We had Albert Stein on Third; a
short, dark, funny Jewish kid with a rocket arm and a chip on his shoulder. Little Kenny White was at Short; he was a
Palooka kid who could catch any ground ball and throw strikes to First, like a mini-Bud
Harrelson. His dad purportedly pulled
the overloaded breaker-switch for Con Edison in 1963 that put Manhattan in a
black out and saved the eastern seaboard.
Gabe Martinez was at Second and was a Mexican who looked Asian with a
cherub, baby face and a wry smile but was so naturally athletic and likable
that all the girls loved him. I even had
an inexplicable boy crush on him.
I was on First, with my specialized, lobster,
first baseman’s mitt, long hair and white shoes, just like Joe Namath - who had
a fur coat and Joe Pepitone - who had a hair dryer in his locker. I couldn’t hit or field, maybe because I couldn’t
see and wouldn’t wear glasses, but I could catch anything thrown at me, by
watching who threw it and how It was thrown.
I drifted into foul territory after the pop fly, sweeping the crowd
aside with my waving arms and deep baritone, 10-year-old voice – ‘I got
it.’
I wound up near my dad who had come
to his first, and las, Little League game ever, and he moved out of my way,
slightly. He was as confident as I was
since we would play catch with a ball 2-3 days a week after he came home from
work and had a cocktail. He knew I could
catch anything if I kept my eye on it, moved my feet and didn’t try to short
arm it to look cool. He hated that.
The foul ball drifted high in the
midafternoon wind, obscured slightly by the urban haze and the clouds. ‘Man, that guy must have hit that ball a ton
to go so high,’ I thought in my ADD, dyslexic - spectrum brain. ‘I wonder if Patty O’Rouke is at this
game’? She was keen on Gabe but I was
keen on her.’ ‘She wore her uniform dresses
way up high at school and free form outfits even higher at church on Sunday’.
‘That Gabe was so cool; he taught me to play
hockey last winter and made me a stick out of a metal pipe and lent me some
skates’. ‘Gabe taught me that an assist was better than a goal’. ‘Joey Giordano was there that subzero day
and brought cigarettes and a gun his Wise Guy brother lent him, but he could not
skate and he thankfully left early.’ ‘We
didn’t want to have that much fun.’ ‘We
stayed till dark and dragged our frozen assess home in time for dinner and to
watch the Jets win the Super Bowl’. ‘Looking
back, that was fun.’ ‘Wow, here is a 747
lined up to land at the newly named JFK airport!’ ‘I wonder if I have math homework tonight or
if they will let me watch those new hippy shows, The Monkeys and Laugh-In.’
‘Focus’ I told myself, ‘be in the
moment’. Dad had taught me that the ball
would be accelerating down a non-intuitive, ‘32 feet per second – per second, the
change of the change calculus,’ whatever that means, but it would be fast. I backed up but then had to run in, across
someone’s blanket with beers, a dog and a baby on it. Everybody was yelling, including my team and
the other team. It was slow motion
pandemonium. Gabe, Gary and Bobby came
over to back me up and Bobby had his catcher’s mitt upside down to poach the
catch but Gabe gave him the ‘back off’ look and he held his ground. The Ump
joined the melee to make the call, and just for the fun of it. Finally, the ball came down and hit my mitt
just above my head, where I couldn’t see it.
It bounced out and hit the ground.
The crowed moaned in disbelief. I
was mortified. My eyes welled with tears
as I assumed my position on the field and Gabe patted me on the back. My dad looked at me and said with a wink,
‘don’t be a hot dog, Junior’.
Years later I was in a high school
wrestling match. I was wrestling Varsity
as a Freshman because I weighed 98 pounds after dieting and dehydrating myself
into a coma. The team was all older guys
and I would get pinned regularly, but they didn’t expect much and were
generally sympathetic. My dad showed up for
once and sat in the front row. Being an
old football player he didn’t know much about this wrestling stuff but since I
weighed 98 pounds, I didn’t play football or hoops and I sill sucked at
baseball. It was my way in.
