Tennis Court Baseball

I used to think that I had a pretty normal childhood.

Turns out it’s the kind of stuff they make movies out of.

I grew up suburbia. Lived in the same house from birth until I moved out as an adult. In fact there were a whole group of kids that grew up in that neighbourhood. It’s not like we didn’t have video games or super cool TV shows to keep us hunkered down in the basement thumb battling like todays generation.  It’s just that no matter how amazing an episode of Saved by the Bell was produced, or how many 2 for 1 video game rentals Blockbuster put out, there was nothing on an electronic device that was going to pull me away from my neighbourhood sports leagues. Granted they weren’t “leagues” in an official sense. No adults had organized them and we didn’t have jerseys. But to the 20 of us that participated, they sure seemed official.

Tennis Court Baseball was not something that just anyone could join. There was a schedule. There was a process. A game could be suspended when it was dinnertime or when someone had to go to Grandma’s house. But that same game would be picked up again tomorrow. You needed some semblance of the same teams to recommence. You couldn’t just throw out the partial result that started pre-dinner for goodness sake! You needed to know where the ghost runners were and whose spot it was in the batting order. You needed to know that if you threw the ball at a runner he was out. But you couldn’t throw it to hurt him. And yes… we could tell if you were trying to hurt him. Aggressive behaviour like that resulted in you going for a walk to pick up the extra tennis balls. You needed to know that the Carson’s Chiquita Banana bat that they got at a Blue Jays game as a promotion giveaway had special home run powers or you might never select it from the pile of bats from which to choose. Because if you chose mistakenly chose the blue bat, your hit might clear the fence but not clear the wire… which is clearly a ground rule double and not a home run. You were allowed to play a fielder behind the wall and if he caught the ball it was an out. It made for interesting strategic managerial discussions of where to place fielders for each batter. Not just anyone could walk into that park and figure out the beauty that was Tennis Court baseball. We didn’t need instant replay or even umpires. Everyone can tell whether or not the ball got there before you reached the poles (which substituted as bases). And man, there was no one who could throw a knuckle curve with a tennis ball like my brother Dave. You wouldn’t believe the movement on that thing. Although our tennis court field was a perfect square, it seemed to play better for lefties. Jeff and Jess had all the homerun records and most of the pitching records as well. It was a mystery of the park how the square played better for lefties, but that’s just the way it was. Can’t argue with stats.

When summer gave way to winter, the game changed from baseball to road hockey. Brandon and I lived close enough to the school blacktop which doubled as our “rink” so naturally our parents had to supply the league us with nets and goalie equipment. Even if we weren’t home, it was understood that anyone from the league could just go into the backyard and get the stuff. There were fewer day games in hockey because school got in the way, so hockey games began at 6:07 since most families finished dinner by 6:00. Those 7 minutes allowed for travel time to the schoolyard. Hockey was more inclusive because there were fewer rules. But a newbies biggest mistake was often that they would roof the ball, requiring one of the more nimble players to scale the school wall to get the ball back without getting caught by the school custodian. Games went to 5 and we all knew that having Brandon or I in net meant that you had a better chance of winning since we knew how to stack the pads.  Jeff was the best defenceman and Dave was the dirtiest player. Jess had the best slap shot by far, having speed and a wicked curve on a shot from the point. On nights when you only had 2 or 3 players you would just do shootout until my Mom stood out on the back deck and called us home for bed. On baseball nights with 2 or 3 you played the wall ball game on the spare lot beside the Carrol’s house.

The stories that came out of those days were things of legend

There was the day Dave swore at Mrs. Carson because Dustin and Darrell had to leave early and take their bat home (It was the only bat we had that day)

Then there was the time Dustin threw a marble through the school window and we all ran away. The cops had very little trouble in identifying which group of kids were at the park playing baseball and were at our door within the hour.

There was the summer they put on the school addition, changing the size of the hockey rink, giving us an entirely new style of game to play; a long and skinny “rink” rather than wide “rink” we had been accustomed to.

There were memories and league record that seemed to grow larger over the years, but we would recant them to each other over Mac’s Milk Froster’s post game. We’d tell each other of games where Brandon had to have made 100 saves, and summers that Jess hit more than 500 home runs.

We all just thought that this was normal, and that every kid in Canadian suburbia got this.

Today, my house backs onto a school yard with a 4 soccer fields, a baseball diamond, a cricket pitch, a football field and basketball courts. Many nights I go out after dinner with the family to see whose there. Some fields are in use. Many are empty.

My daughter will see some of her friends. All escorted by parents keeping an ever-watchful eye and being whisked away home before any unscripted fun takes place.

Many of her friends never make it out of the house - too busy with mine craft and Disney XD.

For 10 years I lived a dream. Kids of all ages, my friends and my siblings friends spending hours on a field, learning how to play together, how to stay fit and active. We learned how to manage arguments and persevere for the better. We learned how to do life on those fields.

The stuff movies are made of I tell ya.