Take Me Out To The Ball Game

At the end of A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, Robert Redford has a heart tugging little soliloquy as the voice of the elder Norman Maclean:

“Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn’t. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”

I, too, am haunted, but not by waters. Perhaps it’s a side effect of growing old. The other night, I was sitting in the stern of my boat smoking my pipe and watching the sun set over the cabin tops of the other boats moored on C-dock. There was no one around. Tracy and the animals were tucked away in the cabin. The other boat owners were where ever they go when they are not on their boats. It was just me and the setting sun. A cool breeze was blowing a full moon in to the darkening sky to the South East. Somewhere out in the channel, a passing boat had sent a gentle swell into the marina. The boat rocked ever so slightly. Around me, the loose halyards on the other boats tapped rhythmically against the aluminum masts. It was like listening to the heartbeat of the boats at rest against their moorings. moonlight and boats. It was peaceful. I mean, really peaceful. I leaned back in my chair and looked up at the sky and realized that for the moment… for that particular point in time, I had completely let go and let God. Whatever problems I had, were tomorrow’s problems and had nothing to do with me just then. That was for tomorrow. Whatever problems I had in the past were gone. Sitting in the stern of the boat I was at peace. I had just had a good meal. I was wearing one of my Hawaiian shirts, smoking a blend of tobacco heavy in Latakia and Perique in an old, beat up corncob pipe and in that moment of total contentment I thought about… baseball.

I don’t know what it was about that moment, I certainly wasn’t sipping tea or eating a madeleine, but suddenly, I was a kid again. It was May 6, 1962 and my father had taken me to a twi-night double-header at Yankee Stadium. 1962 Yankee StadiumThe Yankees vs. The Washington Senators. The Yankees lost the first game (4-2) but dominated in the second (8-0). Between the games, dad took me to dinner in the clubhouse restaurant. I don’t remember what I ate. I remember that dinner took longer than we anticipated and the second game started before we were finished, but that was okay. We had box seats three or four boxes back just behind the dugout on the first base side of the stadium.

Well, we didn’t “have” box seats. The American Brass Company did. Dad was a salesman for the American Brass Company and every time he surpassed his “nut” the company gave him tickets to a Yankee’s game. Dad wasn’t the best salesman in the world so these times at Yankee Stadium were golden.

My dad was from Maryland so he naturally rooted for the Senators when he wasn’t rooting for the Baltimore Orioles. Me, I was a Yankee fan. I remember sitting on the couch next to him watching the games on our old black & white TV and listening to Mel Allen in the broadcast booth sneaking in product placement commentary with his “Ballantine Blasts” or “White Owl Wallops”. I heard later that he was augmenting his income with these surreptitious ways of describing baseball plays. But, Hell, on this particular day, I was 13 years old. What did I know or care? I was in seventh heaven, man. I was in Yankee Stadium watching my childhood heroes play ball.

I remember a lot about that game. Dad bought a couple of Ballantine Ales from the vender and the vender opened the can with three church keys he held in his left hand and poured the brew into a cup he held with his right. The Senator’s Jimmy Piersall was caught stealing second. He overslid the bag and Bobby Richardson tagged him out. “Moose” Skowron was on first. Elston Howard was behind the plate and Jim Bouton was pitching. Tommy Tresh was the shortstop, Clete Boyer was on third. On the bench were Yankee greats Yogi Berra and Tony Kubek, just to name two. And in the first inning, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle hit back to back homeruns.

Maris had just come off that incredible season during which he broke Babe Ruth’s home run record. As a kid, watching Maris bat, you just know I was praying for him to hit a home run. And he didn’t disappoint. When Maris took his swing and you heard that “crack” you knew it was gone. There is something about the sound of a home-run hit ball that is unmistakable. The “crack” of the bat; the roar of the crowd; and the cheering as the ball cleared the fence. From my seat on the first base side, I could see the ball arc on the trajectory that would take it into bleachers. The sun was setting. The Stadium lights were on and the ball looked so white and graceful as it made its way beyond the reach of the right fielder. Richardson, who had been on base, crossed first. Maris crossed second, rounding the bases in that distinctive baseball home run lope. Then Mantle came up to bat.

