fall ball

a short ⚾️

Oct 10, 2023

All-Stars (August 19th)

by Dan Svizeny

George and I smoked weed out of a coke can before practice most afternoons. It was late July and New Jersey was laced in a cloud of humidity that refused to break. Right as the afternoon started to turn to evening, we would jam in the back of George’s mom's minivan and ride to our home field on the edge of town, as stoned as possible on whatever a middle schooler could get their hands on before the turn of the century.

Hitting soft toss against the chain link of the batting cage. Throwing dusty waterlogged balls at an empty bucket behind home plate. Hitting the relay at the top of the infield. Shagging fly balls at dusk under the lights. Practicing our stance for invisible cameras. Mitts cracking under an orange midsummer sky.

All-Stars meant that we were the best our town's little league had to offer. George was a wiry tough motherfucker who never wore a shirt. He was on the middle school wrestling team, and his favorite summer pastime was doing backflips off a rusty trampoline into his above ground pool. He hit over .600 that summer and rarely made an error in the field. We shared the same birthday. August 19th. Leos.

I was taller than George, but he was better at everything. I was a husky home run or strike out punk, tucked away in right field, who buzzed his head and dyed it blonde.

One year earlier a New Jersey team stole the hearts and minds of a sports loving nation for two weeks in late August. Beating Japan to take home the Little League World Series title. They were on Sportscenter every morning dancing with their mascot – a guy in a gorilla suit – The Beast from the East.

George had two older sisters. Both of whom I paid way more attention to than George. One night the oldest one took us to 7-11 to buy cigarettes. It was the first pack I ever owned solo. Kools. We packed into the back seat of her Celica and lit up as her little silver rocket shook and bumped its way down route one. Her dark hair whipped around her face as we picked up speed. Windows down. She looked back at me in the rear view mirror. We both smiled through the darkness. We could have hit an eighteen wheeler head on and I would have died happy. I wondered if this is how they did it in Toms River.

The next day we played in the state tournament, the first step in our assured ascendency to Little League World Series dominance. We lost unceremoniously to a team from the Pine Barrens. George played well but I struck out a few times and ended the game on the bench. After handshakes and tears I unbuttoned the polyester jersey that had my name stitched beautifully on the back, crumpled it up and put it into my bag. It was the last baseball game I would ever play. It was also the last time I saw George.

New Jersey summers are still sticky. They always feel sped up, dreamlike, to the point where you wonder if they even happened at all. As I sit idle in a suburban parking lot, flood lights kick on across the street. I roll my windows down to hear the ping of an aluminum bat and the roar of a crowd of proud parents. I push-start the engine and start off down a busy road lined with traffic lights, bending down into the orange of another summer night.

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