Growing Up Right

MY PARENTS RASIED ME RIGHT. They made no attempt to indoctrinate me with religion, which I consider a form of child abuse, and, above all, they exposed me to baseball. I became a Yankee fan as a six year old in 1961, the year Maris and Mantle hit all the home runs, becasue both my parents, and all my neighbors said they hated the Yankees, which made me fell sorry for them, and I thought they needed help. Beginning in 1964 my parents began taking me to see the Yankees play, in Kansas City, and eventually other places. That's a lot of trouble to go to for people who hated the Yankees, just to make their little boy happy. The memories warm me, and always will. When Mickey Mantle was sitting on 499 career home runs, we rushed up to K.C. to see him play. He hit one off the top of the forty foot right field wall, a shot which should have been long gone, but bounced back onto the field for a double. My father was even angrier than I. When I was about eleven, we watched a game between Cleveland and Kansas City. Cleveland scored seven runs in the first inning, K.C. scored five in the botton half, and the Indians won the game, twelve to nine. The big left handed first baseman for the Athletics, Jim Gentile, struck out four times, and we noticed that after the game the batting cage was brought out, and he took extra batting practice while the coaches watched. Dad took my sister and me down on to the filed, and asked if we could watch. They said yes, amazingly. We stood right next to the batting cage, while the big slugger sweated and slugged baseballs under scrutiny. I recall placing my fingers around and through the screen, and my dad quickly correcting me, which may have saved me some broken fingers. I found it amazing that Jim was able to hit ball after ball out of the park, to both right and left field, having struck out four times in the game. Almost as if he had saved the best for last. Dad explained the difference between live pitching and batting practice. We left, and were walking through the parking lot behind teh left field grandstands to our car, when a baseball came flying out of the park, bounced on the cement, and began rolling away. Dad excitedly told me to shag it down, and I began running, in my leather dress shoes.(In those days most folks dresssed well in public, and at MLB games). I've never been fast, and my little eleven year olf legs tried their best, but the ball kept getting away, and a slender athletic looking black kid, probably about fifteen years old, outraced me, and grabbed the ball. I still remember my disappointment. As I began to walk away, with head lowered, the African-American gentleman approached me, handed me the ball, and said: "I have a whole drawer full of them at home". I was shocked, and I beamed. I'm pretty sure I remember my father effusively thanking the kid, who jogged away, ball-less. That incident guaranteed that I would never be a racist. One less white supremacist. If we are fortunate, we are raised right by our parents, and if we are even more fortunate, our society pitches in and helps.