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Sunday, Sept. 23, 2001 - 6:25 p.m.

Glory days

It still feels so good, to stand there in the sunshine, looking up into the sky to watch the ball soar toward the fence. And as good as it would've felt to watch it clear the chest-high chain-link barrier 275 feet away, the sound of the horsehide clinking against the metal was satisfying enough. It all felt so good because I hit it.

My friend Dave called me up today to ask me to come out and play. And as I lay there on the couch this morning watching Rushmore, intending to spend the afternoon working on leads and resumes while watching football, Dave called to say that some people were getting together at a nearby park to "throw some balls around, play a little baseball" and enjoy one of the last warm weekend days of the year. Who would've thought it -- the first full day of autumn and it was 86 degrees and sunny. Humid, too.

So we drove up to Veterans Memorial Park in Hazlet, parked in the lot and walked past the barn and the animals out in their pens, past the pond and the ducks, down into the picnic area among the trees, where a large group enjoyed a Sunday afternoon barbecue near the table we staked out.

Dave and I and some friends of his -- Chuck and Tom to begin with -- walked over to the baseball field, where Chuck began by hitting fly balls to the three of us out in the outfield. Standing out there in centerfield, running down fly balls and making long throws back into the infield, I forgot about anything that lay outside the fences. I didn't think about having to get to work tonight, I didn't think about the job search, I didn't think about apartments, I didn't think about my schedule which I can't stand and can't find a way to enjoy, because there's never enough time off these days.

After a while, I walked in toward the plate and picked up a bat, Dave standing on the mound ready to pitch a little batting practice. I don't remember the last time I picked up a bat, the last time I tapped home plate to measure where to stand, the last time I looked out at a pitcher ready to deliver the ball. This was by no means competitive. Dave struggled at times to get the ball anywhere near the plate for me to hit it, and I struggled to make good contact. Pitches I should've driven were tapped on the infield dirt. Pitches above my head that should've sailed to the backstop I reached for, connecting with and sending line drives into the outfield.

And then there were two hits, two solid strokes. The first was a perfect pitch right down the middle, and when I swung and connected, I didn't even feel the ball hitting the bat. That's how you know. When the ball hits that sweet spot and it all seems so effortless. I stood there at home plate, watching Tom run toward the fence in left-center field, and hoping it might carry far enough to clear it. But it smacked into the chained links halfway between the top of the fence and the ground and Dave turned to smile at me. A little while later, he gave me another good offering, a slower pitch a little inside that I hesitated on, adjusted, and turned on, driving on a line over Tom's head in left field, bouncing once before hitting the fence.

I paid for it all, though. Earlier, while shagging fly balls from Chuck, I ran down a line drive and caught it smack square in the palm of my old glove -- the one with no padding. My friend's father, a football and track coach at a local high school, found four gloves left behind in the locker room one spring and gave Matt and myself two each. One was a worn Dale Murphy outfielder's model; the other an Ozzie Smith infielder's glove in better shape. I was using the Dale Murphy glove today and paid for it. My hand stung after the catch, and hitting for 15 or 20 minutes later did it no good. It now feels like a deep bruise in the upper center of my palm, just below my fingers. It hurts to squeeze a fist; it's painful to stretch my fingers back. Typing is laborious, my fingers not flying across the keys as usual.

While we took batting practice off one another, a few members from the other group wandered over. A little girl, Missy, maybe 8 years old, came onto the field to pick up ground balls. Later Chuck pitched to her and Tom, Dave and I turned double plays on the infield on the balls she hit.

Then the adults from Missy's picnic came over and asked if we wanted to play a game. So we switched from baseball to softball and picked up a couple of extra players to play a four-inning pickup game on a September Sunday. Chuck decided to keep score, and for the record, I hat four hits in my four at bats -- hitting for the cycle, if I do say so myself, hitting a single my first time up, then a home run, a double and a triple. I scored all four times I was on base, and drove home five people on the bases in front of me when I batted. And although it was a pickup softball game against a group of friendly strangers, it was fun again to run around the orange-dirt infield, to pick grounders off the dirt and throw to first, to participate in baseball banter, field chatter. We made jokes about our own abilities and got on each other's backs when someone swung and missed or made a bad throw.

As it always did, playing baseball -- some combination of that orange infield dirt and the hayfever lying in the grass -- sent me into sneezing fits. But I didn't mind. I sneezed and sniffled and then it passed and I wiped the sweat from my forehead, my Mets hat beginning to soak through a little, and turned my attention again to the player at bat.

And after our four innings -- the end of the game determined in part by my having to leave for work and in part by the aches and pains developing on both teams -- we managed a 16-12 victory, but did it really matter? It was a simple pickup game, a Sunday in the sun playing America's pastime as it was likely developed, as it was meant to be played.

And really, what can be better than that?

I had a friend was a big baseball player
Back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool, boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in and he was walking out
We went back inside, sat down, had a few drinks but all he kept talking about was--

Glory days, well they'll pass you by
Glory days, in the wink of a young girl's eye
Glory days, glory days

"Glory Days," Bruce Springsteen (b. 9/23/49)

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