7.30.01 GRAND
ISLAND vs PENFIELD,
BATAVIA MUCKDOGS vs STATEN ISLAND YANKEES
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For much of my life I have been haunted by an episode of The Twilight Zone in which a harried ad exec, that familiar metaphor for postwar America and all its wanton ambition, finds a tonic for his oncoming nervous breakdown in a commuter-train hallucination. As his train pulls to a stop, our hero gazes out the window. The scene is bucolic. A charming turn-of-the-century town quietly goes about its business, the air filled with the sound of singing birds and children’s laughter. “Where are we? What is this place?” he desperately asks the conductor. “Willoughby,” comes the reply, “where a man can slow down to a walk and live his life full measure.”
The notion registered with me, a kid trapped in the faceless tractopia of suburban southern California, a world from which I could scarcely wait to escape. Years later, in high school, it turned into a private joke between my friend Brian and me. We’d drive past the Willoughby exit near downtown L.A. and one of us would ironically intone the conductor’s call: “Next stop, Willoughby!” (A rather dark joke, if you recall how the episode ends; it is The Twilight Zone, after all.) Why, just a couple months ago, as I headed out of Cleveland after that Indians game looking for a motel in which to bed down for the night, I thought it just about the funniest thing ever when I came upon the Ohio town of—what else?—Willoughby. I had to stop there, of course. I don’t remember much about it though, other than watching cable until 2 a.m. in my room at the Days Inn.
Who’d have guessed then that the real Willoughby, the vivid Willoughby of Rod Serling’s and my imagination, was still out there, and that I would find it soon enough?
I got to the ballpark early tonight, almost an hour before game time, so I decided to go for a walk. I didn’t get far, though, as just beyond the outfield wall of Dwyer Stadium—and how great is it, by the way, in an age when wildly sophisticated and expensive sporting facilities disingenuously insist on being called “parks” and “fields,” that this glorified backstop boldly proclaims itself a stadium?—I discovered still more playing fields, and one upon which a Little League game was currently in progress. How could I resist?
I found before me the Platonic ideal of the Little League diamond. A bright blue wooden structure wrapped around the backstop behind home plate, flanked on either side by equally bright blue wooden dugouts. Atop the structure was a rickety-looking shack for the announcer; the bottom half, you’d learn by walking around the back, was a parent-run concession stand. Streaming at regular intervals from the backstop were pennants commemorating local championships.
Out on the field, two teams of nine-year-olds representing the communities of Grand Island, near Buffalo, and Penfield, a suburb of Rochester; in the stands and down the lines, their families, alternately encouraging and sympathetic. Unlike the coolly accomplished mercenaries I remember from my Little League days, these all-stars were eminently fallible, as evidenced by the number of dropped fly balls and misplayed grounders I witnessed during the few innings I watched. The parents were all supportive, though—psycho sports-dad stayed home, I guess—and even though they were competing for the chance to play next weekend in the regional finals in Elmira, nobody seemed to be taking any of it too seriously.
After issuing a two-out walk to load the bases, Grand Island’s pitcher, Billy—I swear, I am not making this up—looked over at his dad who was sitting next to me and rolled his eyes. Dad held out his hands in a gesture that said “whaddaya gonna do?” and Billy, collecting himself, quickly secured the final out on a comebacker to the mound, earning high-fives from his teammates and a knowing smile from the bleachers.
My favorite moment, however, came during a conference at the mound between Penfield’s pitcher and catcher. The former had become visibly frustrated, and the latter, all four feet of him covered in oversized protective gear, jogged out to the hill and stood before his battery-mate, talking him down, his every gesture perfectly replicating in miniature the familiar ritual. It was equal parts Norman Rockwell and Charles Schultz, and it was hilarious and wonderful.
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On to the Muckdogs game, though, an extra-innings squeaker that saw Batavia outlast their Yankee-affiliate rivals. I love these guys. Center fielder Rod Perry, whose poise belies his 21 years. Stout third baseman Sean Walsh, a hustling Pete Rose type. First baseman Ryan Howard, built like Fred McGriff. Designated hitter Rich Pohle, a Fullerton slugger whose solo homer tonight in the eighth kept the Muckdogs alive. Scrappy right fielder Erick Rivera, who knocked in two runs and scored three of his own, including the game winner in the tenth. Six-foot-two, 220-pound catcher G. G. Sato, who, when asked in an interview how he wants to be remembered, said simply, “I want people to remember me as the biggest Japanese baseball player they have ever seen.” Done, G. G.
The real star of the evening, though, was the literal star of the evening, that old giver of life, the sun, for as it sank toward the horizon out in deepest left center it nestled behind a great bank of low-riding cumulous clouds from whence radiated shafts of golden-orange light so transcendently beautiful that even a crusty humanist agnostic like me found it difficult to look upon the glorious scene and not be swayed by the message, as unambiguous as the “occupied” sign on the airplane lavoratory door: God is present. How y’all doin’ tonight? Everybody having a good time?
Again, too, the palpable sense of community, the natural, unaffected, outgoing friendliness of the folks gathered here on this warm summer evening, recognizing, I have to think, that there just isn’t any better place to be. Batavia, where a man can slow down to a walk and live his life full measure. I drove home under a waxing moon.
SCORE AFTER FIVE INNINGS: GRAND ISLAND 4, PENFIELD 2; FINAL SCORE: MUCKDOGS 6, YANKEES 5
FOOD CONSUMED: Not only dollar hots, dollar beers, too! Two of each, thanks (they were small beers).