There was no one on for him to drive in and for some reason, Pete Burnside, the Senator pitcher didn’t take him as seriously as he should have. Or maybe he did. Maybe he threw Mantle his best and Mantle just proved that he was the better man. Burnside pitched. Mantle swung. There was no mistaking the “crack” of Mantle’s bat. The sound had weight to it. You not only heard it; you felt it. It penetrated your flesh and lodged somewhere deep inside you. Swing. CRACK. It filled the Stadium like a palpable presence and suddenly there was a split second of silence as 23,940 people all inhaled at the same time. It was as if time stopped. Mantle's ball didn’t just arc up into the air, it shot off his bat and disappeared into the bright lights that shone down on the field like so many tiny artificial suns above the Stadium’s facade. I have no idea where the ball landed. It came off Mantle’s bat and rocketed towards the night sky. I lost it as it flew high enough to be hidden by the terrace level (not there since the Stadium was renovated.) The ball disappeared in the blink of an eye. And then the crowd roared. It was as if the Stadium itself was applauding him on his home run lope around the bases. Mantle hit another home run in the seventh inning. Dad and I left soon after. I don’t remember seeing the end of the game. It was a Sunday and I had school the next day. It wouldn’t be seemly for me to be out so late.

From the Bronx, my ghosts flew me across the East River to Flushing Meadows and Shea Stadium. It was June 7th, 1972 and Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and the rest of the Cincinnati Reds were giving the Mets a lesson in how to play “hustle” baseball. I was at Shea with my best friend, Frank Davis. Frank and I had been BFFs since prep school, you know, the kind of friends that double dated at the drive-ins totally ignoring the move to steam up the windows with our respective dates. We were best men at each other’s weddings. On Frank and Katie’s wedding night, they spent the night in my room and I slept in the honeymoon suite because Frank didn’t want his evening spoiled by usual wedding night pranks. And when Frank didn’t like his honeymoon destination, he cut his trip short and he and Katie finished honeymooning in my apartment in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. (I gave them the bedroom and took the couch in the living room.)

But on this particular day at Shea it was just me and Frank. Katie was in Virginia and I had yet to meet the future ex-Mrs. Ruark and the Mets were getting their collective asses handed to them by the Big Red Machine. The Reds were on their way to winning the National League Championship (only to lose to the Oakland A’s in the World Series) and for Frank and me, our only consolation was the Rheingold Beer. It was good; it was cold; and it made us forget the way the Big Red Machine was handling our team. But we weren’t the only fans suffering the pangs of the damned on that day. Everyone around us was in the same situation, even the couple who brought their son, Billy, one year old and decked out from head to foot in a complete Met uniform, was feeling the Red heat.

When things seemed to be at their worst, the crowd began calling for “Willie”. Willie Mays had been traded to the Mets and would eventually retire after the 1973 season. But in 1972, the “Say Hey” kid had so much mystique that when things looked their bleakest, the crowd would call for “Willie” as if he could work some of that baseball magic and turn around an already bad game. But Manager Yogi Berra had other plans. So when he didn’t put Willy in, we began calling for Billy. “Put Billy in… Put Billy in…” the chant was only local until the mother held Billy up replete in his Mets uniform, then our section really got into it. We made enough noise that even the folks in the broadcast booth wondered whom we were calling for. (This was in the days before stadiums had cameras that could pan the crowd.)

Well, Yogi didn’t put Billy in, either. And in the long run, it really didn’t matter. The Mets lost 3 to 6. Rusty Staub and Tommy Agee managed to drive in the three runs between them, but between the Rheingold Beer and Billy, how and when was kind of a blur. All I remember of the rest of the game was that it was a perfect summer afternoon. I was with my best friend. We were slogging down brews and talking about life, love and dreams of futures past. The Mets didn’t win… no big deal.

And then my ghosts transported me to Wrigley. It was April 26, 1997 and I was in a non-union road show of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. I was playing Sheriff Heck Tate and we were performing to schools in every state east of the Mississippi river. In Chicago we played to 3000 kids bussed into one of the city’s big auditoriums. I remember going up on my lines when I was on the witness stand in the trial scene. Something distracted me and I saw the microphones laid out in a straight line just behind the footlights and suddenly I wasn’t the sheriff, but little old me looking up through the lights at several tiers of young, shadowy faces.

