Play Ball

First of all, a fella on one of those major league teams had one  great offensive game the other day, 5 for 5 and 3 home runs and tied about every record there was. If he were gold, he would be worth the price. I no longer follow baseball but that caught my eye.

We are willing to lay some sort of odds that these fellas who made up the Greenport Baseball Club in 1907 didn't make a whole lot of money -  probably what our major league fellas makes in an inning, or one pitch. Regardless, the current season is, by the way, producing drama by the inning, with payrolls that more and likely eclipsed the gross product of the North Fork in 1907 many times over, and even those guys are from what are called secondary markets make a bundle.

So this ten member Greenport club with a 'manager' (top middle - how fitting) showed up probably because it was a fun thing to do and maybe they passed the hat in the stands.  Maybe Sterling Bottling gave them a beer afterwards.  We don't know but club baseball, something of a rarity now, lives and thrives elsewhere and it is really something.

Some of us have lived elsewhere where businesses and factories, groups like the Elks or Masons, and towns like Greenport in 1907, fielded teams, put them in uniforms and devoted summer nights or weekend days to the pursuit of the ground ball.  One of us played third base for Willman's Furniture in the Cincinnati 10-12 league years ago (many years we might add) and we played 3 games a week and lost in the city championship 8-6.  We very much remember it like any of these fellas, non-living we are pretty sure, would remember their season, their key game, who was on first......

Speaking of which be assured that some lucky fella will just have to do some remembering of his Cincinnati Reds 60+ years ago, the crisp baselines, a dugout with a water 'bubbler', and a real deal, paid umpire yelling "play ball".