Green Monsters and Gutter Balls

As I sit here expecting my season opener softball game to be inevitably rained out tomorrow night, I’m excited. There’s just something about the advent of playing ball – swinging the bat, running the bases, HAVING a catch – that makes spring special. Sometimes you’re fortunate enough to have a team to play on that has scheduled games and classy uniforms (excluding the “Medford Bakery” unis, which were black (cool!) but had a gingerbread man logo (not cool!). And other times, it’s up to you and your imagination.

Disclaimer: I was a weird kid.

I think my parents had high hopes for their careers as professional tennis players. When I was really little, they’d take their rackets to the shore and play on the courts of Ocean City. They’d play doubles, singles, whatever it took to be crowned heroes of the hard court. Hell, my dad even had a tennis bag. In 1991, he grew his hair way long, insisted on wearing neon colors, and only took pictures of us with his Rebel camera. But right around that time, their goal to become the next Evert or Connors ended. If you ask them, they’d tell you they had a commitment to be home for their kids, to raise them right and teach them values. In reality, there was a different motive for them to hang up the headbands for a final time.

They were out of tennis balls.

It wasn’t an inventory re-stocking issue, either. There were empty cans with Wilson on the label throughout the garage, and save the ones my parents used to ensure they didn’t drive their cars directly into the playroom, the tennis balls should have been overflowing from the aforementioned tennis bag sitting next to the air compressor. But as you may have guessed, 1) they weren’t and 2) I may have something to do with why they weren’t.

Enter Solitaire Baseball.

The premise was pretty simple. It was the easiest way for an 8 year-old with an imagination and a metal bat could simulate actual baseball when it wasn’t time to lace up the spikes or your MYAA hat. The premise was simple; play a game of baseball without an opponent. It will require organization, mental creativity, a backstop, and tennis balls. Lots and lots of tennis balls.

When my team was at bat, I would stand at the side of my drive way and step into the imaginary batter’s box. In my right hand – a bat. In my left – a bright yellow tennis ball, waiting to be pummeled. In one fluid motion, I would toss the ball upwards, grab the bat with my free hand, and swing like Gap was selling khakis. Where the ball went over the course of the next two neighbor’s yard decided whether it was a single, double, triple, dinger, or out. Why does this matter?(I used to keep score. In a scorebook. With names of pro ballplayers. See above disclaimer for details.)

Now rather than chasing down my tennis ball and returning to my driveway, we (I say we because one of my neighbors loved this game as well) had a similar set of scoring landmarks in the opposite direction. If you didn’t get it over the neighbor’s driveway in the air, that’s an out. Before the electric box and after the driveway? Single. A double was in the brush off to the right, and a triple? Through the V-shaped opening in the tree by our mailbox. How does one hit a home run? By roofing the ball on the top of my parents’ garage. And as I would mentally round the bases, the ball would allow gravity to do its magic and place it firmly in the gutter. (Not even a well-placed hockey stick blade could evict the gutter’s latest tenant.)

In the original direction, the outfield wall was represented by a massive pine bush that our neighbors two houses down had as a part of their landscaping. To hit the bush in the air would require a sky-bound rocket of a tennis ball, and it was just far away enough to make this an accomplishment. In the pros last year there were 2.2 HRs per game, so we were in no way planning to show up the likes of Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Thomas. Why? 1)We have respect for the game of baseball and 2)If a ball went into the bush it hurt like hell to reach in and retrieve it.

I was home this past weekend, and I saw that our neighbors have recently re-landscaped that area of their yard. Gone is our Green Monster.

And the 324 tennis balls it ate during my childhood.