I was 9 years old in the summer
of 1966,
and
I was playing baseball at the local
vacant lot with some of the neighborhood kids
like we did every day during the summer.
You would find us there.
I was playing catcher.
And back
then, the catcher did not squat right behind
the batter because we didn't have equipment.
We stood maybe 10 to 15 feet behind
the batter to be able to catch any
errant throws,
get foul tips before they got by us
because in this vacant lot that I played
in, where I was standing, I was right
at the edge of a gentle slope that
ran downhill towards a busy two lane road.
And one of my main jobs was to
prevent the ball from getting by me and
onto that road because then if that was
the case, that road also sloped and we'd
be chasing it a while. And we usually
only had 1 baseball, so
the catcher had an important role to play
in our pickup games.
Well, it just so happened that the batter
hit a foul pop up,
which was a real rarity
in
pickup baseball. But also possible because our pitchers
didn't lob the ball in. They threw it
with with some velocity.
Maybe not the velocity of our organized leagues,
but kind of a cross between batting practice
and live pitching.
So I don't know who it was, but
he hit a foul pop up and it
was right over my head. And I was
excited about the fact that I actually had
a chance to catch a foul pop up.
The thing was though, it was right behind
me, so I had to run down the
slope tracking the ball at the same time.
And when I stopped underneath it and caught
it, the very next thing I did was
step on a nail
to the degree that I saw it protruding
through the top of my foot.
Hello. My name is Byron Copely, and this
is All About Baseball, the podcast whose name
fulfills its purpose. Sometimes baseball is the main
character. Sometimes
it plays a supporting role. Sometimes
it's the silent partner.
In this podcast, in which I'm calling baseball,
is all about our DNA.
I'm not gonna wax nostalgic about those days
of playing pickup baseball, or talk about the
fact that
it's something that
isn't done anymore. In fact, I don't remember
my own kids doing it.
I think it was a pursuit that was
exclusive,
based on my observation,
to kids born from maybe,
well, from I don't know how early they
started playing, but I know anyone born after
1975
wasn't playing baseball in the street or in
vacant lots.
Maybe I'll have another podcast about that to
talk about
how those kids may have missed out on
an experience
that I think benefited me in more ways
than I can imagine.
It definitely made me a better baseball player,
that's for sure.
I was able to hone my skills
without any kind of pressure or stakes
with kids that were as good as or
better than me, some of them 5, 6,
7, 8 years older,
who in an earlier podcast I mentioned didn't
give me or any of us any quarter
in terms of
the competition. They set the level of competition
that we had to try to achieve. And
as I got older and improved, I think
I improved because of the fact that I
played in those games against kids that were
much older than me. We all learned the
value of fair play. Cheating was not an
option. Anyone who tried to, and there really
weren't very many ways you could cheat playing
pickup baseball, but anyone who tried to gain
a competitive edge
in a way that we felt was outside
the boundaries of our written and unwritten rules,
we let them know about it. I really
can't think of an example right now, but
in the rare occasion that it did happen,
it wasn't tolerated.
And another aspect of fair play was we
wanted to get the call right. There were
no umpires. We were our own umpires.
Umpires. We wanted the game to play out
as it was naturally. So
if there was a disagreement, we would discuss
it. Sometimes, you know, with raised voices like,
you know, you're full of crap, I was
safe.
No, you weren't, you were out. And we
had the fail safe measure that we would
sometimes resort to if we could not reach
an agreement, and that was takeover.
And if someone suggested it, we all agreed
to it, we just wiped the slate clean
and started again. There was a situation to
get granular here. I do talk about the
fact that this podcast is to examine certain
aspects of baseball under a microscope.
One of our rules was because of the
number of players or the lack thereof
that participated in these games, if we had
10 kids, we had a full house. We'd
have 5 on each side. Catcher, pitcher, 2
infielders, and an outfielder on each team. That
was rare. We were usually playing with anywhere
between
4
7 kids,
so we would switch sides a lot. We
had ghost runners. If you're on 2nd base
and you're up, then you just go go
bat. And if there was no one to
take your place because they were on base,
that's where the ghost runner came in. I
digress a little bit, but it's all about
the fair play still in terms of how
we wanted to maintain that standard of fair
play,
along with the standard of competition.
