A hot time in the old town

Baseball is a summer game, but summer can be like sitting in a frying pan.

Can you guess the Shorebird? I honestly suspect the only one who might be able to is the player himself, since this was a cameo appearance.

I love my wife to death, but one thing she can never figure out is how I like to sit at a ballgame “with sweat running down your ass crack.” Heat doesn’t really bother me, though: I’d rather be at a game where it’s 90 degrees and the sun beating down than a game where it’s 45 degrees after dark and windy. Just keep the sunscreen handy.

But this recent heat wave got me to thinking about the days I used to play. Admittedly, when I played in high school back home our games were over by mid-May so it was more likely we’d be playing in something like a late afternoon in the mid-50’s, or the occasional cool Saturday morning. I don’t think I ever played in a night game in high school since we didn’t have lights at our field.

When I played in Little League, though, for the most part our games were in the evening. That’s obviously because parents would need to get home from work and make sure kids like Michael were ready and in uniform. (Michael was generally ready with bells on.) And since the season for our leagues ran from mid-May up until late in July, there were a few evenings where the mercury might be tickling 90 degrees, although it would be cooling down as the innings progressed and the sun went down. (All of our fields were lighted, although in northwest Ohio there was usually sufficient light in the height of summer to play without the lights until almost 9:00.)

However, these were the good old days. Back a half-century ago there were afternoons once school was out where the fields at the local park would be occupied by a group of 8-10 kids playing four-on-four or five-on-five, pitcher’s hand, right field out, with shadowmen for the baserunners. No sunscreen, no jug of water, just a couple bats, a ball, and whoever brought gloves. We’d play for an hour or two in the morning, go home for lunch, and come back in the afternoon, choose up new sides, and play another couple innings. (Innings took longer with disagreements and “do-overs.”)

That didn’t stop when we moved out to the country, though. With five acres we had enough space to lay out a pretty much full-sized field and even built a pitcher’s mound. I’d play ball with my brothers (and sometimes the neighbor kids) for a couple hours during the day and then go play for my team in the evening. At least playing at home it was easy to go in and get a water break rather than ride back a couple blocks from the park.

Regardless, we would pretty much go at it on the regular until maybe the end of July or early August when kids became more interested in playing football in one of our yards. By then the cooler temperatures were beginning to move in back home because the weather ran on a cycle, steadily getting more hot and humid as a week went on, until you had the storms and rain then a couple pleasant days in the upper 70s or low 80s. (95 and above was rare in northwest Ohio, maybe 3-4 days a summer.) About the middle of August you’d have an average day barely break 80-85.

I remember one storm particularly well - it hit maybe about 6:00 out in Lyons where we were playing. We all piled in a shelter until it passed, but there was so much rain in such a short time that the game was cancelled - there was no way we could play with all the puddles on the infield. I remember seeing the lineup card that said “Swartz - 1” and realized I was supposed to be the starting pitcher that night and it got rained out! Bummer.

So we went home and, since it was a pop-up storm that didn’t hit our house about a dozen miles away I went out and pitched to my brothers instead. Maybe it was a good thing it rained.

It’s a little easier these days since my playing days (which went until I finally quit playing softball off-and-on in the early aughts, a decade after I played on a league team) are over, but if there’s a chance they can get a game in, I still want to watch the boys - who now have plenty of water and shade - get out and play some ball!

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I really cheated with this one, but on June 25, 2018 we were the rehab home for Oriole pitcher Chris Tillman. He pitched 3 1/3 innings and took the loss in a 5-0 defeat at the hands of the Hagerstown Suns. We didn’t know it at the time, but Tillman was finished with his major league career by then - he bounced around on rehab for another couple weeks with AAA Norfolk (and one appearance at A+ Frederick) before being released a month after his one night in Delmarva. He would try to latch on with the Texas Rangers but after making four rough starts at their AAA Round Rock club he was through.

Because he came in a 2008 trade with Seattle, this was Tillman’s only Delmarva appearance - he had last pitched at the A-ball level with the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers in the Midwest League in 2007.

In the meantime, though, you can Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there now. You can also like and restack this piece so others can enjoy it.