my brother to throw a strike.

The seven year-old looked over to my mother in the breezeway. She nodded her approval and he chucked the ball with every ounce of his skinny body’s strength. His first pitch thudded into my father’s glove. The bat never left my shoulder. I had been too scared of the ball.

“You’re supposed to swing at the ball.”

My father stood up and acted out the motion of batting with an imaginary bat. The 30 year-old man shared the same athletic build as the baseball players on TV.

"Yes, sir."

“Next time swing.” He squatted behind me and smacked his fist into the glove.

“Yes, sir.”

I swung at the next pitch with closed eyes.

Something struck the bat and my hands tingled with shock of the accidental meeting of two objects. The ball floated into our neighbors’ backyard.

The eleven year-old girl with short red hair fielded the ball on one bounce and winged it to my father. His clean-shaven face grimaced from the impact in his glove. My father was an electrical engineer and he tried to analyze the source of her strength. The girl was mostly bones.

“That’s some arm.”

“My father wanted a boy, so here I am.” The freckled redhead was dressed in a Tom Boy tee-shirt and jeans. Her sneakers were well-worn Keds. “I’m Charlene.”

“You want to play some ball?”

“I’d love to.” She ran into our year, pulling on a glove.

We killed the rest of the morning throwing the ball with the lanky girl. My father stopped to pick up my errant throws. There had been many.

Her mother came out to introduce herself. The slender blonde worked as a nurse for Maine Medical and her husband captained an oil freighter out of Bath. They were originally from Bar Harbor.

“That’s some baseball player you have.” My father nodded at Charlene, who was slicing at the air with the bat.

“Her father played semi-pro. I told him to quit and get a real job or else we were through.”

Charlene’s mother had a nice smile. Her teeth were perfect. “I only gave him a girl, but baseball is a love they share.”

My mother invited Charlene’s mother inside for tea and a chat. My sisters sat on the porch. My best friend, Chaney, rounded the corner of the house. One look at Charlene and he ran back home for his glove. Some older boys appeared to mock our playing with a girl. One was our school bully, Skeeter Kressee. My father challenged them to a game.

Five on five with my father as the umpire.

Charlene knocked in four runs. It was my first win in a game and while most boys in America worshipped Mickey Mantle, Charlene became my baseball goddess.

Every day after school my older brother, my best friend, Chaney, and Charlene practiced throwing, fielding, and hitting.

By the end of May my older brother and Chaney could toss a baseball over our two-story house’s roof.

I tried without any success other than twice breaking my sisters’ bedroom window.

Charlene devoted time to teach me the mechanics of throwing. Her father must been a great instructor, because after an hour my tosses cleared the peak by ten feet.

That spring three other neighborhood boys joined our team and we played 7-on 7 pick-up games in the dirt lot next to Route 1. Charlene was our ringer. We routed the boys our age. Our winning streak continued against 3rd and 4th graders. My father coached us on the weekend. Some 5th graders came close to beating us in early June, but Charlene smacked a flat pitch so hard that the ball cleared the state highway. We called ourselves the Red Sox and there were no Yankees in our town good enough to challenge our team.

We were six boys and one girl.

One afternoon Chaney, my older brother, and I came home from Pinewood School to find Charlene sobbing on the front steps. Her Wilson glove and bat lay on the ground.

We stood on the lawn and watched her for a minute without saying a word.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Leave her alone.” My older brother elbowed my ribs.

“Did someone bother you?” I looked up the street. Skeeter Kressee was tormenting a neighbor’s cat. I picked up the bat.

“It’s not Skeeter.” Charlene wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt. “I tried out for Little League and the coaches told me to go home and bake a cake.”

“They would have never told Frank Malzone that,” Chaney barked with boyish anger.

“Frank Malzone is a man.” My brother Frunk idolized the Red Sox 3rd baseman.

“And Charlene is the best player in our town.” My favorite Red Sox was Pete Runnel. I had traded two Frank Malzone baseball card for one of his. “Did they see you hit?”

“No, they said girls should play with dolls not with balls.” Charlene walked away from our house without her baseball and glove. “You can keep those. I won’t be needing them anymore.”

That afternoon after we lost 15-0 to the 3rd graders.

We were nothing without Charlene and that at the dinner table I told my father about her not being allowed to play Little League.

My mother frowned at the information.

“You can’t always get what you want.”

My mother had given up a singing career to raise five children, even though this winter the strength of her voice had stopped the Portland Cathedral choir in mid-chorus of AVE MARIA.

“She’s a very good baseball player. Better than I was at that age.” My father appreciated talent. He watched THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW every Sunday night. “They should have let her try out.”

“Boys and men don’t like playing with girls or women.” My mother served my father another portion of roast beef. “Mostly because they’re scared of losing.”

