It was a Saturday, May 24, 1958. I was 10 years old. My father and I were at Briggs Stadium in Detroit, at the baseball game between the Detroit Tigers and the New York Yankees. My favorite guy was Al Kaline, right fielder. Not so favorite, Mickey Mantle, center fielder and first baseman for the Yankees.
Two teams battling it out.
My hair was short that year because I cut it off myself. Not a good look. I remember wearing peddle pushers with my Keds sneakers. That’s all I wore back then, with some kind of shirt my mother had to iron. And my baseball mitt.
I was a mouthy kid, cheering the Tigers on, even more so with my dad sitting next to me. He was tall, lanky and quiet. Several seats down from us was a big, fat guy with a mouth as loud as mine, cheering the Yankees on.
Two fans battling it out.
I screamed myself hoarse, especially when a foul ball came our way in the stands (I remember being up high, to the left of home plate). I was ready for it, standing, glove out, but Big Mouthy Guy caught it. Dang! Dang! Double Dang!
I didn’t catch a ball that day, but my Tigers won 3-2. Big Mouthy Guy’s Yankees lost. And as loud as I was, I knew my dad was proud of me for loving the game.
Little did he know how I agonized over playing baseball with the kids in the neighborhood. We lived out of town, on a dirt road, farm land but none of our parents were farmers. My parents had two kids; me and my brother. Next door were the Froebels who had three kids, Joanne, my best friend, Steve, my brother’s best friend, and Sally, who was too young to play. Next door to them were the Crupis who had three girls. I can’t remember their names, only that the middle one used to beat me up all the time. The oldest was nice.
We always play at the Froebel’s. Their yard was long, wide and grassy, sloping down to the road. When it came time to pick teams, I was always picked last. The uncoordinated one. Of course it hurt. Every time. But instead of crying about it, I was that enthusiastic kid back at the Tiger vs Yankees game.
Every time! Even though I couldn’t catch or hit for beans.
As a 29-year-old, I joined the baseball team at the bank where I worked. I was put at third base. Ellen was shortstop, thank goodness. She was our star player and covered my butt. I wasn’t great but I was still mouthy and determined as hell to beat the other team; women who looked like they could chew us up for breakfast.
Amazingly, we were ahead.
Then the batter hit a line drive right at me. I was ready for it, glove out but the ball dropped and took a bad hop (isn’t it always a bad hop?) right into my nose. The crack was heard around the bases. Game over … for me. Our coach insisted I go to the hospital. I insisted that I stay in the game. “If you put Sue on third, we’ll lose the game! For sure!”
Which he did and we lost.
I ended up at the hospital and also ended up having surgery to fix my nose, so I wouldn’t go through the rest of my life unable to breathe and looking like a boxer. That’s when I learned that I’m allergic to Demerol, which made me vomit like crazy. Not a fun thing when recovering from nasal surgery. I was recovering in a four-person room with only one other patient who complained loudly, over and over again about how miserable she was. I can still hear her shrill voice crying, “I’m nauseous, I’m nauseous, my head hurts, my head hurts.” I suffered in silence until I had finally had enough. That’s when I threatened her from behind my white hospital curtain, threatened to get out of bed and smack her silly. I’m sure I used at least one F-bomb. She screamed for the nurse, insisting that her doctor move her to another room. Which he did. Thank goodness.
The only other memorable moment of my first and only baseball injury was when my doctor pulled the 15 miles of gauze out of my nose. Still gives me the willies these 40-odd years later.
First and only? Yes, I retired my glove after that and switched, years later, to racquetball. I loved playing sports, always wanting to win, but never came home with the blue ribbon. Except when I was 5 years old and I swam the width of an Olympic-sized pool in a contest. I won the blue ribbon then. Of course, I was the only kid in the race, the only one who could swim that far. Years later I joined the swim team but the best I could do was come in third. Never mind that I only joined the team for the last half of summer when I went to stay with my dad (during his visitation time). Just think, if I had been with the team for the whole summer, I could’ve been a contender!
Baseball, racquetball, swimming, skiing, horses, cutting cows, piano, golf, rowing…you name it, I did it. Nothing Olympian about the results, but I loved every try.
So, what’s a girl to do now? … maybe just take up walking around Lake County, something safe or maybe just finish up crocheting that scarf I started in January.
Editor’s note: Lucy Llewellyn Byard is a columnist for the Record-Bee. To contact her, email lucywgtd@gmail.com