And we would often have disputes because of
the fact that if there was a ball
hit in play and it was fielded,
to retire the batter runner did not require
the infielder to either step on 1st or
throw to 1st because there was no 1st
basement there. What he did instead was throw
to the pitcher. Pitcher's mound was out. You
can envision in a close situation where the
ball is going to pitcher while the batter
runner is crossing 1st base that there may
have been some cause for dispute. The point
being is that we discussed it and then
made a decision and moved on. The other
aspect, the other virtue, I think, in terms
of made myself and the rest of us
better ballplayers, if we played organized ball. And
just to digress a little bit, it was
not easy to make a little league team
in the 19 sixties.
When I was 10 years old,
there were 18 teams in the league. Each
of them had 15 kids.
When I was 10 years old, it wasn't
just 70 kids that tried out for the
team competing for 15 spots.
There were 70 10 year olds trying out
for 5 spots,
and actually 4, because the coach's
son was one of the 10 year olds.
Now he could play.
No one considered him as someone who was
gifted that spot because he was good. So
there were 70 kids trying out for 4
spots.
The next year, they doubled the amount of
teams to 36. And I don't recall the
level of competition changing all that much. There
were just that many kids who were good
enough to play at that level.
So getting back to my point about repetition.
When we played baseball all day for hours
on end with only 5 players,
It wasn't like an organized game where the
right fielder, the left fielder, or the center
fielder might see 1 or 2 balls the
whole game.
We were constantly fielding balls in the air
on the ground. We were constantly throwing to
bases. We were constantly making decisions. So we
got a ton of repetition in the field,
but also at the plate too. Dozens of
at bats in the course of a pickup
game. Against pitching, as I was saying, that
was I'm gonna keep going through this
lawnmower here. Sorry if it's a distraction. But
against pitching,
that was like I said, a cross between
batting practice and live pitching.
Usually, the older kids pitch because
they had more control and more command. And
to be honest with you, we recognize the
the importance of safety even back then. And
the idea of a 10 year old kid
pitching against a 15 year old kid. We
knew the risks. Didn't want that 10 year
old kid to have to face a line
drive, hit right at him 40 feet away.
I also think one of the most valuable
lessons that I learned that kinda just dawned
on me now was
adaptability.
I can't say I always apply that lesson
in real life now, but
pickup baseball was trying to teach me that
lesson
at a very young age, even to the
point of making the decision to play. The
way that we coalesced, we didn't text each
other obviously, we didn't send each other emails.
We just went door to door, the kids
that we knew
that would be interested in playing, and we
would just
someone would show up and say, let's go
let's go down to the field. And 2
of us would go down the street and
we'd split up and gather as many kids
as we could, and we'd head down there.
And if the parents answered the door, we'd
let them know, hey,
let Scott know that we're playing ball.
So we had our own way of making
it viral,
and and word got around. Because back then,
neighbors talked to each other. So we'd get
down there, we'd pick teams, we'd start playing.
And we'd adapt,
Constantly adapt
to the flux in rosters, to trading players
mid game. Kids had to leave. Kids had
kids would show up once they got the
word.
And we made room one way or another.
No one was ever left out who was
willing to abide by the standards and the
rules that we applied. Baseball was in our
DNA.
Why that was the case? I don't know.
But it just was.
So we made every possible excuse to play
the game in the summertime.
And as a result, I think it made
me a better ball player and also a
better person, ultimately.
I would have missed something had I not
had that experience.
So anyways,
there I was,
sitting on the ground with a board through
my foot and the nail protruding.
And I do remember some of the faces
and names of the kids that gathered around
and they were genuinely concerned. And I must
have been in a bit of a state
of shock because I don't remember
crying or screaming much,
but just the disbelief of seeing a nail
through my foot attached to a board.
I remember one of the kids
one of the kids said, you're gonna get
lockjaw,
as if
it was gonna happen in the next 5
seconds.
So what did I do?
I pulled the board out of my foot
and hobbled home.
And it wasn't too many days later that
I was back at that field,
playing the game that I loved with the
neighborhood kids,
Learning virtues along the way that have been
with me ever since.
My name is Byron Copely. This is all
about baseball.
As always,
if you like this podcast, feel free to
refer it to family and friends. If you
have comments, suggestions, ideas,
or feedback, email me atbcpodcastbaseball@gmail.com.
Until the next time. Thank you.