“You may be right.” My father cut into the meat. He loved my mother’s cooking. “But she deserves a try-out and I’m going to get her one.”

“Good luck.” My mother was sincere in her wishes and stood up to clear the plates from the table. “But don’t expect much.”

“Why not?” I had to ask.

“Because the boundaries between male and female are written in stone. Men wear pants and women wear dresses. That’s just the way it is.”

“So I shouldn’t help Charlene?”

“No, I’m not saying that, but you should be careful about getting her hopes up.”

“I won’t tell her, but I’ll get her to play.” My father winked at my older brother and me like he had a magic lamp in his back pocket. “You two don’t say anything to Charlene or your friends. You can keep a secret, right?”

“Yes, sir.” My brother and I answered in unison. We were good sons and did as we were told 99% of the time.

“Because telling a secret means it won’t happen.”

“Just like telling someone your wish after snapping a wishbone.”

Frunk and I fought for wishes with dried chicken bones. He had won each and every time and I believed that his wish was to always break off the wish part of the wishbone.

We bought our empty plates to the kitchen sink and went upstairs to our room. Our lights went out at 9 and I listened to the Red Sox-Yankees game on a rocket-shaped Japanese radio powered by an alligator clip attached to the steel of my bed.

I fell asleep before the game’s end, but the Bronx Bombers never lost to us.

The next few days were rainy, cold, and windy for the coast of Maine. Our baseball gloves remained on their hooks. We didn’t see Charlene during that time. She went to school and came back home before us.

Twice I went over to her house.

No one answered my knock on the door.

Friday night my father returned from work in Portland.

"You didn’t say anything to Charlene about the try-out?”

“No.”

“To your friends?”

“No.”

“Your teachers?”

“No.”

“C’mon, we’re going to talk with Charlene.”

“Is she going to play Little League?”

“No.”

“That’s not fair.”

“A lot of things in life aren’t fair. This is one of them. C’mon on.”

I grabbed Charlene’s baseball glove and bat.

My older brother, father, and I crossed the backyard.

My father rang the doorbell and Charlene’s mother opened the door.

“Can I help you?” She was wearing curlers and cotton shift.

"I’d like to speak with Charlene. It’s about baseball. I tried to get her a try-out, but everyone said that she couldn’t”

“She already knows that.” Charlene’s wife lit a cigarette and offered my father one. “She’s giving up on baseball. Talking to her won’t change her mind. This is a man’s world. She knows that now. So there’s nothing to talk about. Thanks for coming over, but that’s the way it is and she’ll have to live with it.”

“But___” I looked up the stairs, hoping to see Charlene.

“No buts.” My father lit the cigarettes with a Zippo lighter. Charlene’s mom leaned closer to him.

They inhaled at the same time.

“Charlene has made her decision and so has the Little League. It isn’t right, but like her mother said, “That’s the way it is.” Thanks for your time.”

“Thanks for your effort.” Charlene’s mother smiled at my father. They nodded, as if they were allies in a greater fight.

“What about her glove and bat?” I was sure that I could convince Charlene to play with us. I just needed the chance.

“Leave them here.” Her mother took them out of my hands. “Her father can decide what to do with them when he gets back home.”

“Have a good weekend.” We returned to our house and shut the door.

My mother and father spoke in the dining room. We sat in the kitchen. They were having an adult conversation. Nothing else was said about Charlene’s playing baseball. My parents became good friends with her mother and father. The two couples went out together. My mother always said that they had a good time.

Charlene grew her hair longer that summer and she started wearing dresses.

I tried to speak with her, but she ignored me.

She was almost 12 and I was definitely 6.

Two years later we moved from Maine to Boston. My older brother and I were on the same team in the town league. I told the other kids about Charlene. One of the boys laughed at my story. He pitched for us and dreamed of playing in Fenway Park.

“Girls can’t throw a ball.”

“Can too.”

“Can not. They aren't made for sports. Only playing with dolls."

I punched him in the nose and he cried to the coach.

I was thrown off the team for two games. The suspension didn’t matter too much to me. I was no good at baseball, but I retained some of Charlene’s skill and opposing players would shout from the bench.

“You throw like a girl.”

I ignored the insults.

My throws from right field reached the plate fast and hard.

Same as Charlene’s throw, because that girl knew how to play baseball and on the field she was a girl at her best.

MC5 Baseball 2015

As much as I loved Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitching a no-hitter on LSD and beaning every player on the Cincinnati Reds in one game, my favorite ballplayer of the 1970s has to be Fred Sonic Smith from the MC5.

Strangely I can find any mention of Fred Smith in the records of the Major Leagues other than that from 1914. Fred Smith played ball for Buffalo. The man on there right looked nothing like Fred Sonic Smith. Well, maybe a little.

