THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 5, 1995 TAG: 9503010078
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REAL MOMENTS
SOURCE: BY JANE SOBIE
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
IN THE BEGINNING was baseball . . . or so it seemed to me when I was growing up during the 1950s and '60s in Cincinnati - home of the Cincinnati Reds and legendary Crosley Field.
Opening day at Crosley was a much-anticipated occasion, not only because it was the beginning of the baseball season, but because it also meant that joyous dwindling of the school calendar. The beginning of the baseball season also meant that, soon, Mr. Baseball himself, Grandpa Frank Ellis would arrive by train from Springfield, Mo.
My grandfather was a retired carpenter from the Frisco railroad in Kansas City, and next to claw hammer and clinking nails, Grandpa was devoted to the swinging bat and the curveball. So when Grandpa Ellis spent his summers in Cincinnati, his granddaughter became thoroughly versed in baseball.
I remember Grandpa's large, calloused, carpenter's hands grasping mine as we climbed to the bleachers between home plate and first base. According to Grandpa, this was ``good fly ball territory.''
He taught me how to keep a perfect scorecard. I logged the exploits of such players as Ted Kluszewski, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Stan (The Man) Musial, Frank Robinson and Pete Rose.
I was in seventh grade when Pete Rose was a rookie for the Reds.
``That dang boy is gonna make it big some day,'' Grandpa observed in his Ozark drawl.
He also believed it was educational to memorize players' names and jersey numbers, their averages, their interests - even where their wives sat at the home games. I needed binoculars to see the seats behind the dugouts where they sat. Seemed like most of the wives had blond hair and smoked cigarettes.
By the seventh inning stretch I had usually downed about three lemonades, two bags of peanuts and an Eskimo pie and was feeling kind of woozy. But I always took advantage of Grandpa on these outings because I knew my parents would have said, ``No more,'' after my first bag of peanuts.
During rain delays Grandpa would tell baseball stories about the likes of Satchel Paige, who Grandpa said was the best ballplayer he ever saw. He used to drive to different parts of Oklahoma and Kansas to watch teams from the Negro League play. He sat up close on the wooden bleachers where he could see the sweat roll off the ballplayer's brow and hear the snap of the ball into the catcher's mitt.
When I was 12 or 13, he began letting me walk ahead of him up the stadium ramps, sensing, I suppose, that young girls wearing training bras and petal pink lipstick don't want to be seen at the ballpark with an old, bald-headed man wearing suspenders and no teeth. (The only time Grandpa wore his dentures was on Sunday to The First Baptist Church in Springfield. And that was because Grandma insisted).
During the last game we attended together, Los Angeles Dodger Maury Wills popped a fly ball into the upper deck between home plate and first base. Grandpa had the perfect seat that day. He caught the ball.
``Ain't this a dandy!'' he said, twirling the ball in his right hand.
Ushers wrote down his name and address and took the ball to be autographed by Maury Wills. My grandfather made a plaque for the baseball where it stayed on top of his Motorola television set until he died of lung cancer in 1972 - a day before baseball's next opening day.
I was 22 when he died. I sent flowers to his funeral in Missouri. My card read: ``To Grandpa, Mr. Baseball. A true champion in life.''
Grandpa had shown me it was OK for a girl to shun dolls for baseball statistics. It was OK to terrorize the eighth-grade boys when I came up to bat in P.E. It was OK to be me.
Shortly after his death, Crosley Field was torn down to make way for a parking lot. Down came our favorite sign beyond the outfield fence that read: ``Hit this and win a Siebler suit.'' Reds player Wally Post won 11 suits..
Grandpa wouldn't like today's super-sized stadiums with Astroturf. At Crosley Field he could smell the freshly cut grass. That stadium had character - not class. It had grit - not glitz. And he'd be disgusted with the baseball strike. Grandpa's heroes played for the love of baseball, not money.
I wish my grandfather could have seen my twin sons David and Steven play baseball - from tee ball in Scotland through high school playoff games in Virginia Beach. Sometimes, when one of the boys would make a special play, I'd look up into the sky and say to myself, ``Grandpa, that one was for you.''
I'm looking forward to meeting my grandfather again in the great grandstand in the sky. Somewhere between home plate and first base. MEMO: Janie Sobie is a freelance writer living in Virginia Beach. She is a
former English and journalism teacher at First Colonial High School. by CNB