Within the past few years, I was walking through a store and noticed that little, round, plastic, blow-up pools were on sale for $.99. $.99! I cannot tell you how much I wanted one of those pools as a child, but my parents never relented. I, who was overindulged in more ways than I could list, was never given a simple plastic pool. That sale got me wondering why.
Parents in the early 1950s were understandably fearful of polio and there was a relationship between swimming pools and transmission, but I don't think plastic pools no more than 48 inches in diameter were the issue. Also, I think my desire for a plastic pool extended beyond the polio scare. I did not understand. And then it hit me. Baseball. Not an actual baseball. The idea of baseball.
My parents loved baseball. I am pretty sure that baseball had not been routinely broadcast on television for many seasons when I started asking for a blow-up pool. Realizing that made me understand. It wasn't that my parents didn't want me to have a pool. They didn't want to sit outside and watch me in it. Not when there was a Phillies game on. And, if recall from childhood memories of baseball sounds flowing onto the street through the windows of mostly unairconditioned houses, there were a lot of televised games.
Just as an aside, denied a blowup pool, I spent the summer digging a pool in the back yard. I was completely focused on my construction project. Well, that and the tile collection I assembled from the dirt I excavated. My efforts evolved into both a construction and an archaeological project-- all to the accompaniment of roaring crowds and the click of a bat hitting a ball (although not that often when the Phillies were at bat).
My mother loved baseball. Truly loved the game. My interest has always been superficial. However, I have always loved an underdog. (If you were going to be any kind of sports fan in Philadelphia you had to develop a love for underdogs.) So when New York got a new team with an impressive stream of losses, I had to love the New York Mets. And since I was entering my teen-age years, some sort of infatuation had to factor in. I developed an affection for Ed Kranepool. How I don't recall, but I was devoted to him as well as to Troy Donahue, Edd "Kookie" Burns and, inexplicably, Walter Pidgeon.
So, my mother, always interested in a trip anywhere new, got tickets for a Mets' home game at Shea Stadium. She got three so we could take along Debbie Shettsline, now Wernert, a true baseball fan as well as an admirer of Ed Kranepool. However, Debbie got sick and had to bow out at the last minute leaving my mother with an extra front row, box seat, along the first baseline. I don't know if she could return it, but I don't think she ever thought of doing that. Instead, we lurked near the ticket office until my mother saw a man headed for the box office. I suspect she could see that he was going to buy one ticket for the bleachers. Being a teenaged girl, I might have kept my distance as she sidled up to him and asked if he'd like to use our ticket. Not buy it. Use it.
I still remember what the guy looked like. Average. Summer clothes appropriate for the ballpark. Nothing fancy about him. The kind of guy who likely stopped by his neighborhood bar on the way home from work. I don't know why but he struck me as single, no kids. Maybe because he was alone at the ballpark on an afternoon when most people were working. It's easier to say what he did not look like. A doctor. A lawyer. A judge. Since it was a weekday afternoon, he probably did not work on Wall Street.
When we took our seats, this man thought he had died and gone to baseball heaven. He pointed out the bleachers where he thought he'd be sitting. He and my mother made easy conversation and he taught us all about the Mets. He bought us drinks and snacks. The three of us had a wonderful time together.
It was a great afternoon at the ballpark. The weather was gorgeous. The Mets won. Partially because in the first inning Ed Kranepool came up second in the Met lineup and hit a home run. My mother enjoyed making me happy, but she also took great joy in making that man happy. I am sure we knew his name at the time, but I have long since forgotten it. I would suspect that he is no longer on the planet, but I bet until the day he passed on he remembered his day at Shea Stadium with my mother.
© 2021 Jane Kelly
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