Pitchers and Catchers

It's a phrase that instantly turns your mind and heart to spring:  "Pitchers and catchers report."

Today is that day for the Milwaukee Brewers and most of the Major League teams.

It's the smell of fresh cut grass. 

The pop of a baseball into a mitt. 

The smack of a bat getting good wood on a ball, sending it over the fence.

It's the clean slate and the fresh promise of a new season and the possibility of success.

In my mind, it's standing out back, in what my friends and I (well, mostly me) called Stump - Weed Memorial Stadium. 

The backyard playground that hosted countless football games (tackle, touch, and many games of tackle the guy with the ball); baseball; wiffle ball; 500; and hot box.

As the chief groundskeeper for Stump - Weed Memorial Stadium I can't say I did the best job in the world.  If it looked green and the clover was blooming it looking very nice.  Too many sticks or big patches of dirt meant extra work.


It was a tough field of play - with lilac bushes comprising the out-of-bounds line on one side and an assortment of trees and imaginary lines the other sideline.   The tree stump in the center served as the marker for a pitcher's mound and first down yardage.

The field was a place for deep conversations as well as taunts, teasing, and victory celebrations. No doubt there were some tears and crying if the game became too rough (mostly in the pre-middle school years).


At times there would be a dozen or more kids out in back playing some kind of ball or hide and seek or another game.   My friends next door - especially Andy, Nate, and Cindy - were usual suspects to be rounded up for a game.

The long and narrow yard stands out mostly as a baseball field - with the tall trees and weeds back in what we called our "woods" - home runs could be hit and then everyone had to head back to find the ball hidden in the weeds.

It's where I learned to throw and to play. 

On nights after he got home from work - or a weekend after we worked on some project around the house - Dad would come out back and hit some to me or we would throw the ball around. We would talk about the Brewers and their prospects for the season.  Ever hopeful, usually let down during the 1970s.

When we first moved there, sometimes my paternal grandpa would play catch too.  He had played catcher in college and I inherited his baseball mitts. 

Those mitts taught me a lesson one season.  I absentmindedly left the gloves out one night and they got wet.  I spent a couple of hours the next day rubbing those gloves with leather treatment so they would recover.

 

Looking back 35 to 40 years - those might have been the best times of all - out back as the sun set throwing the ball back and forth with my dad.

That's a big reason baseball remains our national pastime.  Football may be the most popular sport, but having a catch connects generations through time in a place where everyday could offer the possibilities brought with the phrase, "Pitchers and catchers report."