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Today, we have something a bit different. We welcome back contributor Mark Kolier with an interesting essay reflecting back on what baseball meant to him in different stages of his life: From playing wiffle ball in the backyard, to coaching his son’s Little League team, to playing on a Men’s Senior League team against “real” players. And, if we can take Mark’s word for it, this last part wasn’t very pretty, as you’ll soon see. He concludes with a refreshing account of the long, lost “art” of infield chatter, which we all remember from our youth.
We thank Mark for demonstrating what the great game of baseball has meant to all of us. There’s no game that has played a bigger role in bonding fathers with their sons than the great game of baseball. And no, the player in the featured photo is not Mark…he’s in much better shape! (I hope this guy, whoever he is, doesn’t mind me blasting him all over the internet!) -GL
Refreshing Chatter:
Recalling Baseball From the Back Yard to the Men’s Senior League
“This guy doesn’t have a fastball, just wait on him.” -Anonymous player watching Mark Kolier pitch in a Men’s Senior League game
In 1985, renowned sportscaster Howard Cosell released a book entitled I Never Played the Game. It was a detailed account by Cosell to deny “playing the political game” in his vocation as a sports journalist. To me, it would have been a better read if the overall take was what it was like to cover professional sports without ever having been a professional player.
For years, non-professionals have written about baseball and other sports having never set foot on a professional diamond, field, floor, court, or rink. Most writers, announcers, and even podcasters (present company included) understand that having not actually played pro ball hardly precludes one from writing and talking about it.
What might it be like for a non-player to actually play on the field with players who actually had played professionally? Over twenty years ago, I had a personal summer experience while I was in my early 40s playing baseball with “real” baseball players in the Men’s Senior Baseball League. It was a fantastic and memorable experience even if I personally was terrible and overmatched. What I learned on the field were things I never could have seen or known if I would have never crossed the white chalk line onto the field of play.
When my oldest was old enough to start playing baseball, I immediately got involved because I had always loved baseball. I grew up playing a lot of backyard baseball with my neighborhood friends. We played fungo-ball and one year I hit maybe 80 home runs into the grape arbor over the backyard fence. That was a record that lasted one season when Andy Grossman hit something like 134. Yeah, it still kind of bothers me.
I never played organized baseball after my own Little League career ended at age 12. Tennis became my top sport, but I still was a pretty good wiffleball and softball player before and after high school. Coaching kid’s baseball in my 30s rekindled my love for the game. Sure, I was a fan of my favorite team and watched baseball all the time, but I had not done much throwing and catching or hitting grounders and fly balls since I was a kid! The kids seemed to have fun and for me, it was SO MUCH FUN! I still miss it today since I love and loved coaching kids.
Through coaching and being league President of the local Little League, I got to be known as a “baseball guy” around town even though I hadn’t played in nearly thirty years. That was true of most of the dads that coached and gave time to their kids’ teams. A bunch of actual former baseball players (meaning they played beyond Little League at least) started playing pickup baseball early Sunday mornings (the only time the field was available) and I was invited to show up. They called it the “Ponce de Leon” League for those that wanted to discover their own fountain of youth. It was informal, fun, and I enjoyed it for the lark that it was.
Things then got more serious when the guys decided to form a team and play in the MSBL. At the time I had some idea that there was amateur baseball for old guys since a great friend of mine (and one of my backyard baseball buddies) had played a few games. He told me the late John Stearns, former Met, had shown up to play a few games. That got my attention.
I was invited to be a part of the team (needing live bodies was a primary reason) so I joined up. Players on the team were made of former high school and college players and even a former Double AA pitcher. I remember standing at the plate watching this big lefty pitcher pitch to me knowing that he had an 88 MPH fastball and a slider. I was told to look for the red dot while watching the pitch since that would help identify the slider. I was more focused on trying not to get hit by a pitch that was going very fast and seemingly coming right at me!
Another time in practice, I was at third base during hitting practice and a guy comes up to the plate – Gary Scott, who played 67 games at third base for the Cubs in 1991 and 1992 with Mark Grace, Ryne Sandburg, and Shawon Dunston. We were playing at that time with metal bats and he hit one past me that I did not even see. It SOUNDED different than all the other guys hitting. I literally walked off the field shaking my head happy to still have it!
The first time I put on a real baseball uniform with stirrups, socks, and cleats made me feel like an imposter despite how cool it felt. I was mainly a pitcher and threw what I thought to be a knuckleball – off the knuckles. I did not even know that you were meant to throw that pitch off the fingertips! I guess calling it a fingertip ball is not as cool and originally the pitch was thrown off the knuckles. I remember getting outs on the mound and thinking that I might be able to do this until a player on the other team said, “This guy doesn’t have a fastball, just wait on him.”
Uh-oh, I was found out! The rest of the season did not go well for me, and the team was better when I did not play! But often there were two 7-inning doubleheaders on a Sunday and getting guys to commit six hours or more to baseball every weekend had me playing more games than should have been the case.
What I also heard on the field was the constant chatter that you don’t hear or notice at the big-league level, mainly because infield chatter fell out of favor at the big-league level a long time ago. Older players like us who grew up in a time in which infield chatter was the norm were not trying to be bench-jockeying antagonists intending to throw off the opposition. The infield chatter I heard was positive and empowering and constant! The on-the-field vibe was just great.
With today’s pitch clock, I’d imagine that there is little or no chatter on the infield with everyone concentrating on the game and the situation. I’d give anything to hear that chatter again!
Mark Kolier
Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and now Substack.com
Photo Credits: All from Google search
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