(The beginning of this memoir goes back to 1949 for those scrolling back.

                                                      BASEBALL LIMBO

1962

     I had not picked up a ball, bat or glove in months. Nights after work, and mornings when I awoke, were spent reading excessively and exhaustingly, with a newfound hunger for literature akin to eating. Steinbeck, Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Herman Wouk, Thomas Wolfe, Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Faulkner (with great difficulty), Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Bertrand Russell, Somerset Maugham, D.H. Lawrence, Mark Twain. Grampa Charley on mother’s side donated old, dusty paperbacks by the Russian masters. I was not ready for “Crime & Punishment.” Dad was stumped at my hermetic reading discovery. It took him three minutes to fall asleep reading Harold Robbins blockbusters at his bedside table.

     “So what are you going to do with yourself, Dell? Work at Disneyland until you get drafted? Go back to school? What about baseball?”

     “I need some time off from it, Dad. I’m waiting for the old itch to grab hold of me.”

     “You let me know when that itch starts. I know some people. All you’ve got to do is get on the field and show ‘em what you can do.” He smacked my knee in a fond manner. “And look, if you don’t want to play ball, well, far as I’m concerned, it’s all right with me.”

   “Mother’s been talking to you, huh?”

    “No, I’ve been thinking. I know it hasn’t been easy for you, being a ball player’s son, and especially a ball player like your old man. I’ve been hard on you, but it was always because I expected so much from you. What I didn’t mean to do was make you so damn hard on yourself. I was always hard on myself, but in a different way, I guess. My Dad was no athlete, so there was no pressure. Maybe things were less complicated for me. I could just go out and play, with nothing to lose, nothing expected of me. I was always loose in my approach to the game. I know baseball is a simple game, Dell, and it’s not for a complicated person, who can’t shut things out and thinks too much and lets the game drive them crazy. I could always concentrate on the game, and nothing else interfered or mattered. Then I became a professional when I’d never really considered it as a kid, because I loved it more than anything in the world. If it’s no longer that way with you, well, like I say, that’s okay with me, but if you still got that fire in your gut like you used to, I’ll find a way to get you back in the game—if you miss it? Do you?”

     I shrugged. Then: “Don’t try and do anything for me, Dad. I wish it was like Little League, when nobody knew who I was and I made it. I feel like driving to Florida when spring training starts and just showing up to see what I can do and what they think of me. Just some walk on. I’d even consider switch-hitting at this point. I don’t know why. It’s just a thought.”

     He was staring at me. “Damn boy, you’re making a habit of doing things the hard way. There’s a limit to that. I know. I tried it and you’re working against near impossible odds.”

     I thought to myself, “If I don’t play ball, it’s the waste of a lot of talent for a game I love and know how to play, and of all the years I dedicated to it.”

     “We’ll see how it goes, Dad.” As I watched him walk away, not happy because his kid was not happy and on an unsure path, I felt bad for him, felt like asking him to play a little catch and pepper in the front yard, but it was far too late for that now.

      (Next Sunday installment: Baseball 103)