FIELDS OF GREEN

Overnight the gray of winter has disappeared and the green around me is almost as vibrant as the greenest green I ever saw.  I drift back in the alcoves of my memory and its early summer 1950.  My mother came home from work and as she came into the kitchen where supper was ready and on the table – dining rooms were only found in hotels and fancy restaurants in my world.  She announced, “Guess what!” What! We all chimed…as we knew whenever she began with that phase something good was in store.  “How would you like to go to see the Philadelphia Phillies baseball game?”  “Wow!" – was my immediate response, followed by a where, when, how and WHEN!  Saturday I was going to see  a “real” game – I knew my heroes from their exploits on the radio – now I was going to SEE them play!  Mom filled us in as we ate one of grandmother’s specialties – meat cakes and potato pancakes – (most of what my grandmother conjured up in the kitchen ended in cakes.  And everything was fried to a golden brown in lard.  (The cooking in the 50’s made many budding cardiologists very rich in the 70’s!) 

My mom bought the tickets to the game from one of the “ladies” she worked with.  The trip was sponsored by the 4th Methodist Church Men’s Sunday School Class – their annual outing and they needed to fill the bus to cover the cost – thus the tickets were being sold to a few chosen folks.  The tickets were 6 bucks each.  Not even enough for a hotdog and peanuts at a game today as one can spend $60 just for a seat on the upper deck – but all things are indeed relative – the tickets including the bus fare was almost a full day’s pay for my mom.  Hard earned cash manually earned in a glass factory. As a single parent I’m sure going to a baseball game with me wasn’t really on the top of her wish list – but she tried her best to be dad and mom for me; sometimes she tried too hard.

 I couldn't wait until Saturday morning.  In the meantime I brushed off my Phillies hat and wondered if I should take my fielder’s glove – just in case?  At dawn I was washed and ready to join the Methodist men.  Mom and I walked to the church where a Public Service chartered bus was idling and starting to fill.  My grandmother had made me two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to “tide me over” for the trek.  We roared off with a bus full – 40 men, 13 boys and mom and me.   A bus trip in 1950 from the Holly City to Philly was much more interesting, albeit also much longer, than the high speed, uninteresting 3 lane highway trip of today.   We traveled state highway 47 – the Delsea Drive.  Delaware to the sea, a winding thoroughfare of shops, villages, towns and a thousand sites to see.  Sites that kept me plastered to the window the whole trip – which by the way took over two hours to drive approximately 38 some miles.  The Sunday school class passed the time singing hymns.  What a Friend We Have in Jesus set the tone as the miles ticked off.  Singing was very common on most group bus trips.  He Walks With Me followed next.  Mr. Mulford, the class teacher, walked from seat to seat greeting and shaking hands.  I dreaded that for two reasons – he was missing his thumb on the right hand (a carpentry accident in his youth 75 years ago I was told) which gave me chills – plus he always crushed my hand with his vise-like grip.   “Hello Marge and Cal”, he offered – I think my mother actually cringed and hoped he wouldn't want to shake her hand also.  He grabbed mine and pumped my arm for what seemed like a minute - I endured this strange but inevitable custom of grownups.  I didn't get it – but I would in years yet to come.

We crossed the giant Ben Franklin bridge – this was indeed a high point (literally) of the trip.   The big bridge was the gateway to a world as foreign to me (and many on the bus) as the planet Mars.  Of course I was an annual devotee of the great department stores on Market Street which we also bussed to once a year at Christmas time to see the wonders of their Toy Departments and trimmings. (But that’s another story)  The bus made an immediate right turn after the bridge and we traveled to a much different looking part of the city.  I saw for the first time house after red brick house – all attached together in a sameness that showed no discernible yards.  Where did the kids play?  Trees grew out of the sidewalks.  Cars were parked everywhere.  And trolley cars, which I had only seen in the movies, rolled by us with sparks flying from the wires above them.   As our bus crossed their tracks we would slide a bit as if we were on an icy road – this part of the trip was scary I must admit.  I sank down in my seat, hardly able to see out the window.  I couldn't get over the number of churches I saw either – there seemed to be a spire on every corner.  And then we were there. 

The main entrance of Connie Mack Stadium, recently renamed after a great baseball man my grandfather told me about – it used to be called Shibe Park when he went there as a kid, he said.  I like the name Connie better, it sounded like a baseball name to me. We were handed tickets as we got off the bus, got them punched at a turnstile and we made our way into the park through a high arched entryway.  And then I saw it.  The Green Field.

The greenest, biggest, brightest green I had ever seen.  (Many years later I could still see that first view in my memory that was right up there with my many other lasting sites only topped by looking over the rim of the Grand Canyon for the first time.)

Seeing the baseball field literally took my breath away – I felt dizzy.  My mother grabbed my arm as I wobbled a bit. Green. A green, pristine, manicured, perfect grass.  And surrounded by at least one million red enameled seats.  Could this many people actually watch a game together? Amazing.  The billboards caught my eye next and shouted familiar slogans I knew from watching our new TV.   The 4th Methodists were in a cathedral to the great American Pastime.  This was the BIG Leagues - indeed.  We were shown our seats behind first base by a man in a red and white vest.  He wiped them off with a cloth and smiled as my mom gave him a dime.  I was in row 34, seat 22.  I still know this because I saved the ticket.  But the game we saw is long forgotten in the blear of the countless ones I have seen since – but it remains the best.  

I will always remember that day accompanied by organ music and announcements from on high that heralded the combatants as they entered the arena.  Cheers and rhythmic applause urged our heroes on to do their best as they made the game look so easy.  The crack of the bats resounded like canons and echoed off the steel girders.  Several pure new baseballs were driven over the high outfield wall like they were shot from cannons.  I had forgotten my mitt – but no foul balls came my way.  The game progressed and I had two hotdogs from a lively vendor announcing “Get your dogs here.”  He was carrying them in a steaming metal box.  He lathered mustard on them with a paint brush.  It made my mouth water.  Next,  I used my allowance on another vendor hawking “Corn in a Horn…Corn in a Horn” – a cardboard megaphone filled with salty popcorn – which I used to cheer on the “Fightin Phils” – Ashburn, Jones, Roberts, Hamner – they were no longer names in the sports pages.  They were here right in front of me! 

We all sang Take Me Out to the Ballgame…at the seventh inning stretch.  And then it was over, just like that.  The Phillies won.   My mom said I could buy a souvenir and she would add to my money if I didn't have enough.  I bought a Phillies pennant on a stick.  It hung on my wall until yellowed with age I left that room for college and I never saw it again.  And I slept all the way home.