.... where family is the source of humor!

Band Box Baseball by Robert Crane

Lazy hazy days of summer are ebbing away to the sounds of school buses once more rumbling up and down the streets. Amazing how quickly those three short months pass by - but, my oh my, the opportunities those days hold for chidlren to create memories to look back upon as adults. Robert shares a humorous essay about his youth and baseball for readers of Humor Is Relative to enjoy!

Part One and Part Two of Band Box Baseball

Some kids brought their own bats but most of us used one of the five bats Mr. Fitz lugged up to the playground in a large dark green canvas bag. A good number of kids didn't have gloves, so gloves had to be shared. As sides switched from fielding to hitting, kids coming off the field to bat would throw their gloves up into the air. The kids coming onto the field would run around catching the gloves as they plummeted to the ground.

I was fortunate enough to borrow dad's softball mitt. It was huge. When I forebodingly opened that baby up at short-stop to taunt opposing batters, it looked like a giant clam yawning with a miniature human appendage attached. And I shared it. It was probably the only time I remember sharing anything with anybody so willingly, but this was Band Box Baseball. It was the right thing to do!

The ball that was used was a soft-coated rubber hardball. It was the same size as a baseball, but it had this white rubbery skin that had fake stitching pressed into it. There were two kinds. One was a dense and heavy ball, making it harder to hit further and more painful to catch. The preferred type was lighter and seemed to have a hollow center. It had this nasty 'english' when its spin met the pavement, causing it to take some wild bounces. It made fielding one hop grounders to short-stop, my favorite position, virtually impossible. However, as a batter you could crunch it, which meant the windows to Mr. Rice's classroom, a rather universally despised teacher, were in jeopardy, and that made it the official ball of the Band Box Players Association.

The game had some modifications to the standard rules of baseball. Well actually, it might be more accurate to say that it had only a couple of rules and they had little to do with baseball. One of the more prominent rules was that a batter could not strike out. Kids swung away at every pitch until the ball was hit in play; sometimes "in play" had a rather broad interpretation.

Mr. Fitz pitched underhanded. He was real good at figuring out where and how fast batters swung the bat so he could pitch the ball into their swing zone; after all, he was an engineering professor at Steven's Institute. He'd do anything if it meant getting the ball "in play". Sometimes that took some real "doing", like walking to within ten feet of some kids to pitch the ball into their stationary bat.

Another rule was that a team was done batting when everyone on the side had been up to the plate. That eliminated the need to keep track of outs. The remaining three rules were: hitters had to run the bases in the right direction, no swearing, and all final scores were 62 to 62.

One time, just to mix it up a bit, Mr. Fitz proclaimed the score to be 63-62 without identifying the winning team. It caused Doug and a few others great consternation. Doug tagged behind Mr. Fitz as he retreated to his station wagon with his green canvass equipment satchel in tow.

"Hey Mr. Fitz! Which team had 63?"

"Hey Mr. Fitz! I think we had 63!"

"Oh Mr. Fitzgerald? I have a question?"

"OH MR. FITZGERALD! WHY AREN'T YOU PAYING ATTENTION TO ME?"

To his credit, Mr. Fitz just kept moving ahead, paying little heed to Doug's barrage. He had five kids of his own at home. Doug's incessant cackling was small potatoes. To Doug's credit, he was vigilant, like a dog on a bone. The next time we played, Doug waited at the curb. Mr. Fitz pulled up and Doug continued where he left off.

"Hey Mr. Fitz! Remember the last game?"

"Who won? Who had 63?"

To which Mr. Fitz brilliantly replied, "The winning team had 63, Dougie Crane, that's who won!"

"All right! Thanks!" Doug was satisfied for the moment while he chewed on the statement's worthlessness. Mr. Fitz bought enough time to start up the game's count off. Perplexed, Doug reluctantly let go, as he moved into a calculated position in the line-up.

There were several types of batters: the power hitter, the power runner, the powerless, the bat carriers and the bat throwers. The more renowned power hitters were: Oatey-ka-Boatey, Chucky and Rye Bread. Whenever, one of these guys got up, Mr. Fitz would adjust the outfield to block the gaps. He'd send three or four of the best gloves into the hinterlands to keep the ball from running out onto the street in right field or bouncing into the hedges in deep left field. The school covered center field and a large portion of left-center and right-center fields, leaving the corners vulnerable to ball chasing injuries.

Short of losing a ball or a kid, there was one other thing Mr. Fitz was concerned about when the big bats were up. He didn't want any of the dozen infielders or himself to get whacked in the head by a screaming line drive. He usually talked it up to the infielders, while he directed the gloves in the outfield. Satisfied that the infielders were alert and the gloves were in place, he'd turn his attention to the batter to start a little dialogue and get the action underway.

The essence of nostalgia is an awareness that what has been will never be again.
-- Milton S. Eisenhower The Wine Is Better

Humor Is Relative thanks Cay Dickson, from the Houston Chronicle, for the compliment!

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
-- Plato

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Sports do not build character. They reveal it.
-- Heywood Hale Broun

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-- Management Digest