Storymania - The Game by E Rocco Caldwell

The Game
E Rocco Caldwell

When it actually died was a mystery. The question raised in remote conversations at a restaurant and conjecture always followed. The question wasn't asked as much anymore. The large arenas where it was played had been torn down to make room for parks or spas. Only one remained in Chicago. It of course certainly brought the recollection of the game back to the lips of those who passed it. I sat the magazine down that had outlined the stadium's life and how much value the land was where it stood. A park and ride for the Chicago employed would stand in its place. The stadium's owner had left a large sum of money to preserve the stadium and its treasures but that money had run out and within a few weeks the wrecking ball would finally remove the last vestment of what was once known as America's favorite past time baseball. My company would handle the demolishing of New Comisky Park. I would utterly erase the only thing that held any physical evidence baseball ever existed. The Baseball Hall of Fame had burned down during the race riots of 2027 and after Major League Baseball strike of 2005 ended people lost the desire to rebuild the Hall of Fame. A nursery home was on the spot. I had been walking through the emptied halls of the stadium not sure as to why I bothered. I was destroying just another old structure. It belonged to a past with no future. I had no alliance to it. But the pictures of the dead and forgotten players behind glass cases affected me. There was something special inside the stadium.
"May I help you," a raspy voice asked from behind me. I turned to face an elderly black man. He looked to be the caretaker. He had a faded black cap on his head and a ring of keys attached to a belt. "This here is private property!"
"I know," I said startled a little because I didn't think any one was there. "You take care of this place?"
"It's called a baseball stadium, son." He grinned finding some pride in saying that. "That's right the late Mister Foreman gave me this here job."
"That must have been nearly forty years ago. I guess no one has told you but in a few weeks this stadium will be demolished."
In his eyes I saw my words cut him in his very soul. His large lower lip trembled.
"Mister Foreman said they would never tear this here place down. He said never!"
"He was wrong."
"But the things here in this place, the memories and other stuff what of them? You can't believe the wonders here. What happens to them? The hall of fame ain't any more. Where do the dreams of baseball go when this place is gone?"
Tears formed in his eyes now. I wanted to walk away from the pain. If I didn't tear the building down someone else would. My company was the last independent contractor left in Chicago. I needed the job to keep my company afloat. So I stepped away from the man who lowered his head and walked at a quick pace distancing myself from him. My heart was racing and my ears were full of the sounds of my shoes against the concrete floor.
"Wait!" he shouted. And I stopped. "Wait and let me show you something."
"I don't have the time, sir."
"It won't take very long."
His age was beginning to show. He straightened himself as he walked. I followed the man unsure as to why. I could careless about the memories of a dead game. It wasn't my fault it had lost its appeal and faded away as players and owners argued over contracts. They had locked the spectators out from the game. He stopped outside a door marked in large white letter: OWNER'S BOX. The ring of keys attached to his belt had a retractable chain. One of the keys unlocked the door. Wide-eyed he turned back to me. An expression of joy and awe was in his ebony face.
"Get ready to come face-to-face with the past, boy," he whispered. The door opened to a darkened room. His hand fumbled for a light switch and a weak light revealed in a hazy yellow tint more glass cases full of clothing and equipment awards and trophies. The room was the last of its kind any where on the earth. "This is baseball."
What I felt was simple awe. Paintings of players hung on the walls with faded photographs of teams. All kind of paraphernalia was crammed in the space. I couldn't move. A tingling sensation ran throughout my body. The emotion was unexplainable because I knew nothing of the game but immediately respect for it and those over the years who had played it hocked me. It was a detailed game, which spoke of those who had watched it; it spoke of their love for it also.
"That's a picture of Reggie Jackson's straight homers," the old man pointed at one of the photographs of a powerful built man swinging a wooden stick he called a bat. "Nolan Ryan's sixth no hitter is there!" His eyes flickered. "Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Pete Rose, Hank Aaron and over there is Willie Mays' catch." His voice cracked full of emotion. I had to sit down. The old man retrieved some of the equipment.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Come with me, son."