Then again all white people look the same.

THROWING LIKE A GIRL by Peter Nolan Smith

My introduction to baseball came in the early spring of 1958. My father dragged me away from our Zenith black-and-white. Our favorite show, THE THREE STOOGES, was on the TV. Even a six-year old boy knew better than to resist a man his size.

"Too nice a day to waste in front of the boob tube." My father hated TV's grasp on his children. He came from the age of radio. I followed him out of the house into the backyard. A line of trees struggled to sprout leaves after a long Maine winter, but at the end of the street the sun sparkled off the million mirrors scattered across the harbor separating Falmouth Foresides from Portland. April would soon be May.

My father handed me a brand new baseball glove. I needed his help putting the enormous mitt onto my elfin left hand. My older brother stood on withered grass twenty feet away. His left hand buried in another new leather glove. A Red Sox cap shaded his face. He clutched a baseball in his right hand.

"Time for you two to play America's Pastime." My father had served with the Army Air Force in World War II and fought the Great Maine Fire of 1949. Standing close to me he demonstrated the proper stance for a right-handed batter. "Legs apart with your body square to the plate and your eyes on the mound.

"Yes, sir." I had watched a few games on TV and thrown the baseball with my older brother. I knew that Ted Williams number was 9, but my mind was better suited to Hide and Seek. No one could find my secret places.

"Okay, let's play some ball."

My father crouched behind the piece of wood serving as the plate and told my brother to throw a strike. The seven year-old looked over to my mother in the breezeway. She nodded her approval and he chucked the ball with every ounce of his skinny body's strength. His lucky first pitch thudded into my father's glove. The bat never left my shoulder. I had been too scared that the ball was going to hit me.

"You're supposed to swing at the ball." He stood up and acted out the motion of batting with an imaginary bat. The 38 year-old Maine native had the same athletic build as the baseball players on TV. He resumed his position and smacked his fist into the glove. "Give it another try.

I obeyed his command and swung at the next pitch with closed eyes. Something struck the bat and my hands tingled with shock of the accidental meeting of two objects. The ball floated into our new neighbors' backyard.

The eleven year-old girl with short red hair fielded the ball on one bounce and winged it to my father with teenage accuracy. His clean-shaven face grimaced from the impact in his glove. My father was an electrical engineer and he tried to analyze the source of her strength. The girl was mostly bones.

"That's some arm."

"My father wanted a boy, so here I am." The freckled redhead was a classic Tom Boy and I fell in love the second she taught me how to grip the ball with my fingers.

We spent the rest of the morning throwing the ball with the lanky girl, whose name was Charlene. My father stopped to pick up my errant throw. There had been many.

Her mother came out to introduce herself. The slender blonde worked as a nurse for Maine Medical and her husband captained an oil freighter out of Bath. They were from Bar Harbor.

"That's some baseball player you have." My father nodded at Charlene.

She cut the air with the swing of the bat.

"Her father played semi-pro. I told him to quit and get a real job or else we were through." Charlene's mother had a nice smile. Her teeth were perfect. "I suppose having a tomboy is his revenge, but baseball is a love they share."

My mother invited her inside for tea and a chat. My sisters sat on the porch. My best friend, Chaney, rounded the corner of the house. One look at Charlene and he ran back home for his glove. Some older boys appeared to mock our playing with a girl. One was our school bully, Skeeter Kressee. My father challenged them to a game.

Five on five with my father the umpire. Charlene knocked in all our runs. It was my first win in a game. Most boys in America worshipped Mickey Mantle, but Charlene was my baseball goddess.

Every day after school my older brother, my best friend, Chaney, and Charlene practiced baseball. By the end of May my brother and Chaney could toss a baseball over the peaked roof of our two-story house. I had broken my sisters' bedroom window on my last attempt. Charlene took the time to teach me the mechanics of throwing. Her father must been a great instructor, because after an hour my toss cleared the peak of the roof by ten feet.

Throughout that spring three other neighborhood boys joined our team and we played 7-on 7 pick-up games in the dirt lot next to Route 1. Charlene was our ringer. We routed the boys our age. Our winning streak continued against 3rd and 4th graders. My father would coach us on the weekend. A bunch of 5th graders came close to beating us in early June. Charlene smacked a flat pitch so hard that the ball cleared the state highway. We called ourselves the Red Sox and there were no Yankees in our town to challenge our team.

We were six boys and one girl.

One afternoon Chaney, my older brother, and I came home from Pinewood School to find Charlene sobbing on the front steps. Her Wilson glove and bat lay on the ground. My younger sisters' crying jags were over lost dolls and our teasing. Charlene's tears came from a greater disappointment. We stood on the lawn and watched her for a minute without saying a word. Her sorrow was that deep.

