Remembering a play at home plate

A favorite ritual from summers growing up in Newtonia was the nightly trek to the Midway baseball field.

The distance was about a mile all told, walking down a dirt road, unless we grew adventurous and cut through the Neosho Nurseries field.

Often those trips marked the second time we had been to the ballfield since many summer afternoons we commandeered the field and played until someone came to get it ready for the regularly scheduled games.

Having the field nearly right on top of the Neosho Nurseries offered many advantages. People did not have to come to the park on the more heavily traveled 86 highway, but could take advantages of the dirt side roads created by Neosho Nurseries for its own use. During those dry summer months, the cars stirred up an incredible amount of dust, not a good thing, but something we were willing to tolerate for the convenience.



The close proximity of the growing area was a boon for us because it kept us from having to pay for baseballs. Though it was not supposed to be like the major leagues where fans can keep the balls that go into the seats, we still treated it that way.

Each time a foul ball popped over the screen and into the nurseries, we leaped from the bleachers, scurried into the darkness, hunted down the baseball, then carefully hid it in a predetermined place where you could pick it up after the game and then bring it back to the park the next day for the afternoon action.

Sometimes, we were also the ones playing in those evening games and one such game took place approximately 50 years ago this summer.

Unfortunately, in those days I had a well-deserved reputation as a kid with a horrible temper, but that trait did not play a part in the events of that evening- the first time I was ever kicked out of a baseball game.

The Little League archrivals, the Tigers and the Lumberjacks were playing that evening and during that part of the year we were the doormats of the league. Coach Brad Letts did a great job with us and had us winning by the end of the season, but not at that point and this was not a particularly good game for the Tigers.

I was not having a particularly good evening at the plate and I came up for the third time in the fifth inning. We were five or six runs down and had a runner on third base with nobody out.

I took the first pitch, which was right around the ankles, and the umpire, Mark House, called it a strike.

"Don't you think that was a little low, Mark?" I asked and though half a century has passed, I recall that I posed the question politely.

"Turn around and hit," Mark replied.

The Lumberjacks' catcher Mike Brock chuckled.

The next pitch arrived shortly above the shoulders and I let it go.

"Strike," Mark called out.

I turned and said, "Don't you think that was a little high?"

I couldn't figure out what was going on.

Once again, I was polite, but Mark wasn't having any of it.

"If you say one more word, Randy, you're out of the game."

Mike Brock chuckled.

On the next pitch, the ball was in the dirt and the runner on third, and sad to say I can't remember who it was, broke for home. Mike retrieved the ball, got back to the plate and was bowled over by the runner, but he held onto the ball and Mark called the runner out, the final out of the inning.

The runner jumped up and headed for the dugout.

Mike Brock was still on the ground by home plate, shaken up.

"Are you all right, Mike?" I asked.

"Yeah."

And from behind me, Mark House roared, "You're out of the game."

I don't know if he thought i was arguing the call. I tried to tell him I wasn't arguing, but Mark was having none of it. I had been kicked out of a game for the first, but unfortunately not the last, time.

And Mike Brock, who was back on his feet, chuckled.

I thought about that play a few years ago when Mark House died, far too young.

The memories came flowing back again this evening as I learned of the death of Mike Brock, a fellow member of the East Newton High School Class of '74.

The Neosho Nurseries, which provided a first job to Newtonia and Stark City teenagers for decades, closed long ago.

The Midway ballpark no longer exists. For years after the last game was played there, the fencing, the dugouts and the lights still stood, but those also vanished decades ago.

That play at home plate, inconsequential as it was. remains indelibly etched in my memory, a place where Mike Brock, Mark House, the Neosho Nurseries and that wonderful ballpark, the center of the universe during my formative years, will live forever.

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