Read Still Pitching for Free Online

is a sacrilege for them to pretend they’ve witnessed those events. To make my point, I’ve deliberately saved my story for last. Once I have their attention, I draw out all the details, embellishing them wherever I can.
    On an early June afternoon, I tell them, my father took my brother Alan and me to a day game against the Cubs. This was Alan’s first time at Ebbets, and for the first few innings he was flushed with the kind of euphoria that comes from watching your first big league game. But by the fifth inning, he was bored. While my kid brother nodded off, Carl Erskine retired the last twelve Cubbies to complete the first live no-hitter I ever saw.
    I pause here to let everyone take in the importance of this event. Then I punched up the climax.
    â€œI still remember the last play of the game,” I say. It was when Eddie Miksis hit an easy ground ball to Pee Wee Reese. I neatly penciled 6-3 in my scorecard and jumped to my feet to watch as players and fans headed for the mound to celebrate.
    Later on, whenever I told that story, I made sure to emphasize the fact that I attended the game—that I didn’t watch it on TV or read about it in a book or in The Sporting News . Part of it of course was to show off. But I also wanted my cronies to be more respectful of the game.
    After we finish reminiscing, we watch batting practice. Baseball gloves in hand, the five of us stand behind the box seats between third and home. When a foul fly twists toward us, bouncing crazily off the concrete promenade, we wrestle with two Flatbush Avenue hoods—kids our own age who sport greasy DA haircuts and wear pegged pants, motorcycle jackets, and black shit kickers.
    If I saw them in the street or on the subway, I’d cut out as quickly as possible. But here on my turf, I wasn’t afraid to tangle with them. It’s an Ebbets Field baseball at stake here—one of the most coveted souvenirs you can bring home. Worth at least a day or two’s bragging rights in the schoolyard.
    An hour before game time, we drift over to the right field bullpen to watch “The Knothole Gang,” WOR-TV’s pregame show. Wearing a blue Dodger warm-up jacket and cap, today the rotund host, Happy Felton, introduces Gil Hodges, our team’s first baseman, to the TV audience. Gil grabs a bat and hits a bunch of easy grounders and pop flies to three kids. They are all twelve or thirteen years old, and each is wearing his Little League baseball uniform. One of them in a baggy, “Brooklyn Kiwanis Club” shirt wins an autographed baseball. He also gets to go to the dugout with Hodges. We walk away grousing about this injustice.
    â€œHow come those kids got picked?” Billy asks.
    Heshy yells “Hey, Happy Man, how do we get on the show?”
    â€œYeah, how come we don’t get picked,” I mumble to myself under my breath.
    Old Hap looks up and smiles at us. Then he turns away, unclasps his microphone and shuffles his cue cards.
    Just before game time , Dodger players perch on the top step of the dugout. A wave of cheers cascades up from the lower stands. This lets us know that up in the “old catbird seat” behind home plate, Red Barber has just announced, “And the Dodgers take the field” to everyone listening in on the radio and watching on TV. Gladys Gooding plays the National Anthem on her Hammond organ, Lucy Monroe sings “Oh say can you see .   .” in her high-pitched soprano, and I watch as fathers in shirt sleeves and fedoras and young boys with Dodger caps and two-toned reversible jackets tied around their waists place their hats in front of their hearts and sing along.
    No matter how corny this ritual is, for those few moments, I feel as if I belong to a coterie of kindred spirits.
    Out on the field, the players in their starched white uniforms stand silent and still. When they place their hats over their hearts I notice that Pee Wee’s sandy blond