(Editor’s note: The following column from The Era’s Otto Township correspondent Jim Miller is in response to Bill Robertson’s piece last week recalling his days playing Little League baseball in McKean County).
Note to Bill Robertson, who recently recalled on these pages a memory from his (much) younger, baseball-playing days: We may have pummeled you a time or two, but it wasn’t, as you stated, “unmercifully.” We were good sports about it! (At least I prefer to think we were!) Here is an account of how one of those “pummelers” from Otto got his start. Whether it was by deceit or determination — or a combination of the two — I’ll let you readers decide.
Growing up in the small village of Rixford — in times when kids actually played outside — I was fortunate to have a schoolyard, with a ball field as well as the perfunctory swings, slides and monkey bars, a stone’s (baseball’s) throw from our house. Add a neighborhood full of fun-loving, energetic boys and you had a recipe for a ballgame a day, everyday, June till September.
I’m not sure even today what lured me to the ball field — is one born with a predisposition? Was it a yearning to fit in with the bigger, older boys? Whatever the attraction, the game of baseball and I have been “teammates” from a very early age. And, since my recollection of the actual beginning of our…I’m not going to call it a “love affair” — relationship is uncertain, muddled by time (and an ever-dimming memory), I will leave the pick-up games of my early “career” and fast-forward to my initial year of organized ball.
“Organized” is used loosely here, for the Little League substitute at the time was the aptly named WILD League. An acronym for the four charter members — West Branch, Interstate Parkway, Limestone, and Derrick City, the league soon expanded to include Otto Township and other communities including Hilltop, Custer City and Bill Robertson’s Lincoln. With no national affiliation or governing body to dictate rules (and limit fun?), the WILD League officers and coaches used a combination of Little League guidelines and common sense to provide us with summers of fun, camaraderie, and competition.
My “rookie” year was unusual and happened only because of the flexible WILD League rules. My cousin, a grizzled veteran of three seasons, and my good friend, a second-year player, joyfully announced that tryouts would be held tomorrow! I was “pumped!” And soon deflated. “You’re not old enough,” they informed me, “you have to be nine to play.” After sulking and whining for a few hours, my kind, understanding and sympathetic parents (tired of my moodiness, no doubt) decided to allow me to try out, writing a note to the coach explaining my plight and expressing their undoubtedly unbiased opinion that I was good enough at eight years old to warrant a try out.
Elated and full of optimism, I joined my two buddies the next day on the mile-long bike trip to the ball park. Several bouts of anxious banter into our journey, the thought occurred to me — what if the coach won’t let me try out? After (not) much thought, my cousin had the solution! “Throw the note away and tell him you’re nine.” Old AND smart, he. It worked; I had made the team! And, of course, the next words out of coach’s mouth were, “Next practice, I need all of you to bring your birth certificates.”
Old and smart, my butt! What to do? Well, lacking any other strategy, I opted to try a different tack for a change. Telling the truth. Mom and Dad understood my dilemma and again went to bat for me, and after a conversation with the coach, followed by a meeting with the league officers, it was settled: this little (lyin’) lefty was allowed to play!
That all-woolen uniform with the number “8” on the back may have been a tad too big; it may have been just a little itchy; and the button-up fly was a new inconvenience. But, man, when I first put that uni on I felt like Koufax, Spahn and Whitey Ford all rolled into one!
Five years of playing WILD League baseball was followed by Babe Ruth, American Legion, McKean Elk and Alle-Catt competition, interspersed with coaching all levels (seven-year-olds to adults), holding positions in various organizations, and eventually transitioned into the satisfying and pleasing (yes, and yes!) job of umpiring. I wasn’t the player I could have been, my coaching skills were rudimentary, and I MAY have missed a call or two, but you can be assured that, in whatever aspect of the game, my heart, my head, and my left arm gave it all I had. Oh, for a return to the good old days!
