My Childhood: Baseball

The first time I played baseball, real baseball with rules and everything, it was a shock to me. I had played this game many times in the past, of course; we threw the ball, hit it with a bat, and ran around a pretend playing field. However, we didn’t know the rules, so we made up our own, and changed them at the merest whim. We were trying to have fun, not win or lose a mere game.

The first time I played real baseball was in junior high school, believe it or not. Since my family was not really very sports minded, I had never seen a game on television, never even conceived of the madness and utter boredom of real baseball.

The first day of junior high, the couch told us all we were going to play baseball. We all dressed up in our gym shorts, and went out to the playing field. I immediately ran into problems.

I didn’t know hot to play. The couch was appalled when he realized this, after a few days stumbling around. Did I come from some foreign country? Wasn’t I a real American? He wanted to know.

Nonetheless, I eventually learned the rules, although I never have learned to respect the game. It looked stupid to me way back then, and it looks stupid to me today. Of course, this attitude didn’t help me very much in junior high school, as it caused me to always be picked last for the team, and to get a lousy position in the outfield. I spent more days standing around doing absolutely nothing, waiting for a ball to be hit my way, than I care to remember.

Before junior high school, I played baseball with a little tomboy, whose name I cannot remember. We were best pals for a while - she acted just like one of the guys, and that’s what I considered her.

One day, after school, we were organizing a baseball game. I really wanted to fit in with the other boys, so I stayed after class to play, even though by then I was beginning to hate the stupid game.

On that day, I received my first dose of prejudice, a double whammy. Naturally, when I went out to play, my little tomboy friend tagged along. I owned the baseball, so I managed to become one of the team captains. My first choice was my little friend, as she could hit a baseball better than anybody I knew.

"You can’t do that", one of the other boys told me.

"I can’t do what?" I asked.

"You can’t have a girl on your team", he said with a laugh.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Girls can’t play baseball", he replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Besides", he continued, after a pause, "she’s a Mex. We don’t play with any of them."

You see, she was a little Hispanic girl, which didn’t bother me in the least. I have never had a prejudiced bone in my body.

Those little boys wouldn’t let my tomboy friend play baseball. I begged, I pleaded, I tried to bribe them. They might have allowed a girl to play, but no way would they allow a Mexican to play. It just wasn’t done.

I didn’t understand what was going on, but I knew I had run into something ugly. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, though.

Except protest. I took my ball and left. This really pissed off the boys, and didn’t make me any friends. I realized, even at that young age, that there are some things in life that you just have to stand up for. I wasn’t about to let these little boys insult my friend. I never played with them again, except when forced by the physical education teacher.