Irene and the
End of a Dream
by Don Drewniak
It was a warm
mid-April day. A perfect day to play pick-up
baseball.
A quarter-mile
south of the Fall River, Massachusetts tenement
in which I lived with my parents was King Philip
Field. It had been created decades earlier as a
recreational area for workers and family members
of the nearby King Philip Cotton Mills. The mills,
like most in the city, were out of business. The
field was only marginally maintained, but
included three areas where baseball could be
played.
I raced home
from school, changed into ratty clothes, grabbed
my bat and glove, and headed out the door. As I
stepped onto the sidewalk, I was intercepted by a
girl, Irene, who had transferred two days earlier
into my fifth-grade class at the Slade School.
“Hi, what
good luck. I'm in your class and I live right
across the street. Where are you going to play
ball?” she asked.
“The ball
field.”
“Wait for
me.”
“No girls
play there.”
“Wanna
bet?”
With that, she
dashed into the house.
Now what
do I do?
I didn’t
want to take off without her, but I also didn’t
want to be seen coming to the field with a girl.
That would have been a big no-no. Just before she
returned with her bat and glove, I formulated
what I thought to be a foolproof plan.
As soon as she
stepped onto the sidewalk, I yelled, “Let’s
go!” and took off at full speed, figuring I
would arrive at the field well before her.
Halfway there, she pulled even with me and slowed
to my pace.
We arrived
together. Most of the regulars were there and
greeted me with comments such as, “Who’s
your girlfriend?”
The two
captains were sixth-graders and were the same
ones who always picked the teams. Once they were
ready, the rest of us, including Irene, lined up.
“Girls
can’t play,” said one of the captains.
His name was Robert, but most of the kids called
him Big Z because he was one of the biggest sixth-graders
in the area and his last name began with Z.
“Who says?”
responded Irene.
“You’ll
get hurt.”
This caused
most of the boys to start laughing.
The laughing
stopped and all became quiet when Irene said,
“You’re just afraid that I’ll make
you look bad.”
“Are you
nuts or something?”
“Scared?”
she challenged.
“Of you?
You are nuts.”
“Let me
pitch five balls to you. If you can hit just one
of them fair, I’ll leave. If you can’t,
I play.”
Z paused as
his brain must have been working overtime. “Five
swings, right? Strikes, right?”
“Right.”
“From the
mound, right?”
“Right. I’ll
need a few warm ups.”
“Don’t
hurt your arm.”
That once
again brought out the laughter.
The other
captain volunteered to catch as Irene headed for
the mound. I found myself rooting for her and was
disappointed when she threw her first warm up
with a stereotypical pitch-like-a-girl motion and
the ball bounced four or five feet in front of
the plate. More laughter erupted. She threw four
more pitches. Three fell short of the plate and
one bounced off it.
Z put his
hands up in the air with palms facing out,
signaling for quiet. “You can move in ten
feet,” he snickered.
“Thank
you, no.”
I had no idea
what a premonition was back then, but an image of
Casey at the Bat entered my thoughts as
Z pounded the plate three times with the head of
his bat and yelled out, “Don’t worry, I
won’t hit you.”
Again laughter.
“I know,”
said Irene.
As she wound
up and fired her first pitch, gone was the pitch-like-a-girl
motion. In its place was the softball windmill
windup. The ball blazed over the middle of the
plate. Z’s bat never moved.
“Strike,”
bellowed the catcher.
Z was
obviously stunned, as were all of us. Sounding
pretty weak, he said, “It doesn’t count
unless I swing.”
“They are
all going to be strikes,” countered Irene.
Every kid
sensed that Z was rattled — rattled big-time.
The next pitch
was just as fast and just above the knees. Z
never had a chance as he swung and missed like
Mighty Casey. What had been laughter, was now
cheering. Four more pitches, each was in a
different location over the plate. More cheering
as Z never came close to hitting any of them.
The game: Z
won the toss, but angry and not thinking clearly,
he didn’t pick Irene. The other captain
grabbed her with the first pick. I knew I wouldn’t
get picked until late in the “draft”
and hoped I’d be on her team as I didn’t
want to have to bat against her. I ended up on Z’s
team.
Rats.
As I guessed
might happen, Irene started as the pitcher. I
wasn’t too surprised when she pitched slower
than she did to Z before the game. She only
pitched faster with runners on base and when she
pitched to Z. She struck him out twice before a
new pitcher replaced her to start the fourth. In
my one at bat against her, I swung nice and easy,
popping out to second base.
Not only could
Irene pitch, she could field and hit. She didn’t
hit the ball hard or far, but was sort of like
Richie Ashburn who hit only 29 home runs in 15
MLB seasons, but had a .308 lifetime batting
average.
She only
played twice more and then was gone as her family
moved away less than a month after arriving.
What I came to
realize after watching her play was that I would
never become a major league player, or even a
Class D minor leaguer. I simply didn’t have
the talent and no amount of practice would change
that.
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