Baseball

My favorite sport has always been baseball. As an eight year old I made the Ashby Little League team that was part of the Bordertown League. Ashby had the Red Sox and Townsend had two teams (Yankees and Indians) and New Ipswich ,NH (Dodgers) with Greenville having another team(forgot their team name). Harry Helander and my father were the manager and coach of the Red Sox. My number was 9 which was Ted Williams number (my baseball hero). I played LL for 5 years and I played several positions. As one of the youngest players one didn't get many chances to play and you had to wait for your time when you were a 11 or 12 years old. In my last year of Little League I played first base and did some pitching. I was selected as a Little League All Star. As an All Star the manager switched me to play second base because they wanted Rollie Place to play first base. Rollie would figure into my life 3 years later. That story is part of this blog's section "That's The Breaks!". Our team had some success and we won our first three games. One of the games was against a very good Fitchburg team which had Donald Starr as their starting pitcher. I met Don eight year's later in college and we have remained great friends for the past 45 years. In the game which we won I had two hits. I like to remind Don about this game. I had a very good All Star year in batting over .400 and also getting mentioned in the local paper about my fielding in one of the games. My highlight was a game in Baldwinville where the field did not have any grass. With two runners on the coach gave me the signal to bunt. I laid down the bunt towards second base. The first baseman headed towards first but the second baseman saw the runner and went to cover second. Without grass the ball continued to roll towards the outfield. I ran hard and rounded first and headed to second. The outfielder picked up the ball and threw it in but it was wide of second base. I continued on to third and as I approached third the coach was waving me towards home plate. I slid into home safe with a bunt that went for a double with the error allowing me and two teammates to score.
As a 13 to 15 year old I played Babe Ruth Baseball. I was selected as a 15 year old All Star but could not play because of a broken ankle (see post That's the Breaks). I didn't play baseball again until my senior year in high school. As a senior I hit .390 and played third base and a little pitching. My high light was against Billy Martino who pitched for Lunenburg High School. One of my teammates Rodney Fors was on first and I hit a single. With Kari Rantala up the coach gave us the steal signal. I stole second and Rod stole third. The coach gave the steal sign again and Rodney stole home and I stole third. To my amazement the coach gave me the steal sign on the next pitch. I was not a fast runner (Rodney was) and I thought about Kari swinging the bat as I was approaching the plate. I didn't go. The coach then gave me the sign again. Well, Billy Martino was lefthanded and for some reason he did a double windup and I easily slide across home plate with the go ahead run and eventually a 4 to 2 win.

In college I played four years as a pitcher and enjoyed many funny times as well as making a life time friend. I did win two games but my highlight was a loss to Westfield State. We played 7 inning (doubleheaders) and the score was tied 0 to 0 after seven innings. I did give up a run in the eighth and we loss 1 to 0 and I had thrown a five hitter. Another highlight was I hit a triple in a game in North Adams in a game I  was pitching and I drove in 2 runs. However it was a pitching loss for me as we loss 7 to 2. After college I was asked to help coach the Fitchburg State College baseball team. Head coach Norm Carson didn't know if he would be available because he was going for his Ph.D. Dick Johnson was the asst coach and I would be his asst working with the pitchers. As it turned out Norm reworked his schedule and I was an second asst that year with little to do.

                                          In background is Don Starr and my brother Bob.