(Originally
published 4/22/17)
While
walking in Van Cortlandt Park this past week, I passed by—as I often do—a
hallowed entrance. It is a small cutout in a fence that provides access to
three baseball diamonds. It is the very same portal that I—four decades ago—crossed
through many times.
Sitting on
our front stoops on spring and summer days (and early eves, too), neighborhood
youths would frequently pose the simple question: “What do you want to do?”
Sometimes, we would settle upon visiting nearby Van Cortlandt Park, or “Vanny”
as it is colloquially known, with our baseball bats, balls, and gloves in tow.
If we numbered at minimum four bodies, we would upgrade “hit some out”—which
was a lot of fun and good exercise—into a self-hitting game that utilized half
the infield and half the outfield.
It is
April now—baseball season—and we have experienced several warm days this month.
But kids batting balls around on the ball fields are rare birds indeed.
Organized games are still played on them, but seldom are the non-uniformed
spotted playing variations of the summer game. It is sad—really. The passage of
time has left the fields intact. In fact, Van Cortlandt Park is in much better
shape than it was in the 1970s, when the city’s fiscal crisis did a number on the
parks and everything else under its jurisdiction. But I certainly did not care
that the infield required a comprehensive manicure—bad hops came with the
territory—and the outfield hosted more yellow weed than green grass.
And so,
this has become my new Rite of Spring—to take note of what is
not
occurring anymore in springtime. It is getting worse, too, with seemingly
everyone—including the very young—addicted to devices. Spring for me in the
1970s cried, “Play ball!” The New York Mets were back in town, too—and on the
tube and radio—with the reassuring voices of Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy, and
Ralph Kiner serenading me once again. The sights and sounds of baseball were
everywhere back then. At the start of the 1970s, April meant it was Wiffle ball
season and the spaldeens were bouncing again. By the mid- to late-1970s the
stickball bat had replaced its Wiffle ball counterpart and the tennis ball, the
once omnipresent spaldeen.
If given
the choice of “hitting some out at Vanny” or staring mesmerized into a
smartphone, what pray tell would a contemporary kid more likely choose? I can take
an educated guess. Now there still is a ball field where the field is warm
and green. Greener, certainly, than it was in the 1970s. But the sky has
got so cloudy when it used to be so clear. Really cloudy!
(Photos
from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)
