Nothing
Up My Sleeve
Jon
Gallagher
The
Knoxville Angels
I’ve
written in the past couple weeks about what it was like to umpire softball
games in the city of Galesburg.
Those who knew me in high school and my first couple years of college
might have been surprised to read that I was an umpire. See, I used to hate umpires.
Back
in the middle part of the 70’s, Orange Chapel, a small rural church south of
Knoxville, boasted a softball team that took on any and all comers. They went to church together, lived
relatively close to each other, and played together almost every Sunday, so
they were pretty good. They put
out a challenge to all other churches in the area to put together softball
teams to challenge them.
Thus
was born the Knoxville Church League.
I
was a member of the United Methodist Church in Knoxville and we put together a
rag tag team of misfits that would have given the Bad News Bears a run for
their money as the worst team ever assembled. Orange Chapel kicked our butts every time we played them.
It
was the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school that I
really became interested in playing softball. Back then, Knoxville High School didn’t have a baseball
program, and to play hardball in the Galesburg Leagues, you had to have a
certain name (and Gallagher wasn’t one of them). Fast pitch softball, therefore, was the closest thing we
could find.
That
summer, I started asking about the church softball team. No one seemed to know anything about
it, one of the Litchfield boys (I don’t remember which one) was supposed to be
the manager. I sought him out and
asked him and he told me that he really didn’t want to be the manager, then
asked if I’d be interested in managing since I was so interested in playing.
That’s
how I became the manager of our church softball team.
The
next Sunday, during announcements during the church service, I stood and
announced that we’d hold our first practice that afternoon in preparation of
our first game which was two weeks away.
Three
people showed up for practice. We
were in trouble.
There
was no rule that said that players had to be a member of the church, so I went
about recruiting my friends to play.
Steve
Hickerson, Bob Borden, Doug Albright, and Jeff Ring all showed up for our next
practice. Before long, Bob had
recruited a couple of guys he met at a summer college camp. Junior Marquith and Rick Carlson came
along and before long, we had a real team.
We
didn’t have uniforms or anything, but by golly we had a team.
The
league itself had four teams during out first year: Orange Chapel, us, Williamsfield, and Corpus Christi (or
Costa as most people called them) from Galesburg. Before the demise of the league we would add teams from
Fairview and Peoria.
Corpus
Christi was the most fun to play.
They were very good and had a pitcher, Gene Sullivan, who was the only
pitcher in the league who could actually throw like he was supposed to (with a
windmill windup). Jim Glasnovich
was their manager and Galesburg attorney Bill Butts played first base for them
most of the time. Dean Betts is
the other name I remember, but only because it seemed like he hit a home run
off of me any time I pitched.
Williamsfield
was sometimes good, sometimes not.
Bobby Anderson, who was a longtime high school coach in town, may have
been their manager. He played for
the team, but I don’t remember if he was the guy in charge or not. All I know is that when he was behind
the plate, you did NOT attempt to steal second base.
Orange
Chapel was our biggest rival, mainly because they lived so close to us. Ray Nelson was their manager, and they
had a lot of Knoxville people on their team as well. Joe Markley was their best hitter and his father, Turner
Markley, was their best pitcher (and always had a smile on his face).
By
the time the second year of the league rolled around, our team bore little
resemblance to our church at all.
Most of the players were either friends or friends of friends. We called ourselves the Knoxville
Angels because of the Church League affliation. We played our home games in the corner of the PE field at
the high school, a section we affectionately named “Heaven – Home of the
Angels.”
Steve
Hickerson’s grandfather was Gale Ward, who ran the biggest sporting goods store
in the area, so he managed to get us a good deal on light blue uniforms with
red lettering. We were set.
Steve
did most of our catching. Third
base was manned by Junior Marquith.
Our shortstop was Doug Albright and his partner at second base was
usually Rick Carlson. Bob Borden
played first base. In the
outfield, Harold Saline (who had been my coach in little league) was an
absolutely crazy player who caught anything hit within a hundred yards of
him. Jeff Ring patrolled
centerfield and whoever we could find would play right field. Sometimes it was Marcos Ferrer,
sometimes Randy Kniss, Mark Duckwiler, or Randy Hauer, and sometimes it was
actually someone who went to our church.
I would pitch one game and trade places with someone else on the team
who would pitch the second game.
Every
Sunday we’d play a double header against another team in the league. We were good enough to challenge for
the league championship each year (usually Corpus Christi would win it). At the end of the season, we’d have a
double elimination tournament and two years in a row, we took second place
(after having to play three or four games in a row in one day).
We
all loved playing softball so much that we’d go out of our way to find other
teams to play. The Salvation Army
in Galesburg had a team and we’d play them every once in a while. Abingdon and Lewistown both had fast
pitch teams and a couple times a season, we’d play them as well. Heck, there was once we played a girls’
team from a church in Galesburg just for fun (we won).
