Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson Stealing Home
Baseball playoffs have begun, and I get heartsick. It happens every year.
Baseball, you see, is at the very center of my life. Its effect on me comes not only from the play of its reality on my very existence, but also from baseball-as-metaphor for many of my life's situations, circumstances, and, most centrally, attitudes.
Brief background: On April 5, 1948, my father appeared on the cover of Life Magazine as a Brooklyn Dodger rookie, and, as a direct result of his playing professional baseball, here I am (along with 17 other descendents, so far).
Mom and Dad met when he played first base and pitched for the Crowley Millers in the summer of 1950. He still holds several team and Evangeline League (south Louisiana) records from that 1945-1954 era of minor-league baseball (post World War II and pre-television).
When that 1950 season ended, Dad returned to Mobile, Alabama and was soon drafted into the Army for the Korean War. But before he left for basic training in Missouri and eventual stationing in Ft. Monmouth, N.J., he made a return trip to Crowley between Christmas and New Year's of 1950 and proposed to Mom. She accepted.
After our growing family of four (it would reach 10) returned to live in Crowley in February of 1954 (after Dad's discharge from the Army), Dad began a coaching career that lasted 20 years. He coached me and hundreds of other boys at every level:
Crowley's Minor League Dodgers (8,9), Little League Ricebirds (10,11,12 yrs old), Pony League Indians (13,14), Colt League Sox (15,16) and American Legion Millers (17, 18). He coached a couple of years before and after I played for him at all of those levels.
His teams always won the pennant or finished second. I was very proud to play under him, as his knowledge and "feel" for the basics AND sublties of the game were legendary in our town.
He "looked" the part too, being the only manager who wore a complete baseball uniform (with spikes) as we players did. You could plainly see the admiration in the eyes of the hundreds of boys who played for him, and how they adored playing for a former professional baseball player.
I never could hit a baseball as well as Dad could, so my 11-year baseball career ended after my freshman year at LSU, where I played shortstop on the LSU Junior Varsity team. After that 1970 season, I gave up the dream of playing professional baseball, and headed in another direction.
But baseball was and still is never far from my mind or heart. Perhaps that's because the life lessons baseball teaches are many and varied.
1. Team first. Individuals may win all sorts of accolades for their stellar play, but the championship is the thing. I was always proudest when my team was crowned champions, despite what kind of season I had personally.
2. Never give up. Baseball, unlike almost every other sport, has no time clock running. You have a chance to win the game until that last out in the ninth inning. In fact, some of the most memorable games in which I played were come-from-behind victories.
3. You don't have to be near-perfect to be great. The BEST hitters fail to get a hit two-thirds of the time. You can swing and completely miss the ball TWICE in each at bat and still you have one more chance.
4. The entire season and/or entire career (like life) is what counts, not temporary streaks of either good or bad performance. Sometimes a small adjustment, the smallest of details, will turn around a poor string of performances on both the team and individual levels.
5. The very best players are good sports both on and off the field, and they continue to learn from older players/managers/coaches and also offer to teach younger players.
6. Risk-taking based on a solid understanding of both the game and your talent is encouraged and rewarded. Crazy risk-taking based on nothing more than adrenaline and testosterone earns you a quick trip to the showers.
7. Baseball requires skills that are not learned or mastered quickly. It takes years of dedication and discipline and continued practice. That "natural touch" you see at the pro level was initiated in the player at age 2,3,4,5, when a father placed a small bat in the hands of his son and encouraged him every step of the way.
Look at Michael Jordan (basketball), Bo Jackson (football), Deion Sanders (football), Dave DeBushchere (basketball) or ANY other top-level athlete who mastered another sport at All-Star caliber but who could NOT translate their talent to baseball at anywhere near the same level of success.
Lesson: Baseball requires more different kinds of skills from an athlete, performed at a higher level of competence, than does any other sport. It has often been acknowledged that hitting a pitched baseball is the most difficult challenge in all of sport.
Dad used to tell me that three things are needed to acquire those skills: Practice, practice, practice.
8. Numbers, consistent numbers, are used as important gauges of success in baseball, and it's the unusual fan who can't rattle off his favorite players' statistics. But players and coaches know that numbers only tell part of the story.
9. At the bottom of all discussions about great players is the issue of "heart." The greatest baseball players had it, and everyone knew who they were and who they were not. Heart, dad always reminded me, was desire translated into clutch performance for the team's sake.
That's the best life lesson I learned from my father, and from baseball.
As I enter the sixth inning of my own life, one phrase still rings true in my ears and echoes in my heart:
Play Ball !
