Dear Bob,
I'm going to suspend disbelief and enter that
imaginary, eternal moment you spoke of—you and Dad 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 101st, 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 50th 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, 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.
The thing that struck me over and over was how little
people had changed. Oh, 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 cocky 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 have dared him to try. 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 from
the south ruffled the flags on the grandstand as the teams ran out through
the players' race for the first game. Remember the sounds? 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, 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 have seen 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 was a sepia-toned enlargement in a heavy wooden
frame of
the first night game—taken from the right-field side at 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 and, to today's players, probably has the same
strange sense of detachment.
As we stood in the autumn sunshine, hearing the roll
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 his jerky motion 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
savour 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
©
Neil Quintrell 2003