There
was just one incident that marred our success. As I mentioned, we had trouble finding players when we first
started, so I began recruiting anywhere and everywhere I could. There were a couple of guys who were
attending classes at Knox during the summer who were interested in playing and
we were glad to have them. The
only thing was (and it didn’t matter one iota to any of us on the team), they
were black.
Word
got around Knoxville that we had black players on our team and the mayor of
Knoxville actually showed up on my doorstep to tell me that “we don’t want no
n*****s wearin’ Knoxville uniforms!”
He
never explained who “we” were so I suggested that His Honor take a flying
leap. The two guys I recruited
stayed.
One
of the teams from Peoria was sponsored by S&K Chevrolet. They had a revolving door for players
and we never knew who they were going to bring to town, but we knew they’d
probably be really good.
On
one trip to Knoxville, they brought a pitcher who threw the ball faster than
anyone we’d ever seen. He was left
handed and he cranked that ball underhanded as fast as what most of us could throw
overhanded. Harold Saline was the
only hitter we had that could hope to get a hit off of him.
I
think I struck out my on my first trip to the plate. I was a decent hitter, but there was no way I could get
around on this guy. My second at
bat, I batted left handed. I
figured if nothing else, I’d drag bunt and have a chance at getting on.
I
figured right. I bunted, he
fielded the ball, then threw it over the fence trying to get me at first. I signaled for the next batter to bunt
as well. This time the pitcher
didn’t field the ball cleanly and I went to third. The next batter also bunted and the pitcher made his third
error in as many plays. He could
throw the ball underhand, but he didn’t have a prayer of fielding the ball or
throwing someone out at first.
I
kept signaling for the bunt and our batters kept bunting the ball right back to
him. He kept trying to field the
ball and screwing it up. Even when
their first and third basemen came in and played almost right next to the
pitcher, trying to field for him, he’d bump into them or they wouldn’t be able
to field the ball either. We
scored a bunch of runs without ever hitting the ball out of the infield.
Other
than the time I spent with certain girls in high school and college, I don’t
think that I can find any memories that are more precious to me than those
spent playing softball.
Part
II
Nothing
Up My Sleeve
Jon
Gallagher
Too
Old, huh?
Last
week I wrote about playing softball in high school and college. I was a pretty decent player and took
every opportunity I could to remind those around me that I had once been good.
Then
about ten years ago, a friend of mine recruited me to play slow pitch softball
in the Galesburg Fall League.
I
should have realized at the time that more than twenty years had passed between
the last time I had picked up a softball and this time. But as a male member of our species, I
have a chemical imbalance in my brain that makes males think that at age 42,
you can still do the same things you did at 22 and be no worse the wear.
By
the time you get to 52, where I am now, your brain is able to override these
silly thoughts, not so much because of logic, but more or less because of self
preservation. Thank God for that.
Since
the chemical imbalance was doing its thing and shutting off all the parts of
the brain that were shouting “NO!!!!” I agreed to play for the team sponsored
by Pizza Hut.
This
was a little weird because I was working as a part time delivery driver for
Papa John’s at the time (I was teaching full time). I had worked for Pizza Hut for five years and was still
friends with everyone there, so I donned my Pizza Hut shirt, my Papa John’s
hat, and headed for the diamond.
Our
team was a ragtag bunch of over the hill guys, all suffering from the same
chemical imbalance that was negating the electrical synapses in our brains that
were pleading with us, “DON’T DO THIS!”
My
first real indication that I should rethink the decision to play was when I
pulled out my old softball glove.
It was an Andre Dawson model.
Andre had already been retired for two years by this time, but the chemical
imbalance worked overtime to block any rational thoughts regarding the age of
my glove.
As
we warmed up playing catch on the sidelines, my glove, which had already
emitted a mushroom cloud of dust that was 20 years old the first time the ball
hit it, exploded. All those little
leather strips that held it together just disintegrated like something from The
Mummy.
While
my real brain was yelling, “That could be your body!!!” the chemical imbalance
told me to go borrow someone else’s glove.
Talk
about foreshadowing!
The
manager of our team asked me what position I wanted to play. I’d always pitched, so that’s what I
told him. I figured somewhere in
the back of my mind that it would be a safe position where I wouldn’t have to
do a lot of running or catching.
As
a team, I don’t think we had a real concept of what softball was supposed to be
about. Most of my teammates didn’t
realize that if you caught the ball on the fly, and you did that three times,
not even in a row, you could go sit down for a while on the nice little benches
over on the side of the field.
Most of my fielders would let the ball drop because it was easier to go
over and pick it up when it stopped rolling than it was to catch it while it
was still moving.
We
finally got to bat, but that didn’t last very long since the other team knew
about that three out thing.
I
found out that if I wanted to go sit down, I better learn how to strike out
batters. Unfortunately, that’s not
as easy as it sounds since you’re lobbing the ball at the plate on a 12 foot
arch.
