When there were only two of us, we’d go over to Humboldt Park, find a stretch of open grass, and one would hit fungo flies and the other would chase them down. Then you’d switch. And switch again. And keep going until it was too dark to follow the ball.
With three or four of us, there would be a batter, a pitcher, and a couple of outfielders. You kept hitting until you made a fly-ball out. Then you gave up the bat, went to the outfield, and everybody else moved up.
It didn’t matter how many kids there were: two, four, six, eight or 10. You could figure out some kind of game of bat-and-ball. Piggy move-up was always popular. Or no right fielder and second baseman, and if you hit to the opposite field you were out.
This, of course, was before Little League, Pony League, and all the other organized, parent-involved structures.
It was when you flipped a bat to someone, did the hand-over-hand to determine who made the first pick, and chose up sides.
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No matter what anyone says, it is still the Great American Pastime. This spring, in the Chicago area alone, there will be more than 5,000 softball teams in organized leagues, thousands of hard-ball teams ranging from little kids to elderly guys.
I played baseball as a young guy; then 16-inch softball in three competitive leagues until I was 50. I have a wiry little friend in his 60s who is still playing in a good suburban baseball league.
Bat-and-ball. It’s still the greatest of American games. It’s better than football because you don’t have to be a hulk and you won’t wind up a cripple. It’s better than basketball because you can be short or pudgy or slow and still play a decent game. It’s better than soccer because you do not endure the indignity of bouncing the ball off your head.
Is there an American male who has never had a fantasy about stepping to the plate-two outs, bases loaded, 9th inning, seventh game of the World Series, down by three runs-and ripping the ball over the wall?
Get in a conversation with Gov. Mario Cuomo, and he’ll talk with enthusiasm about national issues and problems. But for real zest, get him going on the one season he spent as a minor league pro baseball player.
(By the way, you want to hear about the dramatic two-out, last-inning homer-in-the-dark an aging columnist hit to beat the Andy Frain team for the Grant Park Industrial League championship? OK, never mind.)
Why am I rambling on about bat-and-ball?
Because I don’t understand much of the frenzied reaction to Michael Jordan’s efforts to become a Major League Baseball player.
Reading or listening to some of the hysterical sports pundits, you would think Jordan had announced that he was going to undergo the Bobbitt surgical procedure, move to Paris and become a high fashion female model.
These experts-most of whom can’t look down and see their own shoes-scoff at the thought of Michael Jordan hitting major league pitching. Why, they demand, is he doing this? Why doesn’t he just go back to what he does best-dunking basketballs.
Nobody asks them why they don’t do what they do best-take a job slicing corned beef in a deli?
Michael Jordan, like millions of American males, wants to play bat-and-ball. He wants to rip a liner down the line or into the stands, make an over the shoulder catch near the wall, or whip a throw to the plate to nail a runner.
Unlike the rest of us, he has several things going for him.
First, he’s the most remarkable athlete of our time. I believe great athletes are born, not made. You can have average ability and through hard work become OK. But to be special, you have to be born with amazing skills. And like all outstanding athletes, he would be good at any sport.
Second, he is rich and unless the Clintons and Dan Rostenkowski totally embrace Karl Marx, he will just become even richer. So he can afford to do just about anything he chooses.
Third, he is only 31. That is not old for a baseball player or anyone else. Some ballplayers have had their best years in their mid-30s.
Fourth, he has incredible focus. Those of us who have seen him do amazing things on the basketball court know that when he decides to do something that is damn near impossible, he can do it.
And what he wants to do is grab for that great American dream of being a Major League Baseball player. Is that so terrible?
What would the sports pundits say if he had decided to become an international playboy, chasing willowy young things on the French Riviera and drinking bubbly until dawn? They’d be less indignant, since that would be something with which they could identify, the pudgy creeps.
Even fans sound irrational. They call those dimwit sport shows and yap as if Jordan is doing something immoral. I would suggest that they get a life, but they wouldn’t know what to do with it.
The guy wants to play bat-and-ball. So do I, but I can’t. So do many of you, but you can’t.
Maybe he can. And if so, won’t that be fun? And if he doesn’t do it, so what? We didn’t either.
One way or the other, my only regret will be that the Cubs didn’t grab him.
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