Hitting Some Out

A few miscellaneous thoughts on a variety of unrelated things beginning with a blast from the past. As a boy in a pre-smartphone, pre-Internet age, a group of us would assemble on a summer’s day or early eve and one among us would pose the immortal question: “What do you want to do?” This would invariably prompt a follow-up query that on occasion would be: “Do you want to hit some out at Vanny?” I thought about that summer pastime the other day—and the peculiar phraseology, too—when I passed the very ballfields at Van Cortlandt Park where we, once upon a time, hit some out.

One of the main protagonists in this youthful adventure of ours has since shuffled off this mortal coil. And time has done a number on the rest of us. It was both a long time ago and not long at all—certainly not in the grand scheme of things. Hitting some out was a simple pleasure that required baseball mitts, bats, and balls—and that’s the long and short of it. It was simultaneously a vigorous workout and good old-fashioned  fun—no state-of-the-art devices needed.

I remember one June evening while hitting some out, this kid I went to high school with turned up with a bunch of his friends. They wanted to play on the field we occupied. The ensemble asked us to move to another one nearby. Our fearless leader—older than the rest of us—refused the request as a matter of principle. My secondary school peer informed me the next day—in no uncertain terms—that we should have moved. He believed that his summer escapade—a planned game with more bodies involved—should have taken precedence over four individuals hitting some out. You see, the adjoining two baseball fields in Van Cortlandt Park were worse for wear—it was during the city’s fiscal crisis—and their outfields bled into one another, which created a unique set of additional problems. However, utilizing these mangy ballfields were on a first-come, first-serve basis. No reservations were required. And we were there first and got the pick of the not-so-impressive litter.

Fast forward to the present. While we were hitting some out all those years ago, climate change was not an issue, although In Search Of…, hosted by Leonard Nimoy, aired an episode on an impending Ice Age. Exhibit A: Buffalo, New York had an awful lot of snow in 1977. Those were simpler times indeed when we accepted the results of elections, even the ones that didn’t turn out in our favor. And we felt free to offer contrary opinions and utter words like “woman” and “he” and “she” without fear of censorship and condemnation.

Did you see what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) did to a quote from the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg this week? The organization employed her words—just not all of them—to underscore its support for abortion. Ginsburg said: “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When the government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a full adult human responsible for her own choice.” The ACLU, though, wasn’t content to let her words stand on their own. Instead, “woman” was excised and changed to “person,” in brackets, of course, with “her” changed to “their,” and “herself” changed to “people.” Follow the bouncing ball off the cliff. Now, this is the ACLU, mind you, rewriting history. What right do these people have in altering a person’s words? Yes, person, man or woman.

Considering this latest development in insanity, I thought I would look at some popular songs and how they might be sung in an Orwellian future. Whitney Houston’s “I’m Every Woman” would be “I’m Every Person.” Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman” would be “Oh, Pretty Person.” Carlos Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” would be “Black Magic Person.” Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman” would be “When a Man Loves a Person.” And, last but not least, John Lennon’s “Woman” would be “Person.” Let’s sing it together now: “Person, I can hardly express, my mixed emotions at my thoughtlessness…”

I liked the world better when we were hitting some out. Jimmy Carter was the president then and In Search Of… merely speculated on the various doomsday possibilities awaiting us. Now, unfortunately, the speculations are less speculative and more imminent. Doomsday is right around the corner. On that scruffy ballfield more than forty years ago, I never could have envisioned where I, and the rest of us, would be headed in 2021: to Hell in a handbasket.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)