July 14, 2002

Wobble and Twitch

The mid-season All-Star baseball game was declared a 7-7 tie between the National and American leagues because each side had run out of pitchers – sort of.

The pitchers were there, but each labored only two innings. Must save their arms for regular-league duty. That’s where the money is.

Fans booed. Traditionally, baseball teams keep at it until one side wins.

This was somewhat unfair. The All-Star is not a game. It is a dog and pony show for individuals. Nowhere can be found the team play, exquisite skill, secret signs and strategy that have made the game of baseball popular for two hundred years or more.

No, Abner Doubleday didn’t invent baseball at Coopers Town in 1839. He merely wrote down some rules so teams could compete everywhere with a minimum of fisticuffs.

Since then, we have done everything we can think of to ruin the game. Elevated pitcher’s mound. Three umpires. Base pads to replace holes in the ground. Tagged outs instead of thrown balls. Television. Banned spit balls. Designated hitters. Player unions. Fabulous salaries. And steroids.

Back in the olden days of my childhood in the Missouri Boot Heel, baseball was the “national past time.” Today it’s automobile racing. My earliest baseball memory is the wild, inter-state championship game between the Holcomb Hot Shots (Missouri) and the Piggot Pounders (Arkansas).

Every town had a team of local athletes who upheld the fame and honor of their native homes – in their spare time.

There were no salaries, uniforms or custom-turned bats. Just fierce loyalty to their hometown and desire to humiliate the next town down the road.

Sunday afternoon was the once-a-week playing schedule. The 40-hour workweek had not yet turned Saturday’s into a holiday. Baseball frivolity had to be squeezed between Sunday morning worship and evening prayer service.

Admission to games was free. Well-organized teams sold peanuts at 5 cents a bag to raise money for equipment. Times were hard. Peanut receipts barely covered expenses of bats, balls, caps, catcher’s mask and gasoline or train fare for away games.

Players furnished their own mitts – sculptured to individual contour by vigorous pounding and copious applications of tobacco juice. Tobacco chewing was the hallmark of baseball players.

By custom, baseballs for games were supplied by the home team. Games started with a new ball; but if it was lost in the outfield weeds, “practice” balls were acceptable.

Practice balls livened up the game. They usually had split seams, scuffs and a flat side. With such handles, adept pitchers could work wonders.

There was only one umpire – usually a stranger recruited from bystanders who was thought to be the least biased to either team.

With only one umpire, most safe behind the pitcher, rule infractions behind his back were commonplace. A player running from first to third on a ground ball could cut inside second base while the ump was calling the play at first. Opposing players would protest, but the runner would just smile and cross his heart he didn’t do it.

The Big Game

The Holcomb boys were having a pretty good year while I was their junior peanut vendor. The players had matching caps. Our catcher had a mask, and the club had three bats of different weights.

The Hot Shots acquired their moniker because they won so many games against more experienced teams.

Uncle Ben was the reason.

He had played a season on a St. Louis Cardinal farm team. He knew baseball strategy -- and deceits bordering on the immoral. A crafty competitor by nature, what he didn’t learn in semi-pro he invented as occasion required.

Thus, it was with some confidence that the Hot Shots hosted the mighty Pounders just across the state line. Piggot was a larger town with a greater pool of talent from which to draw players. Over the years they consistently walloped us.

As the host, Holcomb furnished the game balls. Inasmuch as the contest was a traditional rivalry, both sides went halvers for a $10 umpire from Memphis, Tenn.

The score was tied going into the ninth inning, but the Hot Shots prospects looked dim. The Pounders’ death- row was at bat, and the Hot Shots’ tail enders and pitcher were due up next.

As our boys took the field, Uncle Ben sent in his pitcher with a practice ball that had been doctored for just such an emergency. Ben had shoved a fish-line sinker through a gap in the seam and re-sewed the leather.

The wobble of that lop-sided ball was something to write home about. It dipped, swerved, curved, dropped, hopped and corkscrewed. The pitcher couldn’t control it. The catcher couldn’t catch it. However, the batters couldn’t hit it.

Three up. Three down.

Uncle Ben threw in an honest ball as the rattled Pounders took the field determined to force an extra inning.

When the first two Hot Shots grounded out, and the pitcher coming up, the situation called for the special talent of “Twitch” Taylor,

Twitch couldn’t hit the ground with his hat, but he could twitch his hip. Ben had taught him how to hug the plate and take an inside pitch on the rump.

“Taylor to pinch hit,” bellowed Ben to the umpire.

On the first pitch, Twitch did his thing – falling to the ground in agony.

“Take ye’r base,” said the umpire.

Twitch, in agony, limped to first base as the lead- off of the Hot Shots batting order took his stance at home plate. The Pounders pitcher, disgusted, studied Holcomb’s best hitter thumping the plate, eager to swing.

Twitch’s injury improved greatly during his painful trip to first. No sooner did he reach it than he lit out full-gallop for second.

Pounders hollered bloody murder. Their unnerved pitcher whirled and threw the ball over the second baseman’s head. Twitch kept going, waving his arms – another Uncle Ben deceit -- to distract the third baseman.

The third baseman didn’t have a chance. The throw-in sailed past him – unseen and untouched.

On sped Twitch to the cheers of Holcomb fans.

The winning run crossed the plate – unearned, but hallowed.

History records that the Hot Shots won the big game that year with a wobble, twitch and devious base running.

It wasn’t elegant, but the name of the game was winning.

Nice guys finish last.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist

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4 col drawing of baseball players.

Illustration provided

Author: Lindsey Williams