THE SECRETS OF THE DUGOUT AT MCCOY

Or what I learned from  baseball players

Yesterday, Sunday afternoon I took one more drive around MCCOY Stadium looking for any signs of that elusive BLUE POND.  I came down Columbus from York Ave  and turned  right onto Lake Street and I kept following it.  I could see between the houses lined up there to the parking and driveway around the Stadium that they all back up to and look down on. 
 Yes, the Stadium is on lower ground and it  looks like a large  bowl because it once was  a relatively large  pond.  All drained and  gone now--it can only live in memories like mine and maybe yours, dear reader. Could not even sniff out the stinky swampy remains.

 I could  find  no  signs of the Blue Pond.  At the end of Lake --it is a through street, I came out on Division Street just past the Stadium parking. I turned left and went the few yards and then turned left again into the Stadium entrance. A game was in progress and it was a  mild and dry Sunday afternoon. As I drove close up to the stadium  I  could see the familiar winding ramps and the gates at the top of them that I had  climbed over so many days.  My climbing days are over, but I felt such  peace and  happiness as a  wave of sound washed over me. 
 I wanted to go inside. 

I have always loved that moment when you finish your climb up the ramp and you enter the seating area  and look down at the rows of seats to that gorgeous emerald green field  hidden like a jewel in the very heart of the  building.  I also  always love a rain delay when  the crews com out and spread that enormous tarp over the  green grass. So beautiful.

But as I got older I seldom climbed the fence; there was an easier and more direct route in my childhood. I just walked  up to the main gates to the field and walked in--I did that if the man who was sitting in the little guard house to the  left of the gate was in a good mood.
Or if he was  reading his paper and didn't notice-- or if he was taking a little snooze. So most days one of those conditions was met and I walked in and  romped over to the dugout.  

There I was  well-received. I loved listening to the players as they practiced and commented  on the game. They sang songs and they often asked me to sing some of those songs that my father had sung to me  PISTOL PACKIN MAMA  and BEAUTIFUL BROWN EYES.
 I also loved chewing and spitting some of the pumpkin and sunflower seeds that they offered me. I imitated them, their walk and nonchalance and cool swagger. They seemed to me the essence of manliness. 
I never met a player I did not  like--I deeply imprinted on them and their ways and looks. Think of Ted Williams in his prime--that long lanky look, and his easy going and often laconic ways.
Think of Joe Dimaggio walking with the casket of  Marilyn Munroe --as one  commentator describes after his death:

Joe DiMaggio was probably the man in the actress’s life who had sincerely loved her the most - he supported her in the aftermath of her divorce from Arthur Miller in 1961 and arranged her funeral after her tragic death in 1962. Last and not least, he sent several times a week roses to her grave until his own death in 1999.

I came to admire that  kind of stoic faithfulness and deep if often hidden emotion AND when they released those pent up feelings--watch out!.
I loved the way that they would all rush  out of the dugout if any team member got  hit by a ball or started a scuffle with the batter. 
I learned about the signals  between the pitcher and the catcher. AND I  developed  a great admiration and respect for the catcher position because it is difficult and also carries a large psychological load. The  catcher must know how to read, please and calm the pitcher. This relationship is captured so well in BULL DURHAM and that is one baseball movie that gets it.

 Years later when I fell madly in love with  a man I met in Illinois where I was in graduate school, why was I not surprised when he told me that he had  played baseball in the minors.