Still Pitching Read Online Free PDF

grandstand at Ebbets Field and watch the Dodgers play.
    Each of the New York ballparks, Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds, and Ebbets Field were shoehorned into their surrounding Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn neighborhoods. But each had its own unique character. The left and right field foul lines at Yankee Stadium were less than 300 feet from home plate, while the left and right center power alleys were over 400 feet away. The Polo Grounds was shaped like a horseshoe with even shorter foul lines—279 down the left field line, and 257 in right field. The clubhouse in dead center field was almost 500 feet from the plate. Both parks had seating capacities of over 50,000.
    Of the three though, Ebbets was the quirkiest one. I took special pride in knowing its history and its idiosyncrasies. A 32,000-seat bandbox of a park set in the heart of Flatbush, it radiated a cozy intimacy and an inviting familiarity that the others lacked. From the center field bleachers you could hear left fielder “Shotgun” Shuba yell “I got it, Duke.” And from the upper deck behind first, you could see the grimace on Jackie Robinson’s face as he went head-to-head with umpire Jocko Conlin.
    At Ebbets the double-decker grandstand in center field jutted away to a forty-foot-high black concrete scoreboard, crowned by a ten-foot screen. Our right fielder, Carl Furillo, “the Reading Rifle,” knew how to play every carom off that wall. Another thing I’d brag about was Duke Snider’s uncanny ability to crank “Bedford Avenue rain makers” over the huge scoreboard.
    From the minute we reach the bus stop until an hour later when we get off the subway at Eastern Parkway, we chatter nonstop about the upcoming game. As we’re walking up the subway station stairs, Ira asks, “Who do you think’ll pitch for the Brooks? The Preach, Ersk, or Newk?”
    Jesus, I can’t believe he doesn’t know this, but I am smart enough to keep my mouth shut. They’d already begun to berate me for being a smart-ass know-it-all.
    â€œDunno, but for sure it’ll be Sal the Barber for the Giants,” says Heshy. “He murders us.” I think it odd that Heshy can know who is pitching for the Giants but, like Ira, he doesn’t know who’s pitching for us.
    I want to blurt out “It’s Newcombe, you knucklehead.”
    But I decided to bank this information and wait my turn.
    â€œHe’s a slow starter,” Kenny counters. “We can beat him if we get on him early. Pee Wee and Jackie have to get on base in the first inning, so Duke, Campy, and Gil can bring ‘em around.”
    Kenny’s right about that much. At least someone in this crowd is paying attention.
    We walk down Franklin Avenue and pass right by Lou Eisenstein’s sporting goods store, where we gaze in the window and gawk at the expensive, genuine cowhide Rawlings and Wilson baseball mitts—the top-of-the-line merchandise that we all covet but no one can afford.
    I wait for an opening and casually mention that during basketball season Lou Eisenstein, the store’s owner, referees the New York Knick games at Madison Square Garden.
    Ira takes the bait. “How’d you know that?” he asks.
    â€œMy dad and I go to the Garden every winter,” I counter—hoping to make them jealous.
    My heart’s pounding with anticipation when we approach the rotunda entrance to the old grey concrete and steel ballpark on the corner of Empire Boulevard and Bedford Avenue. I feel a catch-in-the-throat sensation—a sense of wonder and awe that still overwhelms me every time I visit a baseball stadium. It’s a signal that I’m about to cross a sanctified threshold and enter a world of gods and heroes, a universe where ordinary life falls away, where the stakes are high and the outcome is always in doubt.
    It’s only ten o’clock, and we have three more hours until the game