Baseball playoffs have begun, and I get heartsick. It happens every year.
Baseball, you see, is at the very center of my life. Its effect on me comes not only from the play of its reality on my very existence, but also from baseball-as-metaphor for many of my life's situations, circumstances, and, most centrally, attitudes.
Brief background: On April 5, 1948, my father appeared on the cover of Life Magazine as a Brooklyn Dodger rookie, and, as a direct result of his playing professional baseball, here I am (along with 17 other descendents, so far).
Mom and Dad met when he played first base and pitched for the Crowley Millers in the summer of 1950. He still holds several team and Evangeline League (south Louisiana) records from that 1945-1954 era of minor-league baseball (post World War II and pre-television).
When that 1950 season ended, Dad returned to Mobile, Alabama and was soon drafted into the Army for the Korean War. But before he left for basic training in Missouri and eventual stationing in Ft. Monmouth, N.J., he made a return trip to Crowley between Christmas and New Year's of 1950 and proposed to Mom. She accepted.
After our growing family of four (it would reach 10) returned to live in Crowley in February of 1954 (after Dad's discharge from the Army), Dad began a coaching career that lasted 20 years. He coached me and hundreds of other boys at every level:
Crowley's Minor League Dodgers (8,9), Little League Ricebirds (10,11,12 yrs old), Pony League Indians (13,14), Colt League Sox (15,16) and American Legion Millers (17, 18). He coached a couple of years before and after I played for him at all of those levels.
His teams always won the pennant or finished second. I was very proud to play under him, as his knowledge and "feel" for the basics AND sublties of the game were legendary in our town.
He "looked" the part too, being the only manager who wore a complete baseball uniform (with spikes) as we players did. You could plainly see the admiration in the eyes of the hundreds of boys who played for him, and how they adored playing for a former professional baseball player.
I never could hit a baseball as well as Dad could, so my 11-year baseball career ended after my freshman year at LSU, where I played shortstop on the LSU Junior Varsity team. After that 1970 season, I gave up the dream of playing professional baseball, and headed in another direction.
But baseball was and still is never far from my mind or heart. Perhaps that's because the life lessons baseball teaches are many and varied.
1. Team first. Individuals may win all sorts of accolades for their stellar play, but the championship is the thing. I was always proudest when my team was crowned champions, despite what kind of season I had personally.
2. Never give up. Baseball, unlike almost every other sport, has no time clock running. You have a chance to win the game until that last out in the ninth inning. In fact, some of the most memorable games in which I played were come-from-behind victories.
3. You don't have to be near-perfect to be great. The BEST hitters fail to get a hit two-thirds of the time. You can swing and completely miss the ball TWICE in each at bat and still you have one more chance.
4. The entire season and/or entire career (like life) is what counts, not temporary streaks of either good or bad performance. Sometimes a small adjustment, the smallest of details, will turn around a poor string of performances on both the team and individual levels.
5. The very best players are good sports both on and off the field, and they continue to learn from older players/managers/coaches and also offer to teach younger players.
6. Risk-taking based on a solid understanding of both the game and your talent is encouraged and rewarded. Crazy risk-taking based on nothing more than adrenaline and testosterone earns you a quick trip to the showers.
7. Baseball requires skills that are not learned or mastered quickly. It takes years of dedication and discipline and continued practice. That "natural touch" you see at the pro level was initiated in the player at age 2,3,4,5, when a father placed a small bat in the hands of his son and encouraged him every step of the way.
Look at Michael Jordan (basketball), Bo Jackson (football), Deion Sanders (football), Dave DeBushchere (basketball) or ANY other top-level athlete who mastered another sport at All-Star caliber but who could NOT translate their talent to baseball at anywhere near the same level of success.
Lesson: Baseball requires more different kinds of skills from an athlete, performed at a higher level of competence, than does any other sport. It has often been acknowledged that hitting a pitched baseball is the most difficult challenge in all of sport.
Dad used to tell me that three things are needed to acquire those skills: Practice, practice, practice.
8. Numbers, consistent numbers, are used as important gauges of success in baseball, and it's the unusual fan who can't rattle off his favorite players' statistics. But players and coaches know that numbers only tell part of the story.
9. At the bottom of all discussions about great players is the issue of "heart." The greatest baseball players had it, and everyone knew who they were and who they were not. Heart, dad always reminded me, was desire translated into clutch performance for the team's sake.
That's the best life lesson I learned from my father, and from baseball.
As I enter the sixth inning of my own life, one phrase still rings true in my ears and echoes in my heart:
Play Ball !
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