He took me down to the field. It was a holy place to the old man. It held memories that slammed against him as he stood moments in silence. Maybe events replayed in his feeble mind the place had experienced a long time since? He wiped at his eyes and tossed me a leather thing. It fell in the dirt at my feet.
"Pick it up and put it on," the old man said. I stared at the object completely unaware of that the old man meant. "It's a glove, son. You put it on like this." He placed the glove over his left hand. I copied the action. I discovered my hand could open and close the glove.
"What do you do with it?" I asked.
"You catch the ball with it." He held up the dingy round item. He tossed it at me and I ducked. The action startled the living hell out of me. The old man erupted in laughter. "Boy, you use the damn mitt!"
"I thought it was a glove."
"Glove or mitt it's the same difference. Now go pick the baseball up and throw over here." I retrieved the baseball. It felt as if it belonged in the palm of my hand. My fingers rubbed the stitching. I tossed the baseball clumsily at the old man who effortlessly caught it.
"You need work on your throwing," he said tossing the baseball back at me but I held the glove out and the ball popped in the webbing. The sound carried a ways in the emptied stadium.
"Magical ain't it?" the old man asked. I wanted to answer him but my mind was thinking what it must have been like when the stadium was full of people. I thought I heard a cheer. Clop! I turned my head to see the old man strike one of the baseball with a wooden stick. The ball jumped off the stick and landed in the green field. I watched him hit another and then another. He had such grace each time. "Once, men with powerful arms threw baseballs as hard as they could to risk others to hit them."
"From there?" I pointed at a small hill in the middle of the dirt field.
"That's right. The mount." He struck another ball that landed in the seats. "Homer!" There was sheer delight in his actions. He was recalling scenes of a past long dead. I watched the child in the aged fellow emerge and run free again and it was suddenly magical. The glove smelled of oil and the ball popped in the webbing as he tossed me it. We played for nearly an hour as the afternoon waned and darkness approached.
In the owner's office he reminiscence about the huge stadiums once every where in the country and people filled the places to see wonderful things happen. The players were good, the game alive and the fans committed. But the players and the owners had violated the trust of the fans. They had become narrow and self-centered pushing the fans away from the game. Who were they to think they owned the game? Who were these players and owners who thought they were the core of the game? The game only could exist in the hearts of people and of children.
"We killed it," the aged man said. He sipped the cup of coffee and appeared mystical in the poor electric lighting. "If I had it all to do again I would have done it differently."
Who were these men and women scattered and reduced to faded photographs on walls? All they had done would end when my wrecking ball tumbled the stadium. The ones called Ruth, Aaron, Rose and Gehrig; a pantheon of supermen playing a game everyone could play. Those who pushed its skills to the levels of admiration would be forgotten forever. Baseball would become a tiny footnote in the history of humankind. Speculation would replace memories and soon enough myth would replace legend; the game would be in ruin like Greek and Roman structures.
"How did you kill it?"
"We loved what we could get from it instead of loving the game. We became men in a game for boyish ideals." The old man managed to smile. "I'll be packing my stuff up and leaving by tomorrow."
"What about all of that wonderful paraphernalia, all of those memories?" The words hurt as they tumbled from my mouth. I would not to the murderer of the game!
"Sometimes holding to something doesn't make it alive." The old man laid a hand on my shoulder. "This game been dead for sometime now it's just best to lay it to rest." He walked off vanishing in the shadows leaving me with the burden.

I spent most of the money I had and built it near the river and enclosed it in a fence. I followed all of the dimensions to the letter. There I stood pitching the ball to the line of children letting them hit it so they could experience the sound of wood on ball and the dirt beneath their feet as the ran the bases. The older man was off to my right showing other children how to throw and catch and swing the bat. The weather was nice and dusk hovered over the diamond as adults came to see pulling their cars off the freeway and streets to re-accustom themselves to game that died but suddenly was reborn.