. . . Simple and Free

By Tom Anselm

We called it ‘sockball.’ It was our late-summer day’s answer to having not enough guys to play real baseball at the Baptist Church lot. My brother Rick and I took a couple pair of sweatsocks, rolled them inside themselves and pinned it tight… that was the ball. Old throw rugs from the pile in the garage that dad used to spread on the ground when he changed the oil on one of his many reclaimed used cars served as the bases, folded just so in squares.

In those days, Whiffle Ball bats were wooden, and we could also choose from an assortment of cracked bats from seasons gone by… good enough to ‘sock a sock.’ First base was at the edge of the hill, so if you overran it, you ended up at the bottom. Second was situated smack dab in front of a cardinal bush (appropriately enough!) with its huge red flowers…one of mom’s faves. Third was by the metal pole mom used when she stretched a line across the yard (yeah, over to first base) to hang some wet sheets to dry.

If you hit one over the fence, it was an out, since we had some crabby neighbors. But if your drive hit the fence on the fly, well, pardner, that was a goner!

We, as future major leaguers, took on the personas of our favorite players of the times. Lindy McDaniel and Gibson pitching, Kenny Boyer at third. Javier. Curt Flood. ‘Jersey Joe’ Cunningham. Stan the Man.

It was me and Ricky and Charlie, Tommy and Terry and Jimmy, at various times and in various combinations, with seldom more than a couple on a team, but all playing out our dreams on those hazy, halcyon afternoons.

Other days, when it just got too dang hot, or the rains came, we’d bring the game into the basement. Smaller by a longshot, but easily cooler by 15 degrees, a guy could really get a good slide into home on those smooth concrete floors. On occasion, the well-struck line drive would smack the airducts in the ceiling, or a scorching grounder bang into the furnace.

“Oh, my God, what was that?” came the call from the ‘pressbox’ upstairs (mom called it ‘the kitchen’). “Be careful down there!”

We’d snicker a bit, be real quiet for a few minutes, then just resume play, a brief time-out in a game that has no clock.

Arguments would arise, like foul or fair, foul-tip or swing-and-miss. The usual for baseball, you know. But with no umpires or replays, and relying on the honor system, we’d hash it out and just get on with things.

If we could only muster three participants, it was simply ‘run-ups’, or ‘hot-box’, as the kids today call it. Which led to more arguments, of course, but no furnace-banging.

Which mom appreciated.

Minutes turned into hours, hours into afternoons, until supper time was hailed by the upstairs ‘announcer.’ And the next day?

More of the same.

Summertime. And the livin’ was easy.

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