"What's wrong?" I asked and my older brother elbowed my ribs.

"Leave her alone."

"Did someone bother you?" I looked up the street. Skeeter Kressee was tormenting a neighbor's cat. I picked up the bat.

"It's not Skeeter." Charlene wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt. "I went to try out for Little League and the coaches told me to go home and bake a cake."

"They would have never told Frank Malzone that." Chaney barked with boyish anger.

"Frank Malzone is a man." My brother idolized the Red Sox 3rd baseman.

"And Charlene is the best player in our town." My favorite Red Sox was Pete Runnel. I had traded two Frank Malzone baseball card for one of his. "Did you get a try-out?"

"No, they said girls should play with dolls not with balls." Charlene walked away from our house without her baseball and glove. "You can keep those. I won't be needing them anymore."

We had a game that afternoon. The 3rd graders beat us 15-0. We were too young to play anyone without Charlene.

That night at the dinner table I told my father about Charlene not being allowed to play Little League. My mother frowned at the information.

"You can't always get what you want." She had given up a singing career to raise five children. The strength of her voice had stopped the Portland Cathedral choir in mid-chorus of AVE MARIA. She understood sacrifice.

"She's a very good baseball player. Better than I was at that age." My father appreciated talent. He watched THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW every Sunday night. "They should let her try out."

"Boys and men don't like playing with girls or women." My mother served my father another portion of roast beef. "Mostly because they're scared of losing."

"You may be right." My father cut into the meat. He loved my mother's cooking. "But she deserves a try-out and I'm going to get her one."

"Good luck." My mother was sincere in her wishes and stood up to clear the plates from the table. The boundaries between male and female had been carved in stone for centuries.

"Thanks." My father winked at my older brother and me like he had a magic lamp in his back pocket. "I can't promise it will happen, so don't say anything to Charlene or your friends. You can keep a secret, right?"

"Yes, sir," My brother and I answered in unison. We were good sons and did as we were told 99% of the time.

"Because telling a secret means it won't happen."

"Just like telling someone your wish after snapping a wishbone." My older brother nodded with understanding. He and I fought for wishes with dried chicken bones. He had won each and every time and I believed that his wish was to always break off the wish part of the wishbone. We bought our empty plates to the kitchen sink and went upstairs to our room. Our lights went out at 9. I listened to the Red Sox game on the radio powered by an alligator clip attached to the steel of my bed. The rocket-shaped radio was made in Japan.

Chaney once told me that the Japs played baseball.

My uncle said the same thing and he had been in Japan after the war.

I fell asleep before the game's end. The home team was playing the Yankees. The Bronx Bombers never lost to us.

The next few days were typical for the coast of Maine. Rain, cold, and windy. Our baseball gloves remained on their hooks. We didn't see Charlene once during that time. She went to school and came back home before us. Twice I went over to her house. No one answered my knock on the door.

Friday night my father came into the house.

"You didn't say anything to Charlene about the try-out?"

"No." I didn't like the sound of this questioning.

"To your friends?"

"No." I searched my mind for something that I might have done wrong.

"Your teachers?"

"No."

"C'mon, we're going to talk with Charlene."

I grabbed Charlene's baseball glove and bat.

The three of us crossed the backyard. He rang the doorbell and Charlene's mother opened the door.

"Can I help you?" She was wearing curlers.

"I'd like to speak with Charlene. It's about baseball. I tried to get her a try-out, but everyone said that she couldn't"

"She already knows that." Charlene's wife lit a cigarette and offered my father one. "She's giving up on baseball. Talking to her won't change her mind. This is a man's world. She knows that now. So there's nothing to talk about. Thanks for coming over, but that's the way it is and she'll have to live with it."

"But___" I looked up the stairs, hoping to see Charlene.

"No buts." My father lit the cigarettes with a Zippo lighter. Charlene's mom leaned closer to him. They inhaled at the same time. "Charlene has made her decision and so has the Little League. It isn't right, but like her mother said, "That's the way it is." Thanks for your time."

"Thanks for your effort." Charlene's mother smiled at my father. They nodded, as if they were allies in a greater fight.

"What about her glove and bat?" I was sure that I could convince Charlene to play with us. I just needed the chance.

"Leave them with me." Her mother took them out of my hands. "Her father can decide what to do with them when he gets back home."

"Have a good weekend." We returned to our house and shut the door. My mother and father spoke in the dining room alone. They were having an adult conversation. Nothing else was ever said about Charlene's playing baseball. My parents became good friends with her mother and father. The two couples went out together. My mother always said that they had a good time.

I saw Charlene later that summer. Her hair was longer and she was wearing a dress. I tried to speak with her, but she ignored my attempts. She was almost 10 and I was definitely 6.

