Real Baseball
Before television , the Atlanta Braves,
or little league, baseball played an important part in the
lives of southern boys growing up in the 1940’s. During the
summer months while school was out, we met each morning
about eight o’clock to “choose up” teams. We never had
enough for two full teams but that didn’t seem to matter.
We would play until about ten o’clock when it got too hot.
There was a young black man, about our age, who worked part
time for one of the merchants in town. Black children
attended school in the summer so they could be off during
the fall to help harvest crops; but we convinced him to
play out of school and play ball with us. His real name was
Robert. We called him “Head”. I’m not sure why. He was a
very good player and seemed to enjoy playing.
About the middle of the summer, we decided that we were
good enough to form a team; but there were no other teams
in the area to play. Head said there were some youngsters
in his community who liked to play baseball and he thought
he could get up a team to play us. So we made plans to have
a “real” game the next Sunday on the town team’s main
baseball field since they were playing out of town.
On the day of the game we could hardly wait to get started,
but we had forgotten that in a “real” game you must have
umpires. This was before integration. There were no white
spectators at the game and only a couple of adult black
men. We finally persuaded two black men to umpire and the
game was under way! The white team easily won, but the
black team challenged us to a return match on their field
over behind the planing mill the next Sunday. We accepted.
There was a large crowd to watch the game. Again, no white
spectators. Spirits were high and both teams played their
hearts out, but this time the black team won.
Regardless of what some think, I believe that in baseball
there is a definite home field advantage.