message from pete: baseball

when we were kids in grade school we played ball back of aalto's garage. the two bordering streets were 7th and iroquois. a home run could be placed in clouthier's yard or then in mugford's or richard's yard. we played mostly softball slow pitch but not blooper pitching. we chose up sides using a bat and two fingers or claws were permissible. the lousy players were chosen last . we never had enough gloves to go around and generally we had to wait for honey ham to show up who at times had the only bat. but we never had a catcher's mitt. one day roy mukka figured we should do something about  that so he went door to door pleading poverty and before long after begging for a couple blocks he had enough money and to spare and went to the sports shop (can't remember the name) in calumet and bought the mitt. i don't remember what he did with the left over money. when three outs were accomplished the players who had gloves left them in their field positions  for the opposing team players to use. sometimes we did play hardball in aalto's field. it wasn't uncommon to have a coverless ball which was generously taped to make it hold together. but when we had a newer ball which was starting to have lacing breaks we put it aside and waited for wild bill ellison or crazy bill to come along and toss it to him. he would take it home and relace the ball and on his next trip through would toss the repaired ball back on the field.