Two years later we moved from Maine to Boston. My older brother and I were on the same team in the town league. I told the other kids about Charlene. One of the boys laughed at my story.

"Girls can't throw a ball."

"Can too."

"Can not."

I punched him in the nose and he cried to the coach. I got in trouble. It didn't matter too much to me. I was no good at baseball, but some of her skill wore off on me. Opposing players would shout from the bench.

"You throw like a girl."

I ignored the insults.

My throws reached the plate fast and hard same as Charlene, because that girl knew how to throw.

No Losing Streak Lasts Forever

My senior year at high school the hockey team underwent a winless season. Attendance for our side was weak, but my three cousins played for the Hawks and I attended most of their games along with several friends. Our rival's supporters ridiculed our team with chants of 'loser'.

"You suck. You suck. You suck." We were few, but vocal as only boys can be at 17.

The cheerleaders from the other squad walked across the arena to ask us to refrain from swearing. This was a Catholic league. Theirs was a mixed school taught by nuns. Ours was all male under the Riverine Brothers. We didn't have much congress with the other sex and Thommie Black insulted the cheerleaders' spindly legs by comparing them to 'lobstah' claws.

"Red and fat."

I thought two of them were cute. They were the first to cry and their football team strode across the wooden stands to confront us. They were about 30 of them. We were 15. My youngest cousin said that the play on the ice was stopped by the refs and he watched us battle the footballers for a good minute before the security guards broke up the donnybrook.

Our team went 0-18 in 1970.

The next year they won the conference championship. and forty years later my cousin still recounts the tale of seeing me punching out football players. I don't remember it that way, but no one ever mentions that losing season either.

Single events can erase the shame of losing.

In 1971 I coached my youngest brother's little league team. My baseball skills were minimal, however the league needed someone to count heads and insure the equipment wasn’t stolen. Gleason's Funeral Home provided the t-shirt, caps, bats, and balls. We lost game after game after game. Angry parents yelled at my batting orders. Kids cried after each loss. While most of the players on Gleason Funeral Home had a fair grasp of the basics, my brother’s fielding and throwing arm exiled him to right field. The players on the other teams made fun of his batting. Halfway through the season, Michael said, “I want to quit.”

“Me too.”

My father said there were no quitters in our family. My youngest brother and I suffered humiliation week after week. The last game of the season was against the league leader. McGlory Ford. They had matching tee-shirts, pants, and sox.

Somehow we led into the last inning. My brother batted first and the opposing coach commented that a girl had a better practice swing. I called time. The coach had twenty years and an extra fifty pounds on me. I picked up a baseball bat.

“Don’t.” My brother took the bat from my hands.

“What about protecting you?”

“I can take care of myself.” He stepped up to the plate and parodied the macho coach by hitching his pants and scratching his ass. Our team giggled with a loser’s disregard for authority. The other team saw the humor in the uncanny mimic and soon everyone on the field laughed at Michael’s antics. The pitcher on the mound caught the spirit and lofted a cream puff at the plate.

My brother squibbed a hit into left field. He was tagged out stealing home.

Our opponents scored two runs in the bottom of the 6th and the season ended with a record of 0-17. I bought pizza for the team and toasted my brother as a victory in the throat of defeat. The other players would have preferred the win.

This season the Red Sox started out 0-6 despite possessing some of the best batters and pitchers in the Major League. My New York friends crowed how the Bosox would go 0-162 for 2011.

"The curse of the Bambino is back."

Yesterday the Red Sox hosted the New York Yankees at Fenway. Carl Yaztremski threw out the first pitch. The home team triumphed 9-6. The losing streak was over for today. It might resume today or maybe tomorrow, but no losing streak lasts forever and that was proven by the Red Sox in 2004 when they came back from a 0-3 deficit to beat the Yankees and then the World Series.

Babe Ruth is dead.

10 Cent Beer Night

Nothing says fun like 10 Cent Beer Night at Cleveland Stadium.

35 years ago the Indians were drawing 8000 a game. The executives came up with the promo of 10 cent Strohs Beer. June 4, 1974 as much beer as you can drink. The late MEET THE PRESS commentator Tim Russert attended the game and related his experience, saying, "I went with $2 in my pocket. You do the math."

With the Rangers in the lead 5-1, the drunken crowd of 25000 switched their attention to misbehavior. A woman ran onto the field to expose her teats. A naked man streaked the bases after a Texas home run. Father and son mooned the fans from the bleachers, then things got uglier after Ranger pitcher Ferguson Jerkins was hit by a line drive.

"Hit 'em again! Hit 'em again! Harder! Harder!"

It went downhill from there, even though the Indians rallied to tie the game.

Players and umpires were lucky to escape the rioting mob.

League president Lee McPhail offered the following opinion about the evening.

