When Cuckoo Was Up Last

My youthful sports adventures

In my dotage, I like to look back to my days as a young athlete. Let me tell you stories of my sports triumphs.

Wanna hear them again?

I could not play sports. I lacked coordination. My lack of coordination lacked coordination. I was a skinny asthmatic kid who fell down a lot and walked into things.

Nowadays, that wouldn’t matter as far as sports. I’d be on a soccer team and fail epically and get a trophy. No such thing in the 1950s. You were thrust into the arena and thrown to the lions (or was it the other way around?)

Recess involved us being trotted out to the asphalt playground. The game of choice for the boys was Punch Ball, played with either a Spaldeen or a Pennsy Pinky. Both were hollow-core bouncing pink rubber balls used in street games. There was heated debate about which ball bounced higher or had a better spin.

It didn’t matter to me whether I used a Spaldeen or a Pennsy Pinky since I couldn’t hit either one. Because teachers lounged about during recess, I HAD to be chosen for a Punch Ball team. The team captains would argue furiously over me: “I had to pick him last time!” “You did not!”

So I’d have an “at bat” except there were no bats and no pitchers. You bounced the ball and then tried to punch it for a hit. I could not do this. I’d bounce the ball, swing, and whiff. Every time.

When the other team was up, I got to play in the outfield, since I could not catch a ball or throw it, so trying to cover a base would be comical. My teammates could only pray that no ball was punched hard enough to reach me.

Occasionally one did. Of course, “reach me” is a stretch. I’d see the pink sphere loft into the sky, reach its apogee and start back to Earth. “That’s yours, Posner!” my teammates shouted. “Get it! Get it!”

I never got it. I’d scurry on the crumbling asphalt, cupping my hands (no gloves were used), trying to keep my eye on the ball’s trajectory. Sometimes the ball would drop in front of me, sometimes behind me, sometimes to my left, and sometimes to my right.

Then I’d scramble after it as shouts of “You stink, Posner!” assaulted my ears. Eventually, I’d track down the ball, booting it once or twice. Then I’d heave the ball toward one of the guys screaming “Throw it here!” If I was lucky, my throw would land in the general vicinity of an infielder.

Outside of school, we played baseball on the “AC” field, an expanse of grass with a batting cage and bases. No coaches. I don’t remember where the bats and balls came from. We all had fielding gloves.

The boys would “choose up” teams. Again, I was fiercely argued over. Eventually, I’d be one team’s liability. I’d be up last, of course, or as one of the team captains put it “Cuckoo is up last.”

After several games during which Cuckoo struck out and failed to retrieve a hit ball, I was jettisoned, but not ignored. I got to trudge across the field to the ice cream truck and bring back treats for the team.

In high school, there was no recess and obviously, I didn’t try out for any teams. My friends and I regularly got whupped on handball courts by lithe, sadistic bullies, but otherwise, I was done with athletics and glad of it. The upside — nearing 80, I still have my original knees.