More Than Just A Sandlot Baseball Game

I had not thought of Sammy Carlisle in decades. But one day recently, the memory of our childhood sandlot baseball games came roaring back into my mind, clear as if it were yesterday.

 

I grew up on a busy street and there were plenty of boys in my neighborhood, so we spent a lot of time together playing baseball. Sometimes, we played on a lot behind the Baptist Church four houses down from my home. If my dad had time, a bunch of us would jump into the back of the family station wagon and he would drive us down to the school yard a mile away where we would play “pepper” and run real bases with real baselines and a real backstop.

 

Most of our games were played on two one-acre front yards belonging to our elderly neighbors. Our neighbors enjoyed seeing children playing and would watch us from their front porches. My cousin’s house was right beside “home plate,” so his mom would also keep an eye on us. And of course, if my mom needed us to come home, we could hear her yell for us, or later, hear the dinner bell she rang when she got tired of yelling.

 

Our “field” was bisected by two gravel driveways. Right field was located beside the street and the outfield and left field were deep into our neighbors’ yards. If you fouled it right, sometimes the ball would roll into the street or into a ditch on either side of the road. Our moms had placed the fear of God into all of us about running into the street, so we knew better and the game came to a halt whenever the ball went that way.

 

If you put the barrel on the ball and really tagged it, that ball would sail over those two yards and bounce onto the asphalt parking lot of the churchyard for a homerun. It was the sweetest feeling in the world and I’m sure the decibel level of squealing children ratcheted up enough for my mom to hear it from her kitchen.

 

There was a core group of us kids in our immediate neighborhood, but when we played the team of kids from an adjacent street, we had to expand our reach and invite other kids we didn’t really know or spend a lot of time with to fill out our team. That’s where Sammy Carlisle came in.

 

While the rest of us played with our fathers’ big wooden bats and soiled old baseballs that had seen their share of muddy-water ditches and school-yard clay, Sammy’s baseball equipment wasn’t as well used. He had a kid-sized bat that was easy to swing and his baseball was still white and unscuffed from the street pavement or church parking lot. 

 

We loved swinging Sammy’s bat. His clean white ball was also easier to see. The problem was, if Sammy got upset or angry about something during the game, he would take his bat and ball and leave. Just walk home.

 

The first few times that happened, the game either ended or my cousin Steve would run into his house to rustle up another baseball so we could keep playing. Eventually, we got wise to Sammy’s cry-baby nature and thin skin. We were just kids playing, ragging each other as kids do, celebrating hits and homers and close calls, and drinking Kool-Aid on Steve’s carport when it was over.

 

I don’t know why I still remember Sammy Carlisle. He wasn’t a central player on our team. He wasn’t the reason why we won.

 

But what I suppose I learned from him was that things don’t have to be perfect. The joy of playing and spending time with each other and creating memories – and just appreciating roots-level baseball -- was the important thing.

 

Eventually, we knew that Sammy could take his bat and ball and go home and the game would go on. And as it did, I would swing my dad’s big wooden bat and still think it was the best day ever.

 

- Lisa D. Mickey, Nov. 11, 2020