"There was no question that beer played a part in the riot."

No shit Sherlock.

Happy 10 Cent Beermas to all.

To hear THE BALLAD OF TEN CENT BEER NIGHT please go to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dh2g0TUKgc

A-Rod's Lost 3000th Hit

Yesterday A-Rod smote a first-inning fastball into the bleachers to get his 3000th hit.

The all-star infielder joined Derek Jeter as the only other Yankee to reach that milestone.

Stadium officials attempted to retrieve the ball, except the catcher refused to give back the ball.

MLB reckoned the ball was worth $50,000 to collectors.

The man, who caught the ball, has succeeded in catching 8000 other homers and foul balls around the league, which must make Zack Hample the best home-run snagger of all-time.

And none of them were deflated.

ps Zack Hample is another great name for a baseball player.

A-ROD A-ROD

In the 2009 World Series Alex Rodriguez threw off the mantle of post-season goat and MVPed his way through the Phillie pitchers. Glory doesn't last long in the modern age. MLB suspended the all-star Yankee infielder some of 2013 and most of 2014 for self-medicating his aging body. Fans spoke about A-Rod, as if he had gone to the Red Sox for less money, however doping means nothing to a doper and I look at the number.

666 home runs.

2001 RBIs

Almost 3000 hits and 322 stolen bases.

don't mistake my saying good for A-Rod. He's a Yankee and as a member of the Red Sox Nation we are not prone to say good for the Bronx Terrorists, but the Yanks are in the pennant race. Every at-bat is a milestone for A-Rod and I'm saying, "A-Rod AROD.", because Sports Illustrated is a shit magazine.

ps the top foto is of Rick Rodriguez who owns the AROD Deli on Mrytle Avenue in Brooklyn.

MC5 Baseball

As much as I loved Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitching a no-hitter on LSD and beaning every player on the Cincinnati Reds in one game, my favorite ballplayer of the 1970s has to be Fred Sonic Smith from the MC5.

Strangely I can find any mention of Fred Smith in the records of the Major Leagues other than that from 1914. Fred Smith played ball for Buffalo. The man on there right looked nothing like Fred Sonic Smith. Well, maybe a little.

Then again all white people look the same.

A GIRL AT HER BEST by Peter Nolan Smith

My introduction to playing baseball came on a warm April morning in 1958. It was a Saturday and I was watching my favorite show, THE THREE STOOGES with my older brother. My father entered the living room of our house on Falmouth Foresides and bent over and shut off the Zenith black-and-white.

“It’s too nice a day to waste in front of the boob tube.”

“But___” He had cut off a slapstick routine between Moe, Larry, and Curly.

“No, buts. I have something for you both.” Coming from the age of radio my father hated TV’s grasp on his children. “Out in the backyard.”

My older brother and I looked at each other.

“Yes, sir.”

We hadn’t wrong anything wrong and our school grades were good.

“Stop dawdling.” He motioned for us to follow him.

Saturday morning TV was important to kids, but there was no arguing with my father and we left the house by the rear door.

Only two weeks ago the last snow had melted from the ground. I could feel the old cold beneath my sneakers. Maine had long winters, but green buds were sprouting from the branches of trees separating our yard from the Davis family and at the end of the street the sun sparkled off the million mirrors scattered across Portland harbor.

April would soon be May.

“Here.” My father handed us two brand-new leather baseball gloves. “It’s time for you to learn how to play baseball. Put them on.”

My older brother had seen baseball games on TV and we slipped the gloves onto our left hands. I could barely close the stiff leather glove.

“They’ll get softer the more you play ball.”

My father gave us two Boston Red Sox baseball caps. They were our team. We put them on our heads.

“What do you say?” He hefted a baseball in his right hand.

“Thank you, sir.”

“First things first and that’s learning how to catch. Go stand over there.”

He pointed in two directions and the three of us formed a triangle. My father had served with the Army Air Force in World War II and fought the Great Maine Fire of 1949. He believed that there was nothing more American than baseball.

“Here’s how you throw.”

My father demonstrated the overhand pitch several times and we mimicked the motion.

Both of us had thrown rocks at seagulls at the fishing pier beneath the bluff. The movement felt the same.

“Throwing is easy. Catching the ball is hard.”

He underhanded the ball to my brother. It bounced off his glove. Frunk retrieved the ball and my father said, “Throw it to your brother.”

His toss veered to the left. I ran to the ball and grab it. My father opened his glove and I chucked the ball at him.

It hit the house.

“Nice arm.”

Mine was even worst.

After an hour we had improved to the point where we could throw the ball between us several times in a row.

“Okay, now it’s time for batting.”

My father demonstrated the proper stance for a right-handed batter.

“Legs apart with your body square to the plate and your eyes on the mound.

