I learned the strangest, yet lovely, things while playing baseball as a kid.
My childhood neighbor once told me why he named his son for Reggie Jackson. The Oakland Athletics’ outfielder was the brash and youthful role model blacks needed, my grown neighbor would say.
Though it never occurred to me at the time, I learned why it was important to have someone to look up to. My neighbor never believed me when I told him Jackson was part Latino.
It didn’t matter. The blacks, Latinos and smattering of whites who lived in my childhood stomping ground-a pocket of impoverished small homes nestled between two major highways in rural Winnebago County-all looked up to Jackson.
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Baseball was our way of getting to know each other. Our parents frowned on the idea of us getting too close because they felt races were better off sticking to themselves.
That’s why our games were played in a secluded area. It was there I learned a lifetime of valuable insights.
I still remember the words to dozens of soul songs that continue to resonate with meaning for me. The persistence on the field, I’ve spent a lifetime trying to duplicate. Most importantly, the liveliness of the banter is still a source of humor.
Left field was a watermelon patch. Right had some of the tallest weeds I ever have seen. Left-handers had a big advantage over other hitters because once the ball got in those weeds, it rarely was recovered.
“Your momma’s after you with a switch,” was often the shout to encourage kids to run a bit faster on the bases. For others, calling them “pollo” (chicken) was enough to get them to swing the bat a bit harder.
Our games weren’t played in nine innings. The end arrived when the Perez brothers decided it was time to go home, taking their lopsided ball with them. Their father had made the ball out of worn out tube socks.
But when the game raged on in the hot sun, there was Calvin and Tyrone, who were the Willie Stargell and Reggie Jackson of our game. Their slugging often ripped the mushy ball into pieces.
Those two could glide around the plywood bases with the look of Olympic sprinters.
My friend Pino had a way of grabbing the sockball for a trick pitch that fluttered and frequently fooled the heavy swingers.
But what confused the hitters most was his constant banter in Spanish once the ball left his hand.
That killed my concentration. I was a weak swinger and usually hit the ball right back to him.
Baseball was our perfect game.
It gave us a reason to learn about each other and to share some common experiences. All of us were in the lower economic rung, many of us were from single-parent households and a few even had some dreams about the future. We talked to each other’s lives as much as we talked about the game. The hits or strikeouts have left no lasting impression.
But it was the music emanating from the 8-track players, and songs I heard in the outfield, that left the biggest impression on me. Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight and John Coltrane. During a moment of reflection about those games, this verse from a Curtis Mayfield tune often comes to mind:
“I’m so glad I got my own. So glad that I can see. My life’s a natural high. No man ain’t got nothing on me.”