Like a monument commemorating a historic event that once happened on its soil, the baseball diamond in the neighborhood where I was raised sits silent. Even today, during the carefree summer days when school is out, the field remains empty - patches of grass growing on the infield. If you listen closely, you might hear the diamond calling out, beckoning for a return to the springs, summers and falls when it was more special to neighborhood kids than even a trip to King's Island, the amusement park just an hour's drive away.
An only child, my love for baseball was born at an early age, spurred by watching my dad play softball in the competitive recreation leagues around southwest Ohio, and watching the Reds on TV. I was born and raised in Xenia, a city many people know because of the tornado that destroyed it in 1974. I was 5 at the time, and the only part of our house left standing was the hallway where we sought cover. To this day, it is the most powerful tornado on record in U.S. history. The winds were more than 300 miles per hour.
My parents rebuilt on the same lot, which was in the heart of an expansive middle-class neighborhood of single-story brick ranches. Dozens of streets - all named after states - and thousands of houses composed the subdivision. Since my parents were one of the first to move into a rebuilt home that fall, at first it was lonely for me, being the only kid in the neighborhood.
My parents took me to my first baseball game in the spring of 1975, an extra-inning game at Riverfront Stadium where the Big Red Machine edged San Diego, 3-2. I was captivated. The next morning, as soon as the sun rose, I reenacted the game in my backyard with just a whiffle ball and a bat. All nine innings, top and bottom. It must have been amusing for neighbors peering out their windows seeing a six-year-old towheaded boy throwing a ball into the air, hitting it, and running around the bases for hours.
That summer, more homes were rebuilt on my block, and some of them were occupied by families with children my age. It wasn't long before whiffle ball games became a staple of life in our little section of Arrowhead Acres. I watched my first Red Sox game that fall, Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, when Carlton Fisk launched Pat Darcy's pitch off the left-field pole after midnight, keeping the Sox alive for Game 7. The Sox lost the next night, but I was an instant fan - my introduction to the thrills and heartbreaks of what is now Red Sox Nation.
Article comments
1 - Enlightened Planet
Jeff, thanks for this article... can't tell you how many memories this invoked.
My life is something of a travelogue, so I don't have that ONE diamond in mind. Little league for me was in various places in New York and in Texas, high school baseball in Tokyo and Bangkok. My Dad and his "Mel Stottlemyre" model glove always there when I needed them.
My first team was the Mets, in 1969 as it happens. A couple years later we moved to Houston and I adopted the Astros, and have stuck with them through thick and thin ever since. I was there, in the left field bleachers, for the "greatest game ever played", the 1986 playoff game 6 where my OLD Mets put away my new heroes in 16 innings. Ah well.
I live in Thailand again. When my daughter was two I found a plastic tee/bat/ball set in a Bangkok supermarket, and couldn't control myself! I'm SURE I bought it more for myself than for her. Now she's four, and my son is two... I haven't seen that set in a while, but when I get home tonight I'm going to go out to the garage and find that bat and ball and we're all going to go out in the front yard!