Sheriff Tate knew exactly what to say… but Eric Ruark suddenly wondered what the Hell he was doing sitting in a chair in the middle of the stage in a huge auditorium filled with so many young people expecting him to say something important. Fortunately, the actor playing the prosecuting attorney recognized my deer-in-the-headlights look and turned to me and said, “Let me re-phrase the question…” and then he gave me my line phrased as a question and I was able to snap back into character.

That was on a Friday and the powers-that-be in New York decided to let us weekend in Chicago before driving over to our next venue. It was the perfect time for a break. I needed to clear my head and forget about my near disaster from the night before, so while the other members of the cast headed to the Navy Pier or wherever, I hopped the El and made my way to Wrigley Field. My plan was to get the cheapest seat I could, have a couple of beers and lose myself in an afternoon of baseball. The Cubs were playing the Pirates. Neither was in the running for the division title, so I figured that there would be plenty of seats available.

On the ride up to Wrigley, I looked over in the next car and saw the young black actor who was playing Tom Robinson. As an out-of-towner on the El, there could be only one place he was headed. So I got up and walked into the next car. He, too, felt the need to clear his head and thought the Cub game would be just the place to do it. While we were talking, we noticed our Atticus in the next car up, so together we went to tease him.

The three of us got to Wrigley a couple of hours before the game began. It was a beautiful, partly sunny day with the temperature in the mid-60s. We took advantage of the time to cruise some of the bars (most of which were practically empty) and to just get the feel of the area. Then, nearing game time, we walked up to the ticket window at Wrigley to see what they had to offer. Somehow, I was appointed spokesman for our little group.

Me to the man in the ticket window: “Hi, there. Have you got any cheap seats available?

Ticket man: “What were you looking for?”

Me: “We don’t really know. We’re actors on tour and have been given the day off. We wanted to see a Cub game and we’ve never been to Wrigley before so we don’t know what to ask for.”

Ticket man: “You’ve never been to Wrigley?”

Me: “No. This is our first time.”

Ticket man: “Then have I got the perfect seats for you. And cheap, too. Only 20-bucks each.

Me: “We’ll take ‘em.”

So we bought our seats. We didn’t realize the ticket man had fooled us until we sat down.

He put us in the front row of the mezzanine directly behind home plate only a section or two away from the broadcast booth to our left. One seat could have easily cost a more than the three of us had combined, but the ticket man had only charged us $20 apiece for them. The man was a saint. So we settled in with a couple of beers apiece, a couple of bags of peanuts and we watched the game. Rhino Sandberg hit a homer in the second and the rest of the Cubs scored six more runs allowing them to beat the Pirates 7-6.) It was a great game and to top it off, during the 7th inning stretch, Harry Caray opened the broadcast booth windows and lead the crowd in “Take Me Out To The Ball Game…” And after the game, we circled the stadium trying out all kinds of Polish sausages and drinking even more beer and just having one Hell of a good time.

When Harry Caray died in February of 1998, I was playing C.S. Lewis’ brother in SHADOWLANDS at a small theater in New Milford, CT. We were at one of the local watering holes and I heard the report on the late night news from the TV over the bar. I had to step away from the table because I didn’t want the others to see me tearing up.

There had been something so special about that day at Wrigley that his death meant more than just the death of a well-know sport’s personality. That day a Wrigley had had such a deep effect on me that I took Harry Caray’s death personally.

And that’s what I realized as my pipe went out while sitting on the stern of my boat on that night in a little bay off the Chesapeake. I had been blessed to experience four perfect moments in time: one as a child at Yankee Stadium; one as a young adult at Shea; one as an older adult at Wrigley and finally one as an old man with a full moon rising over my left shoulder. As I tapped the ash out of the bowl, I began humming TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME while in the back of my mind, I heard the great voice of James Earl Jones:

Ray. People will come, Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn into your driveway, not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door, as innocent as children, longing for the past. “Of course, we won’t mind if you look around,” you’ll say, “It’s only twenty dollars per person.” And they’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it, for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk off to the bleachers and sit in their short sleeves on a perfect afternoon. And find they have reserved seats somewhere along the baselines where they sat when they were children. And cheer their heroes. And they’ll watch the game, and it’ll be as they’d dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come, Ray. The one constant through all the years Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.

Terence Mann’s soliloquy from FIELD OF DREAMS by Phil Alden Robinson.

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