8. POSTSCRIPT

  April 3, 2003

  Dear Bob and Dad,

I'm going to suspend disbelief and enter that imaginary, eternal moment you spoke of—you both sitting in heaven, sharing a beer. It's heaven, so you don't have to worry any more about whether this drink will set you on the slippery slope into alcoholism. Even better, the first taste of the beer on your tongue—cold and biting, the refreshing bubbles dancing around your mouth—will be repeated over and over for eternity.

            Why am I writing today? Two reasons. Look at the date. It's Dad's birthday. So, happy 101^st, Dad. I miss you and, as you know now, wish I'd responded better to your kindness and interest when I was younger. But, in the heaven I'm imagining, all is forgiven and only the best times are remembered.

There's a second reason for this letter. A few days ago, I attended the 50^th anniversary re-union of players from the initial Night Baseball series at Norwood Oval, so I'm swimming in a sea of nostalgia, and I'd love you to be able to dive in and join me.

            It was a perfect Adelaide autumn day. The sky cloudless, the sun a blessing on your skin, and the merest whisper of a breeze. Over fifty old players and officials gathered at Thebarton Oval, connected by one thing only, their participation in the first series of night baseball to be played in Australia in 1952-53. We lunched together, seated in team tables, and then lined up in our teams for an official acknowledgement. The league president told the crowd of about 300 who were there for the summer season's grand final between Goodwood and Glenelg that we were the ones who drew crowds of between six and ten thousand people to watch baseball on a summer's evening in the pre-television fifties. Our names were called and we were presented individually to the small crowd.

            Most of us then retired to the clubrooms to reminisce. The thing that struck me over and over was how little people had changed. Oh, externally we had aged—grown fatter, balder, greyer—but even though we moved more stiffly and slowly, we recognised each other —Gordon Fidock's loose-limbed walk, Jimmy Kostoglou's silky-smooth gait, Donny Martin's strut and, if anyone had yelled 'slide!' you would have expected Chibby Haynes to hit the ground headfirst. Kingsley Wellington's slightly aloof manner that had always intimidated me was unchanged, and nobody would have been at all surprised if umpire Warren Charles had ejected a player deemed to be acting inappropriately. Peter Box looked as if he could still strike out the side, and Chalky White would still have dared him to try and get one past. Brian Hill's and Gerry Robert's welcoming smiles were as warm and encouraging as ever. Bob Brock had ridden his motorbike all the way from Queensland: who would have expected anything else? The dead were also there in spirit and named respectfully—Bill and Arthur Radbone, Bob McMahon and so on. Tell our cousin Jeff that he got a mention, and that many of the old players from the Redsox asked after him.

            Remember that first game, Dad, how the main stand was packed and people stretched right around the mounds down the left- and right-field lines. It was November 1952 and I had just turned 15. Sam Sutton and I manned the scoreboard out in right-field. A cool breeze blew from the south ruffling the flags on the grandstand as the players ran out through the players' race for the first game. The sounds rang clear on the evening air—the slap of leather as the pitcher's first pitch hit the catcher's glove, the crack of ball on wood as the first batter grounded to the shortstop, the smack of the ball into the first-baseman's glove beating the runner by a step, the emphatic 'Y're out!' from the umpire, his arm jerking up in confirmation, and the roar of disappointment from the crowd. On the field the chief umpire took out his whiskbroom and cleaned sand off the plate as the infield snapped the ball around, chattering encouragement to each other. Up in the stand the official scorer marked his strange symbols on the neatly-ruled score sheet and turned his attention to the next play.

            I'd like to remember that the scorer was you, Dad, even though I know that it wasn't until the next season that you sat there with your range of coloured pencils—green for hits, red for errors, blue for srikeouts—and adjudicated on hits and errors. Your scoring reflected your own personality and values, generously ready to assign hits rather than errors where there was doubt. I still have the engraved silver tray they gave you for your services – 'Presented to Norm Quintrell by Night Baseball League in appreciation of services rendered: 1953-4'. I took it along to the reunion and considered donating it as part of the memorabilia they are collecting into a Museum. But I'm not ready to give it up just yet, and I brought it home again.

            I spent a long time in the Museum, looking at old photographs. There you were, Bob, looking at me from the photo of the 1949 championships in Melbourne alongside Bill Fuller. And again in 1950, your All-Australian year, with Neil Harvey, the great cricketer in the same photo. It was after one of these series you had your first cigarette, so you told me. That's a piece of history I'd like to see have taken a different turn.

There are photographs of me too in schoolboy teams. In Sydney in 1953, when we played on the baked turf at Parramatta, ground balls skidding through as if skimming off glass. I think I made five errors in the series! Another in Melbourne in 1954, when we won the series for the third straight time and I made All-Australian. In the same year, I won the Pomeroy Cup for best and fairest in the schoolboy competition, a trophy you had won seven years earlier.

            I spent some time in front of photographs of the night series at Norwood. There is a sepia-toned enlargement, in a heavy wooden frame, of the first night game. It's taken from the right-field side, from just about the angle Sam and I would have seen from the scoreboard. It's a photograph from another era, like the studio photographs of my great-grandparents that hang on my wall now and, to today's players, probably has the same strange sense of detachment and continuity.

            As we stood in the autumn sunshine, hearing the role call of our names as if we were heroes of legend, I watched the current players warming up for the grand final. They moved with fluid grace, muscle and sinew responsive to command, unselfconscious in their beauty. And for a few minutes as the sun warmed our aging bones, we old players were once again fifty years younger and full of our own potential.

  'Neil, you can hit for Kingsley.'

It's Arthur Radbone calling my name. I search among the bats for my choice, move into the on-deck circle, and take some nervous practice swings. The lights, which seemed so bright when I viewed them from the stands, now appear much dimmer, and the chatter on the field and the barracking from the stands much louder. Now that I am near the action, the pitcher's fast ball seems to have increased in velocity and his curve is suddenly breaking twice as far. The hitter at the plate lifts a soft fly to the second baseman and I walk to the plate. There are two out, the game is tied and we have a runner on third. Nothing hangs on this game. It's the last of the season, we are out of the race, and the result will be meaningless. But this is my first at-bat in a senior game and the lights and sounds are all around, hammering at me as I stand in.  The pitcher—Warren Charles, near the end of his playing career and soon to become a respected senior umpire—goes into that jerky motion of his and fires the ball at the plate. I swing wildly at three balls off the plate and strike out.  In the field, I handle the couple of ground balls that come my way without mishap, but in a second visit to the plate, I again strike out dismally, and my brief foray into the first night season is over.

But for that brief cameo appearance, I may now stand in the autumn sunshine with old heroes on one side and young champions on the other, and savor one brief moment of nostalgia for what was once and will not be again.

So, here's to you Bob—who taught me the skills of the game—and to you Dad  -who taught me its ethics. I toast your memory.

  Neil

8. GENEALOGY OF NORMAN OLIVER QUINTRELL

  This genealogy is complete with reference to Norman's paternal lineage to the time prior to the migration of John and Mary Quintrell to Australia in 1858. I am indebted to Gladys Grigg (wife of my third cousin Glen) and to my second cousin Brian Cooper for some of the details of the earlier Cornish heritage. The lineage of Edith Quintrell (nee Marshall), wife of Stephen William Quintrell (Neil's grandfather) has been more difficult to trace, and the shipping records of the migration of Hugh and Jane Datson, parents of my great-grandmother Mary Ann Datson are also sketchy.