Fallen Fruit Will Rot on the Ground

Do you remember your dreams? Not the ones you get nightly. I'm talking about those you create in your heart and then play over and over in your conscious thought. Some of you may actually have achieved one or more of your dreams. I'm thinking, though, that most of us do not. For whatever reason, they just don't happen.

How do you respond when you realize your dream will only ever be just that: a dream? Do you remember your first? What was it that captured your imagination for the first time? I still remember mine. It began when I was young. So very young it seems now.

My brother introduced me to baseball when I was five. Probably earlier, but I have no memories before five, so I'm going with that. Mickey would have been fifteen then. I remember him pitching to me when we lived at the "pink and white house", which was the name Helvie and I gave to the pink and white house we lived in up in Shoreview, north of St. Paul. I was batting left-handed. Back then I was exclusively left-handed. My back was nearly to the fence. I remember swinging the bat and feeling the thud of good contact as it struck the ball. I recall how I felt as I watched the ball sail over the heads of everyone and continue over the fence to land in Uncle Harold's yard. I don't know how far I hit it, but considering normal property lines I am guessing it had to have gone more than one hundred feet in the air. I was a power hitter.

Moving to the country meant few organized teams for me. It was difficult to spark enough interest in rural Minnesota back then. We did have one year, 1965 or 1966, when interest was high. My team was the Navigators (I thought that named s*cked), and we wore yellow (a cr*p color for a baseball team). There was no trophy that year, which was too bad, since we won more games than anyone.

I was thirteen I would play on an organized team again. One of the neighboring towns had four teams - and an official field. It was surrounded completely by a fence. The backstop was huge. There were concrete dugouts! And the outfield fence had signs posted to indicate the distances from home plate. The shortest was 375-feet. The longest was 400-feet. We got to play there four times in the season, and then twice in the play-offs. It was there I had one of my "great moments" of the game. What a pity that it should come when I was so young.

I remember the Soderville team had put up its ace pitcher; a tall, lanky boy who threw hard. He may have been a bit taller than me, or perhaps we were the same height, but I had more muscle and bone to work with. He had given up a hit and a walk and was now pitching to me. Now I was batting right-handed, having been forced to convert by my parents and older brother, who somehow viewed being left-handed as a terrible disease. He threw nothing but fast balls. On his fourth pitch he put the ball right where I wanted it. I swung as hard as I could.

It was the same feeling I had when I hit that home run at five. I felt the ball and bat come together perfectly. I saw them meet about belt high, a little in front of home plate. The ball left the bat with the added power of my swing, my hips, my arms, and the turn of my wrists. I knew I had hit it over the left-fielder's head. Now, if I could only run fast enough I should be able to round the bases. The ball might even roll to the fence.

I vaguely remember hearing the cheers when I hit it. Back then parents often sat in their cars and honked the horn whenever anything of worth took place. I don't really remember it going quiet, but it did. What I do remember was glancing to left-field as I came up and around second base. I could see the left fielder still running. The ball had rolled to the fence! Then, as I came to third, the coach, who was coaching third base, held out his hand and told me to quit running. So I walked in to home plate.

When I got to the dugout I realized nobody was cheering. Nobody was saying anything much. They were just staring at me. So I asked what had happened. Tommy, who was sitting next to me, asked why I had run so hard. I said I wanted to be sure I got the home run. Why? That was when Kevin told me what had happened.

"Well you already had that, stupid. You hit it over the fence."

I was dumbfounded. I looked out to the field and, sure enough, the opposing team's outfielders were searching the tall grass on the other side of the fence. It took several minutes before they found it because the grass was so thick. When they did, the opposing coach stepped it off. No one knew for certain, but the guesstimate was that I had hit it 430-feet. My coach took the ball and had everyone on the team sign it and I got to keep it. It became my most prized possession, until the house burned two years later. I got a replacement ball, but the person who gave it to me wrote 375-feet, because that was what the marker on the fence said. I don't know if I still have that one.

I was a good ballplayer, but kind of a big fish in a small pond. Apparently, I lacked something. I was scouted, both by colleges and by the major leagues. But no one came to my door to offer anything. Whatever they wanted, I didn't have it. I've often wondered if my taking a year off to do drama club didn't make a difference. I didn't play as well when I came back, due to my teammates no longer accepting me. I needed that to play well. When I was up I played better than anyone I knew. But when I was down, which happened, I wasn't much good at all. I suppose if I had achieved this dream it would have destroyed me. Maybe that's what I lacked. I was good, but I didn't have the skills of Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Rod Carew, or Roberto Clemente. So without the rest it was just a waste of time to bring me up.

When I realized my baseball dream was over I went into coast mode, and stayed there a long time. Writing got me out of it, but only while the inspiration lasted. When that died I returned to coast mode, where I have remained until just recently.

Now I'm staring into the face of my other dream and wondering: Do I have what it takes this time?