When it was my turn, Dad gave me the
thumbs up and I went and shook hands with the bad ass guy from The City across
from me. I was exhausted by the time the
guy finished shaking my hand a hundred different ways. I could hear this guy’s big father deep voice booming
in the back ‘grab the left nut Jerome.’
The guy on our team that went before me had his eyeball ripped out and
left the gym bleeding and howling. I
prepared to guard my left nut, at all cost.
We started dancing around and
wrestling and this guy was manic, fast and strong. ‘Pace yourself dude’ I thought, ‘it’s a long
match’. I paced myself but after the
first two minutes we went completely anerobic, sucking for breath. The second two minutes our muscles worked to
exhaustive failure and we started to flop around like a tuna fish, clutching,
grabbing and stalling big time. The
third period was a blur as I slowly lost my sight, competitive spirit for self
and team, and will to live. I was
hammered, knackered, kaput. But slowly,
seemingly out of nowhere, came an inner strength and miraculous second
wind. I could breath and I got
stronger. My vision and will to win returned. I was an athlete, in his prime, going for the
victory.
‘It’s probably from all the killer
practices we had each day from 6-9 pm’, I told myself, ‘after the JV basketball
practice and study hall, in the back gym, wearing rubber sweats and sweatshirts,
with wind sprints and neck bridges, spin drills and the dreaded
up-and-downs’. After that was the cold-shower-wet
winter rides home in the back of a friends pickup, listening to American Pie,
and home in time to do my mandatory three hours of homework and get some shut
eye and do it again a 6am’. ‘I’m
thirteen, I’m supposed to gain weight and not lose it and get 10 hours of sleep
for my growing mind.’ Nope, this was the
culture of wrestling I chose to endure, to be a contender. Since there was no
diving, skiing or hockey team yet’. ‘Bring it’ I thought gamely as I began to
dominate the match for the first time.
The crowd energized, as I did, or
maybe we just became aware. I looked to
see if my gal Sally Snowshoes was in the stands but the faces were just an
expectant blur. ‘Man, I can’t wait to
get an ice cream float after the match with the boys, sleep on the bus and
finish my homework tonight so I can go to the Giants game tomorrow
unencumbered’. ‘Focus.’ My opponent was fading and my coach was
yelling for me to DO IT. DO WHAT, I
thought, until I realized that was our code word for the secret, killer Half
Nelson move.
So, I DID IT and rolled the guy over
until he stopped resisting. I thought
about checking on him since last week I slammed a guy on the mat and he went
limp and I told the Ref. We stopped and
he got help and came back with a vengeance to pin me, with me looking up at the
roof lights and the banners and hearing the crowd groan. My coach was furious and told me next time to
pin him first and then tell the Ref. So,
I did. I checked my left nut and rolled
this guy over and 1-2-3 BOOM - pinned. I
jumped up and raised my hands in the air, as is the custom. We shook hands and the Ref raised my am in
victory and my coach and teammate came out to shake my hand and tassel my
hair. Returning to the bench with a big
grin on my face, I passed my Dad, who smiling slyly said to me, ‘don’t be a hot
dog, son.’
Finally, in the one college Lacrosse
game my Dad attended, I was running down the left midfield wing with the ball thinking
typically about girls and work, homework and spring break. ‘The Golden Dome on the Admin building and
Cross on the Cathedral was shining over our training field. On separate days, Jimmy Carter and Ronald
Regan visited our practice filed while running for President’. ‘Win one for the Gipper’ Ron said
ironically. ‘I shouldn’t be playing Lacrosse,
since Engineering was hard, and I had a job, a girlfriend, a dog, a car, a mini
fridge full of beer and a hole in my heart that made me uninsurable, but I was
going for it. It was just a club sport
at that time and pretty casual but we had to go to Chicago or Florida usually
to find another club to play’. Now they
play for the national championship yearly and recruit most of their stars out
of my prep-school. I like to think I was
a trend setter but it was just happenstance.
Quantum coincidence.