The
second inning didn’t last as long as the first because some merciful soul put
in a rule in Fall League baseball that said that after a team had hit three
homeruns, any other homeruns would count as outs.
Thank
you! Thank you! Thank you!
It
finally got my turn to bat. I was
already winded from having to throw so damn many pitches, but I grabbed a bat
and headed for the plate. I’d
always played fast pitch softball and had never tried to hit one of those
arching pitches.
Let
me tell you…. That ball looks like it’s a DeSoto coming in so slow. I swung at the first pitch, dislocated
at least four vertebrae, and missed.
I’m not sure how I missed something that size, but then again, the
chemical imbalance was working its magic.
I
slammed the second pitch. I sent a
scorching ground ball down to the third baseman. That ball must have bounced 34 or 35 times getting down to
him.
Meanwhile,
the chemical imbalance told me to run.
I had to go to first base.
And
that’s the first time that the real part of my brain shouted loud enough for me
to hear. “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR
MIND?” it was asking.
Meanwhile,
the third baseman was busy trying to pick up the ball. He picked it up, dropped it, picked it
up again, dropped it again, then kicked it as he went after it. The shortstop then went to help, kicked
it back to the third baseman who then picked it up and fired it to first to nip
me by about twenty feet.
Half
way down to first, my legs and knees staged a total revolt and refused to participate
further in this silly experiment.
Somehow, they knew what my brain was refusing to recognize, mainly the
fact that I was WAY over the hill.
My
second at bat of the night went a little better. I guess “better” is a relative term depending on how you’re
looking at it. I hit the ball
again and this time, it made it to the outfield. I jogged to first, proud of myself that I’d gotten a base
hit.
It
was right about that moment that my real brain kicked in again to remind me
that I now had to run the bases.
The
next batter hit the ball to the shortstop who made a nice play on it. I was running (or what could almost
pass as running) to second when he turned to fire the ball to the second
baseman. Suddenly I realized that
they were going to throw me out at second!
Enter
Mr. Chemical Imbalance again. I
started running harder, anticipating the need to slide. I could hear my third base coach
yelling, “NO! DON’T SLIDE!” but by
now, my real brain had given up completely on trying to control my body.
I
slid.
The
ball went over the second baseman’s head.
I
did a pop-up slide.
For
those of you who don’t know what a pop up slide is, let me explain. When you start to slide into a base,
the right leg extends straight while the left leg curls under you with the shin
acting as sort of a brake. As soon
as the right foot comes in contact with something solid like a base, the left
leg pushes up and in one smooth motion you pop up to a standing position. Done right, it’s a thing of beauty.
I
did it right. I’m not sure how,
but I did the most beautiful popup slide of my life. I did, however, know why I had done it. Since the ball had been thrown into
right field, I needed to be on my way to third base. Therefore, a popup slide would have put me back on my feet
so I could start heading that way.
It was just good baseball instincts.
Stupid
instincts.
Three
steps into my trek to third base, my entire body just gave out. Just stopped, all at once. There was no warning, no signs, no
nothing. I just fell, face first,
into the dirt between second and third.
This
meant that I was not on a base and I could be tagged out. Those stupid instincts kicked in again,
and I scrambled on my belly back to second base.
At
second base, I came face to feet with the guy who had hit the ball. He’d seen the ball go over the second
baseman’s head, seen me start off for third, so he headed for second which was
where he was now perched.
Something
in my brain seemed to remember a rule against two people from the same batting
team standing on the same base.
Technically, I wasn’t standing, but I didn’t think that the umpire would
cut me a lot of slack for this small detail, so I got up and urged myself to
third.
Just
as I got to third, the ball sailed over the third baseman’s head, but by this
time, I wasn’t going anywhere. If the next batter hit a homerun, either they were going to
have to wait for a long time for me to catch my breath, or they were going
to have to load me onto someone’s
shoulders to be carried home.
I
didn’t bat anymore during that game.
The mercy rule finally kicked in because we were getting the holy snot
kicked out of us. I drove home a
very tired semi-young man.
Somebody
should have warned me about the next morning.
When
I woke up, nothing worked. My legs
wouldn’t move, my arms were in extreme pain, my back was on fire…. Heck even my
eyelashes were hurting.
Somehow
I managed to get out of bed, grab a long hot shower and head for school. It was a 45 minute trip to school so my
muscles had plenty of time to atrophy.
My students that day didn’t know why their teacher was acting like he’d
just been run over by a train, and I wasn’t going to tell them either.
My
real brain kept going, “Tsk, tsk.
I told you so!” Mr.
Chemical Imbalance was hiding somewhere in the recesses of my brain, not saying
a word.
Of
course, the following week when it was time to play ball again, Mr. Chemical
Imbalance was right back at the forefront of my brain, urging me on for another
week. And the week after. And the week after that.
When
the next year rolled around, my real brain was able to make itself heard when
they called to see if I wanted to play in Fall League again.
If
it hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t have been around still to write this column.