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Into The Outfield

Players on the fringes of baseball

Jessica Smith, The Martlet (University of Victoria)
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ictoria (CUP) — Staring down the pitcher, I bang my bat on the ground and dig my toes into

e dirt. This is going to be the hit mighty Casey wanted when he was at the bat. A crowd

hoops, but the pitcher hasn’t wound up yet and I haven’t swung. We watch in awe as a stray
ball sails over the left field fence and into our game. There’s an organized league game on the
nearby diamond, but we’re playing a casual game of pick-up on the grass beyond the outfield.

“We are literally way out in left-field here,” the catcher says and I laugh while we watch the
batter round second.

Looking at the skilled teams on,the diamond, with their uniform.tight pants and a glove for
every player, I’m a little jealous and have a sense of being a loser outsider looking in on the
real game.

Baseball as a metaphor for life isn’t new — anyone who’s felt the thrill of getting to second
base (i.e. done some heavy petting) is aware of the long history of cliché. For the moment I
ignore how trite my thoughts are and take pride in being an outsider and identify myself with
the long lineup of them in baseball’s history — the only difference between me and them is
they could play ball.

The pitch of grass my friends and I are playing on is C-shaped, curving around the real
outfield. Its shape, along with our sense of self-deprecation and absence of talent, equipment
and enough players to cover all bases, gives us our name, the C-team.

We are playing ball, but not in the American pastime sense. Since too few kids showed up
‘o cover all four bases, we’re playing a game that is a relic from when baseball was a school
kids’ bat-and-ball game. It was called Lapta in Russia and Rounders in England.

There are only two bases and few rules: you can run when you want and hit where you
want (foul balls in any direction are called fair). You can’t strike out in Lapta, or ever have too
many players on the same base at the same time. A lack of skill improves the game. Errors
such as players dropping the ball or tripping over their own feet give the runners more time to
score.

  
  
   
  
   
   
 
 
  
  
 
 
  

It’s a little more violent — fielders can prevent runners from getting on base by tackling or
ipping them, and can get them out by hitting them with the ball anywhere below shoulders.
It’s a tactic that was legal in American baseball until 1845, when New York’s Knickerbocker
lub codified the rules and decided it was too dangerous.

Our mini T-ball bat and the few gloves we have make us too sophisticated for Lapta, which
as originally played with a club or stick and bare hands.

When the pitcher finally throws, I hit a short foul. Two fielders run for it, and into each
other, ending up on the ground. The pitcher, Ryan, finally gets a hold of the ball, and throws it
o Taylor on base. She isn’t paying attention, so it sails past her into the outfield, and I’m safe.
Andrew, our catcher, gives up in disgust and decides to climb a tree.

“Twenty points for whoever hits Andrew,” I yell, kidding, because none of us can hit that
far. The line of trees by the road is our Green Monster (Fenway’s legendary left-field wall), and
ocking Andrew off his tree would be an out-of-the-park home run.
Russian influence on America’s national sport was revived in the 30s and 40s when com-

unist newspapers founded by Russian immigrants used baseball news to integrate their immi-
prant readership with American culture, and also hook the American reader while introducing

em to their ideals.

The papers published statistics from the Negro League alongside the American and

 

  

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National League news, and lauded the skills of black players such as Jackie Robinson and
Satchel Paige. Today those papers take credit for helping end institutionalized racism in the
major leagues.

Still, black ball players were outsiders in baseball long after Robinson broke the color barri-
er. When Satchel Paige was let into the majors after he’d been playing for more than 25 years,
he said, “The only change is that baseball has turned Paige from a second-class citizen to a sec-
ond-class immortal.”

Standing on base, trying to find commonality between immortals like Robinson and Paige
and myself, I don’t get anywhere. They had talent and drive — we're here on the fringes
beyond the outfield because most of us lack both. I might dream of playing under the bright
lights of a stadium, but most of the C-team came to hang out, do cartwheels between plays
and lie around in the sun.

Justin’s up to bat now and there are three runners on base. He’s a better thinker than slug-
ger, so he grabs the attention of the pitcher by yelling, “Hey, come get me,” and bolts. He
sprints out of the field and into traffic, giving all three runners time to score. As the two boys
chase each other down the road the rest of us have time relax and catch our breath.

I want to hit a home run. To smack it out of the park, break a window, tear the leather off
the ball. I want to do what Joe Carter did.

Carter was Toronto’s darling, the ultimate insider and star in the "90s. I was nine in 1993
when he hit the home run that ushered in three runs at the bottom of the ninth, winning the
World Series for the Jays the second year in a row.

He was my hero that fall and during the major league players’ strike that spanned my most
awkward preteen years. The sense of right and wrong imparted to me by my father was entire-
ly based on what Carter would and would not do. Fighting or complaining? Joe wouldn’t do
that. Nor would he stuff leathery roast beef in his pocket to feed to the cat later, forget about
it, and get caught when it came out in the wash.

Carter didn’t just perform the miracle of being the first player in history to end a World Series
on a home run, he was also an honorable man. He protested the firing of his manager Cito
Gaston by wearing Gaston’s number on his Jays shirt, and always thanked Christ for his suc-
cess.

Today, Carter is an inspirational Christian speaker. I had stopped going to church bythe
time the players’ strike ended, but I still hear an echoing voice of my father, “Do you think Joe
would do that?” every time I see his MVP banner hanging in Toronto’s Rogers Centre.

When I step up to the plate again I’m channeling Carter, praying for the big hit that will
bring me into the game. Waiting for the friendly banter to wind down and the pitcher to wind
up, it occurs to me that baseball is more than the legends of the players, games and fields —
some see romance in the game itself. It’s the only major league game that doesn’t run against
the clock. The play inches forward at the pace of the pitcher’s whim — you might say it’s time-
less. The shape of the field starts at home plate and stretches out as far as you can hit a ball, a
metaphor for possibility and some American dream.

I dream of a big hit that knocks Andrew out of the tree for 20 points and bounces over
fence into the outfield of the real game.

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