“Yes, sir.”

“Ted Williams can see the stitching of the ball.”

“He’s the best.” The Red Sox legend’s number was 9.

I was 6.

Maybe one day you'll be as good as him."

"Yes, sir," I answered knowing that my mind was better suited to Hide and Seek. No one could find my secret places.

“Okay, let’s play some ball.”

My father crouched behind the piece of wood serving as the plate and told my brother to throw a strike.

The seven year-old looked over to my mother in the breezeway. She nodded her approval and he chucked the ball with every ounce of his skinny body’s strength. His first pitch thudded into my father’s glove. The bat never left my shoulder. I had been too scared of the ball.

“You’re supposed to swing at the ball.” He stood up and acted out the motion of batting, as if he were holding an imaginary bat. The 30 year-old man shared the same athletic build as the baseball players on TV.

"Yes, sir."

“Next time swing.” He squatted behind me and smacked his fist into the glove.

“Yes, sir.”

I swung at the next pitch with closed eyes.

Something struck the bat and my hands tingled with shock of the accidental meeting of two objects. The ball floated into our neighbors’ backyard.

The eleven year-old girl with short red hair fielded the ball on one bounce and winged it to my father. His clean-shaven face grimaced from the impact in his glove. My father was an electrical engineer and he tried to analyze the source of her strength. The girl was mostly bones.

“That’s some arm.”

“My father wanted a boy, so here I am.” The freckled redhead was dressed in a Tom Boy tee-shirt and jeans. Her sneakers were well-worn Keds. “I’m Charlene.”

“You want to play some ball.”

“I’d love to.” She ran into our year, pulling on a glove.

We killed the rest of the morning throwing the ball with the lanky girl. My father stopped to pick up my errant throws. There had been many.

Her mother came out to introduce herself. The slender blonde worked as a nurse for Maine Medical and her husband captained an oil freighter out of Bath. They were from Bar Harbor.

“That’s some baseball player you have.” My father nodded at Charlene, who was slicing at the air with the bat.

“Her father played semi-pro. I told him to quit and get a real job or else we were through.” Charlene’s mother had a nice smile. Her teeth were perfect. “I only gave him a girl, but baseball is a love they share.”

My mother invited Charlene’s mother inside for tea and a chat. My sisters sat on the porch. My best friend, Chaney, rounded the corner of the house. One look at Charlene and he ran back home for his glove. Some older boys appeared to mock our playing with a girl. One was our school bully, Skeeter Kressee. My father challenged them to a game.

Five on five with my father as the umpire.

Charlene knocked in four runs. It was my first win in a game and while most boys in America worshipped Mickey Mantle, Charlene became my baseball goddess.

Every day after school my older brother, my best friend, Chaney, and Charlene practiced throwing, fielding, and hitting.

By the end of May my older brother and Chaney could toss a baseball over our two-story house’s roof.

I tried without any success other than twice breaking my sisters’ bedroom window.

Charlene devoted some time to teach me the mechanics of throwing. Her father must been a great instructor, because after an hour my toss cleared the peak by ten feet.

That spring three other neighborhood boys joined our team and we played 7-on 7 pick-up games in the dirt lot next to Route 1. Charlene was our ringer. We routed the boys our age. Our winning streak continued against 3rd and 4th graders. My father coached us on the weekend. Some 5th graders came close to beating us in early June, but Charlene smacked a flat pitch so hard that the ball cleared the state highway. We called ourselves the Red Sox and there were no Yankees in our town good enough to challenge our team.

We were six boys and one girl.

One afternoon Chaney, my older brother, and I came home from Pinewood School to find Charlene sobbing on the front steps. Her Wilson glove and bat lay on the ground.

We stood on the lawn and watched her for a minute without saying a word.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Leave her alone.” My older brother elbowed my ribs.

“Did someone bother you?” I looked up the street. Skeeter Kressee was tormenting a neighbor’s cat. I picked up the bat.

“It’s not Skeeter.” Charlene wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt. “I tried out for Little League and the coaches told me to go home and bake a cake.”

“They would have never told Frank Malzone that,” Chaney barked with boyish anger.

“Frank Malzone is a man.” My brother Frunk idolized the Red Sox 3rd baseman.

“And Charlene is the best player in our town.” My favorite Red Sox was Pete Runnel. I had traded two Frank Malzone baseball card for one of his. “Did they see you hit?”

“No, they said girls should play with dolls not with balls.” Charlene walked away from our house without her baseball and glove. “You can keep those. I won’t be needing them anymore.”

That afternoon after we lost 15-0 to the 3rd graders.

We were nothing without Charlene and that at the dinner table I told my father about her not being allowed to play Little League.

My mother frowned at the information.

