Still, this is just one of my baseball memories. Baseball memories are part and parcel of how
a Jewish boy remembers growing up in Brooklyn in the years just after the
War. In the other stories, it was not
world history that was changed but myself and my life and the whole way I
looked at the world. So it’s a whole
bundle of story lines that have to be woven together.
Beer is Bitter
The first story
is how Grandpa Dave introduced me to beer because he was too excited to walk
down to the stand where they sold sodas. I was very young then and couldn’t go
anywhere by myself. It was also fun to
go with grandpa. My own daddy was always
working, so he never took me anywhere, except maybe the stamp show once a year.
Grandpa was retired. He liked baseball and other many things. I liked baseball but was not sure what it was,
how, for instance, it differed from stickball that big boys played on the street,
or roll the ball around the kitchen. So
when he took me to Ebbetts Field that was exciting. Lots of people, lots of noise, and something I
could barely see happening out on the field.
So
actually after a short while I became bored and wanted to go home. Grandpa wanted to stay to see the game, so I
had to stay. But I got hungry and
thirsty. That’s when he bought be a
hotdog on a b un from a man with a little box tied round his neck. When he asked another man, this one with a
funny cardboard hat on his head, if he could have a coca cola for the little
lad, who was me, the man said, Nah, he only sells beer, and that you have to go
yourself under the bleachers and buy coca cola from a machine for a nickel. Grandpa said he would give me a nickel to go
buy own bottle. I was too scared. That’s when he got me a beer. It was bitter but because I was very thirsty
I drank three sips. But don’t tell
anyone, he said. I promised not to. Well, at least until today. It was hard because I became very sleepy,
stayed that way on the bus,. And then when we met my mother in the kitchen, and
no one knew why I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
Learning What You Are
The second
little story is about how I got lost
coming out of a game and found myself in the middle of a whole crowd of Negro
fans and thus discovered that I was a minority and not a normal person. That was important for me, but not for
history. You probably can imagine it as
well as I. However, here are a few
little details to help you. I went with
Grandpa Dave again, but several years later so I was not afraid to buy a coca
cola by myself. I also could go to the
toilet for a pee without having anyone take me and then find my way back,
usually. On that day, as you can now
imagine, I didn’t. It was near the end
of the game anyway, but I still had to
go bad. The game was slow to end and
there were extra innings. Not too
many. By the time I was lost, the
Dodgers had lost, and the crowds started coming out of the bleachers. So when I found myself at the other side of
the stadium where all colored people sat, I was really lost and scared. Then a man helped me. he was black but he was like a regular person
and held my hand when we got outside, stood near the bus stop, and waited with
me until Grandpa came. That’s how I learned
the important things in life, only I didn’t know it for a while.
Changing the World
Here is another
memory of those days. This is the
important one. You might think it was
nice and sweet, like all those kids who were interviewed on the Happy Felton Knothole Gang or whatever
they were called. You got free tickets
and a chance to talk about your favourite players. From this we didn’t need, that’s what we
said, since there was no way a 47th Street gang member would ever be
chosen to be with all those slick, snobby non-Jewish fans. Instead we did better. How so?
Easy,
It happened one year, who can
remember which, that we got to Ebbets Field to see the Dodgers playing. The ball park was almost empty from one end
to the other, but still the game went on with two teams, the Dodgers and
whoever else. Because there were so many
empty seats, we decided, why not, to make our way down from the usual bleachers
where we usually sat, and down and down until we were right up near the field
itself, so close you could touch if you reached over and stretched with all you
might.
But it was not stretching for us.
We could see the players close up, like real people, or like with faces
you watch on television if you don’t go the game by yourself and stay at home
and sit next to the television set.
Especially we could see, because he was so close, the short stop, Pee
Wee Reese himself. So we called out, Hey, Pee Wee, watcha gonna do today? It maybe sounded insulting to him; for us it
was friendly, as much as when we played by ourselves stickball in the street
when the cars weren’t passing. But for
him, nu, so it was an insult, we didn’t know why, maybe just a bad day or
something he ate. So we called out a few
times Watcha gonna do, Pee Wee? He turns around to look right in the
face, but a friendly look it wasn't. It
was something scary, let me tell you.
But at once there is a crack, a ball races down the field from the
batter on the other side, it rolls quickly between his legs that he suddenly
notices.
That face of looking right at us turns a different color altogether,
something really mean. Meanwhile the
whole ballpark, which remember wasn’t very full, nevertheless begins to say booh.
Is this for the shortstop himself who lets a ball roll between his legs,
an easy ball to catch and throw to the first baseman to make an out? It is a very loud booh, and a whole series of boohs
and then bad words, and people here and there around us start to point, and the
umpire walks across the field to point to us as well. Booh, booh,
booh.
After that we didn’t know because the whole gang is racing back up the
cement stairs, out the exit, and into the street outside, before the game is
over. Only when we take the bus home and
get back to our own street do we look at each other, catch our breath, look
again at each other, and start to laugh.
One says this, another says that, and still more to say things, until in
a few minutes we change our fear and embarrassment into something to be proud
of. We had become the center of
attention.
But though we didn’t make it on to
the television with commentators or find ourselves in the sports page or even
be mentioned in Happy Felton’s Knothole Gang,
we knew we were famous. We had changed
the course of baseball history. You
don’t believe it? Who cares? The proof is right there in the books because
not so long, could be a year or two, after our famous episode the Dodgers left
Brooklyn and went to California.
Everyone wondered why. Everyone
thought it was a great betrayal of trust to the millions of fans who lived in
Brooklyn. It was something no one would
have expected in a million years. But it
happened. And now you know why.
How To Remember Things: An Ironic Conclusion
Nostalgia,
someone said. This person looked at me
straight in the face because I said the Dodgers didn’t betray everyone. I know because I know. But he said to me: You look at the past
through rose-tinted spectacles. Nothing
is real for you any more. But wait, I
want to say. What I wanted to say then,
and what I just told you, could never been said back then. Nor for many years. The good memories outweigh the bad and I
wanted everyone to think well of the team and the fans, though not the stupid Knothole Gang and all its sissy members.
First of all, let me tell you, no matter what I may remember nice or not
so nice about back then and the people I knew, what does it matter? Matter shmatter. Because what happened happened and only a few
of us knew why and we couldn’t, just couldn’t tell the rest of the people in
Brooklyn. When the Brooklyn Dodgers left
Brooklyn, it was more than just a massive betrayal of the loyalty and love we
all gave the team—Pee Wee Reese and the whole lot of them, win, lose, or
whatever—we were their fans, loyal and true, and we loved them, and because we
loved them, we loved the game. If anyone
of us had revealed the truth, God forbid, at least back then, life would not
have been worth living. So when they
left—God knows why—the world fell apart.
Who wants baseball any more? Who needs it?
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