When the opposing defender slammed me
for not looking up, I crashed to the ground but saw our center streaking for
the cage. He was a tall guy so I mystically
threw it high to him, with my last effort.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him reach high for the pass and simultaneously
get folded in two by the big burley crease defenseman, but not before
deflecting the ball into the net, high – stick side. We all celebrated each other and he wheezed,
‘don’t ever do that again’ as we headed to the bench. As we trotted victoriously past my Dad, he murmured
to me with a wry smile, ‘don’t be a hot dog, Matthew’. Which was nice.
The Apple and the Tree
Both my parents worked so they never
had much time or interest in our organized games, and it was kind of our own,
independent kid thing. All they ever
said was, ‘be home at 6 for dinner.’
Parents didn’t helicopter-hover over their kids back then and let them fail,
get in trouble and make mistakes like Dr Spock advised them to do. One time though, the parents and coaches were
riding the young Ump, who was a good friend of mine at school, so badly that
all the kids walked off the field and went home. So did the Ump. My dad didn’t like that crap. So, he seldom showed, not because he didn’t
like me or care, but it was not his world and he would rather have a beer and mow
the lawn.
Dad had an aversion to haughty hubris
since, when he was a kid, he didn’t get into our exclusive, private prep-school
where his friends went. They eventually became
wise guy, Wall Street men that womanized, drank too much and sent themselves to
early graves. He went to the local
public school that kept him grounded and humble. They won the football championship and his
best friend kissed his ass in the middle of Long Beach Boulevard when Dad
surprisingly graduated, as payment for a long-term bet. He tried to marry his sweetheart but was sent
to Korea, instead of jail, for a misunderstanding with the cops. She didn’t wait for him. But my mom did and encouraged him to move
from faming-carpenter to Building Inspector to a proud and successful
Superintendent of Water Works in a small, rich, north shore town. I followed him into hydrology and hydraulics.
He didn’t criticize meanly or
maliciously at all but realized early-on that I was a wise guy, smart ass, show
off and a hot dog. My favorite sports
were skiing and diving, showy sports where you keep your legs together, squeeze
your ass, and style counts. He was a
simple, honest, hardworking man where; what-you-see-is-what- you-get and
deprecating humor ruled the roost in our family home. He knew that his job was to keep me humble,
grounded and prevent my head from getting too big. ‘Be more, appear less’ was the motto. ‘You are neither as good nor as bad as you
think you are’. Things like that. Some of it took and some of it didn’t. I like to think that he was proud of me,
loved me as a son and liked me as a person.
What else is there?
For every fancy trophy school I
attended he would warn that I would fail out and go to the local occupational
high school or the community college. I
showed him. When I was trying out for
the football team he asked what position I was going for. I said wide receiver since I could catch
anything. He told me I was a gumshoe
with small hands and I weighed 98 pounds so that wouldn’t work. I was devastated until he said that I was a
smart kid and knew the game, so I should play QB. I got cut in the first round.
I passed these lessons to my stepson
who played football for me vicariously and hockey for himself innately. He is natural, confident but humble. He passes before being hit, skates behind
every charging defenseman and makes everyone on the ice a better player. He reluctantly followed some of my advice and
his own passion into aviation and married a woman who makes him want to be a
better man.
Recently, I found Dad’s Hydraulics Handbook
and realized that we had an aptitude, acumen and a love for fluids and
hydrology in common in our family. My stepson
even named his dog Hydro. Dad’s text was
a short and simple old book that he paid $1.94 for in the ‘50s. I looked at my old hydro textbook and it was
calculus based and complicated version that cost me $8.40 in the ‘70s. When I found our stepsons hydraulics book, it
was all about jets and aviation and cost him $105.00 I
guess the apple does not fall far from the tree but the lessons get harder and
more expensive.
Perhaps personality traits vary
sinusoidally and skip a generation, and some don’t. It is nice that we have multi-generational
influence to keep us connected and balanced and tall shoulders to stand on for
beer vision and perspective. In an alternative
universe, I catch that Little League foul ball and Dad says ‘good job’ but I become
a completely different person in a different world. We are all affected by each other, if we are
humble enough to listen and learn. Be
like Dad. Don’t be a hot dog.
