MY LOUSY WORLD: When it was a game

Posted 4/7/11

And of course, I take nearly every Monday off, preferring the traditional three-day weekend.

But my Pittsburgh Pirates, who hold the record of 17 for consecutive losing seasons, with a rare TV appearance, was a no-brainer. Game time was at 12:20 …

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MY LOUSY WORLD: When it was a game

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Last Friday, I took off a day of work to watch opening day for my Pittsburgh Pirates on WGN. Opening day of the Great American Pastime is sacred, but in fairness, I also won’t work on opening day of professional rugby, Patriots Day, Chinese New Year, first day of Hispanic Heritage Month, Yom Kippur, St. Jean Baptiste Day, Lincoln’s or Nixon’s birthday.

And of course, I take nearly every Monday off, preferring the traditional three-day weekend.

But my Pittsburgh Pirates, who hold the record of 17 for consecutive losing seasons, with a rare TV appearance, was a no-brainer. Game time was at 12:20 p.m., so I got up extra early at 11:30 to make sure all the pets were fed and most of my teeth were brushed before the first pitch.

My Bucs field some young talent this season, and when they beat the Cubs 6-3, I became convinced they’ll go all the way and win the World Series this year. And sure enough, at this writing, they are now 3-1, which extrapolated over a 160 game season, has them winning the pennant at 120-40.

But there’s a lesser-known game invented by my friends and I in 1972, with all the fun, but even more thrills than baseball. It was during our American Legion season that we conceived it to keep us sharp between games. Dave Beemer reminded me of it the other day when he emailed, “You won’t believe what we played in Lifetime Sports today. It was a version of our On the Line; remember you, me (Dave is a teacher, but his grammar is atrocious) and Christie played that and you always got pummeled on the head ’cause you missed the backboard?”

My first thought was, “What, is he kidding me? Like I could forget the perfect game that we actually invented and should have patented? Not bloody likely!” Baseball requires so much equipment, where only a handful of rocks, a basketball backboard, a good, brand-name tennis shoe and nerves of steel were needed in our game.

Our rules were simple, but failure to produce, extremely painful. Dave later explained his students used dodge balls in their modern version, but I can boast that we played On-the-Line back “when it was a game!”

Dean Christie’s family had, and still has, a blue and white UCLA backboard at the north end of the driveway at their house on Stampede Avenue. We spent a lot of time at Dean’s, and would sometimes mindlessly chuck rocks at that backboard while debating which was the greatest Tommy James & the Shondells song.

The 1972 American Legion Boys of Summer were always looking for ways to amp up our challenges. Someone offered, “What say when someone throws at the backboard and misses, everyone else gets to throw rocks at the thrower until he can escape behind the garage?” We were unanimous that it was genius, so we drew a line near the front door some 60 feet from the backboard. The garage was another 20 feet past the backboard, and beyond that buzzed the thousands of honeybees Dean’s dad, Ronald raised.

There was peril a-plenty for a thrower succumbing to the pressure after declaring, “I’m on the line!” Besides Dean, Dave and myself, a few other On-the-Line wannabes drifted in and out that summer, but the cowardly ones who seldom announced, “I’m on the line” were quickly weeded out. Cowards need not apply, we decided.

Christie and Beemer had the distinct advantage over me of being high school basketball players, where pressure of shooting from the foul line loaned some valuable experience. Sure, from my third base position, I could throw out the speediest base runner on a slow-hit grounder with seconds to spare, but never with the pressure of knowing I might be knocked unconscious if I overthrew first base.

My biggest flaw was prematurely beginning to flee at the same time I was releasing my rock. I knew what was coming and wasted no time reaching the safety of that garage, but that dramatically affected my accuracy. It’s not like safety was a complete unconcern, since no rocks bigger than a “bolster” marble were permitted, and the thrower was allowed to inspect the chosen projectiles before going on the line.

Oh, I surely miss those innocent days when it was a game. Now as adults, we’re on the line every time we leave we the house, except instead of ducking stones, it’s foreclosure, cataracts and kidney stones. And there ain’t no garage to escape behind.

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