The Boys of Summer in Ingomar

“In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe!—George Carlin from his stand-up routine about the merits of Baseball versus Football (if you’d like to hear him perform it, go to YouTube; or if you don’t have sound, you can read it at www.baseball-almanac.com/humor7.shtml

“Play Ball!” cried umpires across the country this week, and my thoughts, like the first pitch, curved low and outside to a home plate long ago. My sincere enthusiasm for America’s National Pastime doesn’t extend to the professional leagues—not in 1947 and especially not in 2007. In 1947, my parents took me to my first baseball game at Forbes Field. The Pirates were playing the first-place Brooklyn Dodgers. I wasn’t savvy enough to appreciate then the historic figures I was watching: for the Bums, Jackie Robinson at 1^st base (Rookie of the Year), Peewee Reese at short, and Duke Snider in the outfield, while the Bucs had home-run slugger Ralph Kiner in their lineup.

The Pirates got trounced (no surprise in those days), but the thing that impressed me most about the game was when someone hit a high flying foul ball up into the stands. Suddenly, my dad and the men around us were on their feet. Daddy was holding up the felt hat he worn to the park and shouting, “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” Chaos reigns while I slouched down in my seat, and in the melee, my mom said in a rather annoyed tone, “No. I got it.” The ball had clunked her on the bean before ricocheting into Daddy’s hat.

Uncle Cy, who was listening to the game back home on the radio, told us later that the announcer had reported, “Now the man’s giving the baseball to the little girl, and the medics are escorting the woman to the first aid station. She seems to be walking without assistance.” My mother eventually came back clutching an ice bag to her temple, and the rest of the game was uneventful. Out of the experience I got an official National League baseball—white with hardly a scuff to the leather— and a lifelong fear of foul balls. Ever afterward whenever I’d hear that certain crack of the bat and see the first baseman looking skyward to his left toward the bleachers, I instinctively ducked.

But I do love the amateur game of baseball where youngsters learn teamwork and strategy while developing a combination of athletic skills—throwing, catching, and hitting a ball; running, sliding, stealing bases, and of course, spitting. If you’ve heard George Carlin’s routine about the difference between football and baseball, you’ve heard some of the reasons I prefer the latter.

My partiality for baseball is because it was so much a part of everyday life in my youth. Our house was directly across the street from Ingomar Elementary School and its big ole clay baseball diamond. My mother cursed the dust that blew over from it and coated living room furniture during dry spells. Few evenings in the spring or summer didn’t have a league game, a practice, or at least 3 kids playing One Old Cat, as my uncle watched from the front porch glider.

In the early 1950s a phenomenon swept the neighborhood, thanks to a short Texan with tall ambitions and amazing stamina named Addison A. Vestal (and known to us as Bill’s dad), who rapidly created an empire, the Ingomar Athletic Association. Little League baseball arrived, and soon we were seeing organized leagues for all ages over at the field: Little (age 9-12), with its minor division (7-11), Pony (13-14), Colt (15-16), and North Allegheny Prep (15 and older).

In 1953, the first year of Little League play, Mr. Vestal asked me to keep the score along with his daughter, Gwen. Perhaps he was experiencing early feminist stirrings (nowadays I believe Little League has a girl’s softball division). We served an internship that year under the guidance of E. G. Roessler (Ernie’s dad, sometimes referred to as “Big Ernie”) since our judgment was not immediately trusted to record the finer details of errors, unearned runs, and sacrifice flies.

Apparently it worked out well enough because in future years, I continued to be a scorekeeper along with other teenage girls, sitting behind the batting cage for a good view of the diamond while recording the game details (in pencil) in the official scoring book. I remember among my scoring colleagues were Carolyn Kummer, my Ingomar best friend of all times; Suann Lively; Janet Gilleland; and Nancy Hannan. I don’t believe Ingomar field ever had a scoreboard with runs posted for all to see. That came later when Mr. Vestal built the Little League field down by Pine Creek. At Ingomar, if you wanted to know the score, you just asked whoever was already sitting up on the grassy bank to the right of the field. Benches were few and most were not good vantage points. It was never a problem. Mrs. Hannan (Chuck’s mother) always knew the score.

When thinking about those sandlot games, invariably I see not just Nancy and her ever-present mom, but the entire Hannan family. They were (and to my mind, still are) the perfect baseball family. Bob Jr. (catcher) and Chuck (shortstop) were great team players, always picked for the all-star teams; their dad, Bob Sr., was the unflappable coach of the Wexford Pony League team and later manager of North Allegheny Prep League Indians (coached by NAHS’ Lyle Fox). Brothers David was a few years younger and little Billy served as batboy when he was not much bigger than the equipment he was dragging around. The Hannons epitomized good sportsmanship, calmness, and devotion to the game. I think the only time I ever saw Mr. Hannan lose his temper was when he was coaching our 1955 Prep All-Star team; the opposing side was Munhall, where the game was played. As I wrote in my scrapbook afterward, “We lost to Munhall, who became world champs (chumps). Will always remember the umpire who was a ‘homer’ and Mr. Hannan getting kicked out of the game when the Munhall management refused to turn on the lights during the last 2 innings.”

The “Boys of Summer” were the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers in Roger Kahn’s book by that name. Below I’m listing my boys of summer (c. 1953-58), but only those from the NAHS class of 1958. Many more had their hits, runs, and alas, errors recorded in my scorebook. Please tell me if I’ve missed anyone:

Little League (1953); Chuck Hannan, Ernie Roessler, and Bill Vestal (who always batted 4^th, for good reason).

Pony League (1954): the first-place Wexford team had Chuck and Ernie plus Paul Mahoney, Bob Richard, and Bob Schmieler; Ingomar had Bill and Arthur "Pete" Brandt; Fairhill had Chuck Gruber and Arnie Huwar; and Highland had Ron Huch.

Colt League (1956): in addition to those already mentioned were Bob Beilstein, Tom Brunt, Ed Florak, Mike McKay, Jack Miller, and Ken Nagie.

Many of the guys above also played for the Indians in the North Allegheny Prep League, plus John Allardice and Ron Sutter.