What the Man Said

There's nothing worse than baseball nostalgists inextricably tying in the sport with the innocence of youth. Not that I have anything against the innocence of youth?it's just that I recall that state encompassing rampant barbarism as much as cloying sentimentality. Baseball gets it even worse because it's played in the summer, that magical season in which all things seem possible, and most of us only played the sport as kids.

My Little League baseball days were in the mid-70s, in the small coal-region town of Ashland, PA. My team was the Phillies, which filled me with pride as we were named after the Philadelphia Phillies, whom we all worshipped in that part of the state. Unfortunately, we were perennial cellar dwellers in the league, who only had one freakish half-season where we came up one run short in a championship playoff. Otherwise, we received steady indoctrination in life's humiliation that we'd learn much more of in adulthood; as kids, we were more pragmatic than a 40-year-old divorcee in a singles bar.

One idyllic June evening, the worst indignity of all was inflicted not on us, but on our long-suffering coach, Barry. He was the best coach I ever had in any sport: kind, encouraging, not prone to histrionics and a stickler for the basics of the game. Barry was a hard-luck factory worker, probably in his mid-20s at the time, with a wife and a few kids. He was odd in the sense that his kids were still toddlers, but he was coaching. Most of the coaches were there only because their sons were of-age. Barry just loved the game, and was most likely trying to sharpen his skills for when his own kids would play in a few years.

I remember the day well. After dinner, as usual on a game day, I suited up in my uniform. There was something special about putting on that cotton jersey and white pants with a red stripe going up each side, but the best part was putting on the stirrup socks like the Major Leaguers wore. My mom hustled me into the station wagon and drove me to the field for batting practice an hour before the game. Batting practice was always great fun. Barry would be on the pitching mound lobbing in easy strikes, the idea being if we got good cuts at the ball, it would build our confidence for the game. Barry would call out a name, and that player would grab a bat and helmet and go to the plate. The rest of us would be on the field, chatting in small groups and making unpressured plays. The best part, though, was in the two-story bunker behind home plate, where the announcer would tune an AM radio to a Top 40 station, put his microphone up to it and play the station over the field's rickety p.a. system.

A lot of prime 70s trash was permanently burned into my brain in this way. I can still see various kids in their uniforms doing the chicken dance to "The Bertha Butt Boogie" by the Jimmy Castor Bunch. Or feel the giddy rush of Grand Funk Railroad's cover of "The Loco-Motion." Even a song like "Cisco Kid" by War that I otherwise might not have cared for sounded great blasting over the field.

This day, the first batter up was George, our power hitter. He was a physical kid, built like a little bull, but a nice guy in general. I'd always take a few steps back in the infield when he came up, and invariably I'd watch George nail at least two or three pitches over the centerfield fence. As he started hitting them out, the song "Listen to What the Man Said" by Paul McCartney and Wings came over the p.a. system. I was in love with that song. McCartney may have been a bit of a pussy, but he was going full-gun while the rest of the Beatles weren't keeping up. Lennon was lost in Yokoland and bad albums. George and Ringo were putting out the typically mediocre albums sidemen always do. And McCartney was, and still is, my favorite Beatle.

So we were all grooving away on that infectiously sweet melody. All was good in the world. Cool summer breezes blowing across the field. The evening sun turning everything gold. Barry lobbed in a sweet one down the heart of the plate, and George hit a screaming line shot straight back at Barry.

I can tell you how a screaming line shot sounds?it sizzles as it comes toward you, a clean sound without that high-end distortion. The closer it gets, the "hotter" it sounds, and your options are to get out of the way, throw up your glove and hope you hear that sweet, hard pop of ball in leather, or get hit. When Barry pitched, he had a glove filled with at least five baseballs. As for how a line shot feels, I got one on my left shoulder once and had the bruise for two weeks. It hurts.

Barry took that line shot straight in the balls. He stood there, slightly crouched over, his hands held palm up. His face was frozen in a silent howl. One by one, the baseballs fell out of his glove and hit the dirt of the mound in soft thuds. I looked at Barry's face. It was beet red, and I noticed that something was poking out of his mouth. It was his Elephant Butts chewing tobacco. He had given a few kids a taste of it at the previous day's practice, and that was the first time I had seen projectile vomiting. Barry was slowly forcing the chew out of his mouth so he wouldn't swallow it whole.

All the while, "Listen to What the Man Said" kept playing. With our world at a standstill, it had the feel of a soundtrack. We all just stood there, not quite sure what to do. George was at the plate, looking like a stuffed bear holding a tree branch. Barry turned to look at me at first base. I was chewing on the leather laces on the edges of my glove. He started breaking wind, loudly. Oh, no, I thought, Barry's going to shit his pants. As if getting hit in the balls weren't humiliating enough. Normally, a person farting like that would have all of us kids in tears, but no one was laughing now.

After one last blast, Barry fell over, his CAT hat falling off in the process. He was out cold. Strangely enough, it happened just as the song was ending, so when he was passed out on the mound, McCartney crooned the song's last line: "The wonder of it all baby/Yeah, yeah, yeah."

The bunker's door flew open and Taxi, the crusty umpire so nicknamed because he actually drove a taxi, came waddling out on the field, informing us that he had phoned an ambulance, and that we had to get Barry off the field. Barry was laid out on his side, still clutching his balls. His white t-shirt was stained with the brown dribble of his chew. Six of us got hold of him and heaved up his dead weight. He was still out cold; I felt like a pall-bearer in a baseball-themed funeral. We all thought Barry was literally going to die, and some of us started crying. Just then, Gene, the assistant coach who looked like Art Carney on steroids, pulled up in his car, so we got Barry into the backseat rather than wait for the ambulance.

Barry would have been proud of us?we won that day in his honor, even if it was a typically sloppy win predicated on our making fewer errors than the other team. He showed up with his wife and kids in the last inning. His face was still red, and he was wearing Bermuda shorts, as he would for the next few weeks. He was smiling and eating ice cream, and made sure to buy each of us, even George, a cone at the concession stand.

Every time I hear "Listen to What the Man Said" now, I think not of love, but of that perfect day in June when Barry took a line shot straight in the balls. Perhaps what happened to him figuratively says more about love than any McCartney song ever will.