I recently found a photo of my Peanut League team, dated 1972. There are five of us of varying height. The tallest, of course, is closest to me, his left elbow comfortably (for him) resting on my right shoulder, like I was a piece of lean-on furniture. Cue up Randy Newman’s “Short People.”
We stand in the infield dirt, the chain-linked backstop behind us. We weren’t appropriated uniforms. We played in our summer street clothes. I wear blue shorts with red pockets. The red pockets strike me as weird, as if maybe my pants are on inside-out. I have a horizontal-striped blue and white shirt, which is only cool if worn on pirate ships. My wardrobe is further proof that Mom shopped at the Island of Misfit Clothing. Thanks, Mom, for putting me out there on fashion’s edge.
I have hair. Blond. I must pause here to weep. Reminders of my former life with hair oft do this.
We were 8 and 9 years old. Brad, David, Mike, me, and Murray pictured below. There is also another kid with us, but he’s half in, half out, as if contemplating whether or not to join another team. I can’t tell who he is, all half-faced. We were the Red Sox.
Photo provided
I don’t remember much about Peanut League, other than the one fly ball I caught, making up for the many I didn’t catch – including ground balls. I was an equal opportunity error-maker. It wasn’t that I missed a lot of catches out there in the dandelions, clover, and bee buzz. I just never got to the ball quick enough to catch it (how can that constitute a miss?), as if my presence and the ball’s presence were mere pawns of two totally different but simultaneous events.
But alas, I did catch one pop-up. I was near first base, so I guess I was first baseman, though it’s more likely that everyone on my team was playing first base simultaneously. Peanut League, remember. We all moved around the dirt diamond together, as if herded together by a cattle dog. It was a very high pop-up, causing my teammates to spastically wave their arms to ward off one another during a high-pitch chorus of “I got it, I got its,” bouncing off one another like bumper cars and falling to the dirt. I caught the ball because I was free of the fracas and noncommittal to the catch – hence, the last boy standing.
That I actually caught the ball still surprises me. I envision a short, pirate-shirted, red-pocketed boy looking skyward for what started as a speck in the sun that quickly dropped meteor-like in his direction, creating within him deliberation regarding whether or not to protect his crown with his mitt instead of catching the ball, as if maybe mitts were meant to be worn as head protection.
Before I could cover my head, somehow the ball landed with a pop in the webbed pocket of my mitt. The mitt just happened to be in the right position at the right time. I didn’t have much to do with it. My mom cheered, her first time that summer. Her glory day!
My favorite part about Peanut League was the chatter. “Heybattabatta … swingbattabatta …,” repeated hundreds of times per game to distract the batter from hitting the ball. It was basically a lesson in anti-sportsmanship. I loved it. Major League games would be more enjoyable if the pros chattered. The same with televised golf.
My fondest memory, though, of my Peanut League years involved playing catch with dad in the backyard. He taught me fielding basics. I never wanted to miss a ball that he tossed. Eventually, I caught them all. He’s the only one I wanted to impress. Girls hadn’t been invented yet. The progression of my prowess was measured by the glorious, ever-growing span of grass between us until we actually faced each other from opposite property ends. That was baseball at its fondest. Eventually, dad bought me an orange-framed pitch back net, eliminating him from the equation (by design perhaps). The pitch back sort of became a surrogate father figure (which proved awkward at father-son Cub Scout outings), but that was OK, for by then a favorite memory had already been forged: a father, a son, a baseball – life being no simpler and sweeter than that.
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If you’d like to have Scott speak or read at an event, email him at scottsaalman@gmail.com.