Rant #1,481: Fields of Glory

Yesterday evening, the Texas Rangers got off to a 5-0 lead in the first inning against the New York Yankees at home in Arlington, Texas.

My wife had to watch one of her zombie shows, so since I wanted to watch the game instead, I turned to my tablet, which could pick up the game on Fox Sports 1, where it was the national game last night.

After watching the top of the first inning, when the Yankees went out 1-2-3 without much of a whimper, for some reason, the picture kept going in and out on the tablet, and finally, it went out completely, so I had to put the tablet away and count the minutes until I could watch the game.

I missed about 30 minutes of action, but I ended up missing a lot.

Finally, my wife's show was over, and we turned the game on the TV, and the Yankees were losing 5-0.

I said to my wife, "We might be switching this game off soon."

She replied to me, "It's just the first inning. Maybe they can come back."

Well, yes, they came back, and not just a normal comeback, but one of those that you will never forget.

In the top of the second inning, the Yankees scored 11 runs, yes, 11 runs.

Fifteen batters came to the plate in that inning, and while the Rangers struck out the side, 12 other times during the inning, the Yankees got on base with either a hit or a walk.

But this was just the beginning, as during the third inning, the Yankees scored four more times on a grand slam, and they ended up scoring 21 unanswered runs in a 21-5 rout of the Rangers.

As I was watching that second inning, I thought I was watching a Little League game, and it harkened me back to my personal days of yore as a player in the Rochdale Village Athletic League when I was a kid.

I played in that league from its inception in 1964 to its last days in 1972.

I wasn't very good, but I loved to play those games. I looked forward to those games like most kids look forward to their birthday. And the surprise gifts I got during those games have lasted me a lifetime.

We originally played on a dirt field, and I don't remember if I originally played hardball or softball, or maybe both.

Later moving onto the fabled "gravel pit," which is just what it was advertised as, an area filled with gravel, we played softball, and those are the games I remember most, with all the bad hops and everything that came with playing on such a field.

My teams were always coached by someone I knew very well, initially by my friends' dads and later by my own father.

I wasn't very good, but I got my licks in.

I mainly played second base, but early on, I did play first base, I was the catcher, and yes, I even pitched one game where I must have walked about 20 guys, struck a few out, and was as overheated as I have ever been in my entire life.

Those days were so much fun, as my teams won two league championships, if I recall.

One game was played under the lights, where they actually had to string up lights so we could see what we were doing. It was played in the gravel pit, as I recall, and I had my most memorable moment of my "career" during that game, sliding into home plate and knocking the ball out of a 300-plus pound catcher's mitt.

I was safe, but was I really safe, in the physical sense? I knocked myself out, really saw stars, and probably suffered a mild concussion on the play, even though yes, I did score.

During those days, you came to, and that was that. Today, I would have been rushed to the hospital and put under a doctor's care. I really and truly blacked out during that play, but as they say, all's well that ends well.

Being a kid in the Little League was going to be the highest level of baseball I would ever play, but at least years later, I returned the favor to my own son, and was his coach for his first four years of Little League.

So when I watched yesterday's Yankees' game, I just had to go back in my memory and try to remember similar games that posted outlandish comebacks and scores like this one did. And yes, I did remember one memorable game we had.

I think our team was losing 11-0 in the second or third inning, and the umpire told my father that if we didn't come back to tie the score in our next at bat, he was going to call the game, due to the mercy rule.

My father understood, was not happy about it, but he told us all that that was going to happen if we did not come back.

Well, we sure did come back--we scored 13 runs the next inning. I was on base about three times. I know I got at least one hit, probably walked the other times.

And yes, we won the game, but I don't remember the final score.

And afterwards, as was customary with my father as the coach, we all walked over to the neighborhood Carvel and got milk shakes. If we won, he would buy, if we lost, no milk shakes. So we had to win to get those milk shakes. Call it a bribe, but it worked.

Anyway, yesterday's game conjured up so many images of the RVAL for me, and like Sly Stone once sang, "Summer days, those summer days ... "

What more can I say. I was a true "boy of summer," and will always be one, and those great days in the gravel pit are days I will never, ever forget.