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games. After two years of being a spectator, I felt left out, excluded. It was becoming too excruciating to sit in the cheering section behind Elaine Hirsch, Alice Rosen, and the other popular girls. Even if I failed, I had to try and make myself into a ball player. If my father and his middle-aged teammates could do it, then why couldn’t I?
    I started by asking my father to teach me how to bat, field, and throw. He was only too happy to oblige. Whenever he was home, that is. On those nights, we’d go out in the backyard after dinner and he’d throw me ground balls and pop flies until the sun set behind the Union Carbide gas tank and it got too dark to see. Once in a while we’d drive to the batting range to work on my hitting. Other nights, I’d play punch ball with my Ebbets sidekicks, Heshy, Kenny, and Billy—none of whom were very good athletes. Sometimes, I’d go over to the schoolyard and watch the junior high school guys play softball. Just like I did at Ebbets Field, I studied the best players—analyzing their hitting mechanics and watching the ways they positioned themselves in the field.
    I also honed my skills by teaching my kid brother how to play. Alan had just turned six when I started showing him how to bat and throw. He took to it so quickly that we were soon playing our own invented version of “stoop baseball.”
    On Saturday evenings, we’d huddle around the radio and listen to Today’s Baseball , with Ward Guest, Marty Glickman and Bert Lee Jr. These dinnertime broadcasts were recreations of a selected afternoon Giant, Yankee, or Dodger home game—complete with simulated crowd noises and the crack of the bat meeting the ball. When the program ended, Alan and 1 would put on our hand lettered Dodger uniforms and our black Converse high tops, and we’d head out in the street to play “Dodger stoop baseball.” To begin, we’d each take turns imitating Red Barber’s southern drawl. When I’d shout out, “And the Dodgers take the field,” Alan would hum the organ strains and mimic the crowd’s roar, as we both ran out into the street to take our positions.
    While the imagined TV cameras panned the field, we’d impersonate the entire starting team. First, the infielders, Hodges, Robinson, Reese, and Cox, then the outfielders, Pafko (or Shuba), Snider, and Furillo. And when Alan crouched down in imitation of Campy, I’d mimic the bearlike roundhouse pitching motion of Don Newcombe taking his warm-up tosses.
    Right in the middle of the street, we’d remove our caps and place them over our hearts. I remember that Alan’s sandy crew cut stood straight up like porcupine quills whenever we’d bow our heads and begin to lip-sync the National Anthem. Then the “game” would begin.
    Alan would whip a pink “Spauldeen” high bouncer against the front stoop. Whenever the ball hit the point of the step, it would spring off the wood and skip into the road, where I’d scoop it up and casually toss it back to my brother.
    â€œAnd that retires the side,” I’d report in my announcer’s mode. “Whitey Lockman’s out of there, Reese to Hodges. Easy out,” I’d say. “Six to three if you’re scoring at home.”
    At the end of each half inning, we’d record the put-outs in one of the Ebbets Field score cards that I’d picked up in the aisles.
    By design we could produce line drive outs, pop ups, bunts, and long fly balls. We set boundaries for base hits: a single had to reach the other side of the road, a double had to land on Gail Sloane’s lawn, a triple would have to hit Sloane’s house above the second floor bedroom window, and a home run would have to clear either Sloane’s or Frieda Bergman’s rooftop on a fly.
    The simulated game would continue until the streetlights flickered on and twilight obscured the flight of the ball. By then, the