Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Why 14-year-olds don’t run the world (as yet another baseball season ends)
Kermit just loves Storytelling Saturday…
Once upon a time…
After training my early-morning clients in Manhattan, I typically ride the N or W train under the East River back to the friendly confines of Astoria. I never fail to raise my eyes from whatever book I’m reading to smile when the train rumbles out into the sunlight…that Queens brand of sunlight, not obscured by 50-story file cabinets filled with artificial light, muzak, and humans cramped into cubicles. Sure, it may only be the largely unspectactular Queensbridge projects that greet my squinting eyes but, hey, we made through a 100+ year-old water tunnel yet again.
Hallelujah.
A few years ago, I remember getting off the train two stops early: 36th Avenue, my old stomping grounds. As my feet hit the pavement, I noticed that Joe’s Pizzeria had fallen victim to Astoria’s creeping gentrification. The decades-old pizza joint had its windows covered with newspaper and was undergoing a metamorphosis into yet another Manhattan-style eatery.
Many moons ago, my friends and I were regulars at Joe’s (although we never got a satisfactory answer as to why it wasn’t named after Gino, the owner). Me, Bobby Caposio, Tommy Buccellato, and Mario Gallo would hit up passersby for jukebox money, order a slice, and then wait for other customers to put their cash down on the counter so we could pretend it was ours to pay for the pizza (and maybe even get an Italian ice). Gino, a stereotypically rotund Italian pizza man, seemed to like us. He even sponsored our 14-and-under softball team with jerseys that read: Joe’s Pizzera. No spell-check back then.
Whenever we won (which we did often), Gino would give everyone on the team a free slice. Not satisfied with the meager schedule of games provided to us by the Long Island City YMCA, we’d occasionally don our jerseys on off-nights and show up with heroic tales of late-inning comebacks. Gino never questioned our arduous softball schedule (or occasional lack of bats and gloves) and we got more free slices. There we were, listening to Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re an American Band,” a group of juvenile delinquents in pizza sauce-stained jerseys…fueling up before a long night of mischief.
These images and more came to me in a flood as I neared at the soon-to-be-trendy-café. When I got closer, you see, I discovered that the newspaper being used to block out the windows of my old haunt was—shock and awe—the first issue of Wide Angle (a local publication for which I was Senior Editor at the time). There was my goddamned column facing out to the street, covering a window from which a much younger version of me once gazed…when he wasn’t making time with Connie Vaccaro, that is.
This was a life-flashing-before-my-eyes moment.
I played first base for the Joe’s Pizzera team…unusual for my small size but, hey, I’ve never done the expected, I guess. I made the all-star game and my Dad wanted to come watch me. It was being played at the old L.I.C. High School yard just 3 blocks away from our fourth-floor walk-up…but I asked him to stay home. When you’re 14, your parents are useless (unless you consider being annoying a use).
Prior to that, my Dad and I always enjoyed baseball together…whether it was playing catch or watching a game on our black-and-white TV. For example, the day Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, we were watching a Met game together. It was 1969, the year of the miracle, and I was a young boy infatuated with such dreams.
My Dad changed the channel to watch a giant step for mankind be taken...and I got up to change it back to a full count on Bud Harrelson (this was the pre-remote era).
“But history is about to be made,” he said.
“Something historical could happen in the game, too,” I tried.
Dad laughed...but the moon landing it was. My family sat around and watched a man in a white spacesuit bounce around like a little boy. After about ten minutes, my Mom and sister went back to what they were doing and my Dad told me to put the Met game back on.
I also remember watching the 1968 baseball all-star game with him. Minnesota Twins superstar Rod Carew was at bat and worked the count to 2 balls, 2 strikes.
“Two and two to Rod Carew,” the announced declared jauntily.
My Dad found this rhyme endlessly amusing…and would refer to it for at least the next ten years and never fail to laugh.
“Two and two to Rod Carew.”
Anyway…back to my softball all-star appearance: Midway through the game, I made a big play in the field and looked around at the folks clapping for me. That’s when I noticed my Dad watching near third base…trying to hide behind the entrance gate. The next inning, I doubled with the bases loaded. I ended up coming in a close second for the game’s MVP award. I did all this while my Dad surreptitiously witnessed…having (thankfully) ignored my edict.
I guess that’s why 14-year-olds shouldn’t run the world.
The End
Anyone else wanna spin a yarn?
Copyright © 2005-2007 Mickey Z.
