No Baseball on My Block

The neighborhood block is the first playground for inner city kids coming of age. It’s the first place you go once your parents let you out the front gate. Still too young to roam freely so you play sports on your block where Mom can keep a watchful eye.

On my block, we had a basketball. “We” as in one kid’s parents got him a basketball and we all used it. Our middle-class parents worked hard to provide us with a roof over our heads, clothes and food. So that one kid might get a basketball, but not a hoop. So we fashioned hoops out of old crates or cardboard boxes. Nothing too complicated, just cut out the bottom and nail it to a light post.

Someone might get a basketball hoop, then we’d be more official and could emulate our favorite NBA stars. If no one had a hoop or we couldn’t make our own, we would play taps. Everyone would pass the ball around in a circle; only rule was your feet couldn’t touch the ground when you had the ball on your hands.

The more advanced kids wanted to work on their dribble. They wanted to be the next Allen Iverson, so they practiced crossovers and “between-the-legs” moves you would see in And 1 tournaments.

Another kid from my block gets a football. No helmet, no shoulder pads, no goal posts. Not even enough kids on this block to field an offense and a defense. But we had vertical space and an official quarterback. One brave soul, who could put the responsibility of two teams on his back.

He had seven seconds to throw the ball or it was an automatic sack. We had blitzes, kick-offs (more like throw-offs) and returns. We could play one on one, two on two, three on three with a wide receiver and cornerback matchup. Manholes at the end of the street were touchdowns and the length of three parked cars were first downs. Thanksgiving games in the snow were the best.

Our friends from overseas brought soccer balls to the block. We’d turn two garbage cans into goals and go at it.

No one ever brought a baseball outside.

No one brought a baseball glove.

No one even had a baseball bat. Not one that we were supposed to use anyway.

Baseball wasn’t for the block. It was for the diamond. For a park with wide-open space to run, throw and hit. And how many cars and living room window would be broken on our blocks? You know your parents didn’t have money to fix anyone’s window.

So we barely ever played baseball. Barely even garnered interest in baseball. Maybe one kid was lucky enough to have his Dad take him to a batting cage or diamond. But it was so much simpler to do something else.

By the time, we were old enough to go the basketball courts and parks; we didn’t even need a ball. Someone else was sure to have one and we had everything we needed. Baseball was the only sport that required more than one ball and a couple of friends.