“You can’t always get what you want.” My mother had given up a singing career to raise five children, even though this winter the strength of her voice had stopped the Portland Cathedral choir in mid-chorus of AVE MARIA.

“She’s a very good baseball player. Better than I was at that age.” My father appreciated talent. He watched THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW every Sunday night. “They should have let her try out.”

“Boys and men don’t like playing with girls or women.” My mother served my father another portion of roast beef. “Mostly because they’re scared of losing.”

“You may be right.” My father cut into the meat. He loved my mother’s cooking. “But she deserves a try-out and I’m going to get her one.”

“Good luck.” My mother was sincere in her wishes and stood up to clear the plates from the table.

“But don’t expect much.”

“Why not?” I had to ask.

“Because the boundaries between male and female are written in stone. Men wear pants and women wear dresses. That’s just the way it is.”

“So I shouldn’t help Charlene?”

“No, I’m not saying that, but you should be careful about getting her hopes up.”

“I won’t tell her, but I’ll get her to play.” My father winked at my older brother and me like he had a magic lamp in his back pocket. “You two don’t say anything to Charlene or your friends. You can keep a secret, right?”

“Yes, sir.” My brother and I answered in unison. We were good sons and did as we were told 99% of the time.

“Because telling a secret means it won’t happen.”

“Just like telling someone your wish after snapping a wishbone.”

Frunk and I fought for wishes with dried chicken bones. He had won each and every time and I believed that his wish was to always break off the wish part of the wishbone.

We bought our empty plates to the kitchen sink and went upstairs to our room. Our lights went out at 9 and I listened to the Red Sox-Yankees game on the radio powered by an alligator clip attached to the steel of my bed. The rocket-shaped radio was made in Japan.

I fell asleep before the game’s end, but the Bronx Bombers never lost to us.

The next few days were rainy, cold, and windy for the coast of Maine. Our baseball gloves remained on their hooks. We didn’t see Charlene during that time. She went to school and came back home before us.

Twice I went over to her house.

No one answered my knock on the door.

Friday night my father returned from work in Portland.

You didn’t say anything to Charlene about the try-out?”

“No.”

“To your friends?”

“No.”

“Your teachers?”

“No.”

“C’mon, we’re going to talk with Charlene.”

“Is she going to play Little League?”

“No.”

“That’s not fair.”

“A lot of things in life aren’t fair. This is one of them. C’mon on.”

I grabbed Charlene’s baseball glove and bat.

My older brother, father, and I crossed the backyard.

My father rang the doorbell and Charlene’s mother opened the door.

“Can I help you?” She was wearing curlers and cotton shift.

I’d like to speak with Charlene. It’s about baseball. I tried to get her a try-out, but everyone said that she couldn’t”

“She already knows that.” Charlene’s wife lit a cigarette and offered my father one. “She’s giving up on baseball. Talking to her won’t change her mind. This is a man’s world. She knows that now. So there’s nothing to talk about. Thanks for coming over, but that’s the way it is and she’ll have to live with it.”

“But___” I looked up the stairs, hoping to see Charlene.

“No buts.” My father lit the cigarettes with a Zippo lighter. Charlene’s mom leaned closer to him.

They inhaled at the same time.

“Charlene has made her decision and so has the Little League. It isn’t right, but like her mother said, “That’s the way it is.” Thanks for your time.”

“Thanks for your effort.” Charlene’s mother smiled at my father. They nodded, as if they were allies in a greater fight.

“What about her glove and bat?” I was sure that I could convince Charlene to play with us. I just needed the chance.

“Leave them here.” Her mother took them out of my hands. “Her father can decide what to do with them when he gets back home.”

“Have a good weekend.” We returned to our house and shut the door.

My mother and father spoke in the dining room. We sat in the kitchen. They were having an adult conversation. Nothing else was said about Charlene’s playing baseball. My parents became good friends with her mother and father. The two couples went out together. My mother always said that they had a good time.

Charlene grew her hair longer that summer and she started wearing dresses.

I tried to speak with her, but she ignored me.

She was almost 12 and I was definitely 6.

Two years later we moved from Maine to Boston. My older brother and I were on the same team in the town league. I told the other kids about Charlene. One of the boys laughed at my story. He pitched for us and dreamed of playing in Fenway Park.

“Girls can’t throw a ball.”

“Can too.”

“Can not. They aren't made for sports. Only playing with dolls."

I punched him in the nose and he cried to the coach.

I was thrown off the team for two games. The suspension didn’t matter too much to me. I was no good at baseball, but I retained some of Charlene’s skill and opposing players would shout from the bench.

“You throw like a girl.”

I ignored the insults.

My throws from right field reached the plate fast and hard.

Same as Charlene’s throw, because that girl knew how to play baseball and on the field she was a girl at her best.

Unwashing of Hands