For ex-ball boy, game brings back memories

BY MICHAEL DOBIE | STAFF CORRESPONDENT

ANNANDALE, N.J. - When Chris Peralta was 18, he was a ball boy for the Yankees. At 19, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for drug possession.

When Peralta was sent in 2002 to Mountainview Youth Correctional Facility in western New Jersey, he brought his memories with him.

Peralta, who grew up in the Corona neighborhood of Queens, worked with the visiting teams at Yankee Stadium. He shagged fly balls, threw with outfielders between innings and served as ball boy on the third-base side. He has photos and shows them often to fellow inmates.

"Best experience of my life, I guess," he said with resignation.

Talking about his time in pinstripes conjures a mix of emotions.

"Sad and proud," Peralta said. "I mean, proud of course. It was an experience, like a fortunate experience. And sad that I was living, like, not too large but I made a bad mistake."

Peralta, 21, said he tried not to get depressed when he played intramural softball in Mountainview.

"You try not to think about it that way. Me in particular, I go back with a smile on my face," said Peralta, who was arrested while driving with friends near Newark Airport. "It brings back the kid in you, the good part in you. You're really there, but when you play you leave mentally, you're somewhere else."

Sports is one of the best ways to escape the tension and monotony of prison life. But that escape can be a mixed blessing for younger inmates, like those selected for Mountainview's all-star softball game last fall.

Playing in prison reminds them of playing back home, memories fresh enough to pick them up -- and sharp enough to drag them down.

"It brings me down a little bit afterwards," said Richie Lott, whose long ponytail made him look younger than 23. "It takes me back home. It takes me to my family, you know, reminds you of what was, what could have been. But I'm young so it's what still can be. I'll be 25 when I go home."

Lott, who is serving a 5-year sentence for aggravated assault, played baseball and football in high school in Union, New Jersey.

Jose Jimenez, who grew up in the Dominican Republic, played baseball in his two years at Union Hills High School in New Jersey. He has been imprisoned at Mountainview twice for drug sales.

Jimenez, 28, pitched in the all-star game, coached third base when his team was at-bat, exhorted every teammate who stepped up to the plate and punctuated his non-stop chatter with a short, high-pitched laugh.

"It puts your mind when you were in school, all the fun things when you were in high school playing baseball," Jimenez said. "Like all the people around, all the students, stuff like that. Like when we go to a different high school, see new people. Like when you play good, you play and you hope you could be somebody in the future."

The games at Mountainview are a cruel tease.

"I could really, really play in the streets," Jimenez said. "If I was a little younger, like 23, 24, I could play in the league [major leagues]."

Peralta, who recently was transferred to a halfway house, was in the major leagues. It's never far from his thoughts, even in the all-star game, when he got a tough out fielding a grounder deep in the shortstop hole.

"It's like being back home, being top class of the league. It brings back good memories," Peralta said, recalling youth league games in lower Manhattan alongside the FDR Drive. Then he grimaced and shook his head.

Jimenez has a three-year-old photo in his room at Mountainview and he's in it, smiling with 10 other guys from Cottage 10 who had just won the prison's softball championship.

When Jimenez looks at the photo, he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"I see my picture with all these guys, 11 guys, goddamn, and that reminds me of something," said Jimenez, whose sentence runs until 2006. "It's fun, but that's not the right place to play sports."

When the all-star game was over, Jimenez and Peralta had led their team to a 19-13 victory. They hugged and congratulated one another, then gathered with their teammates to pose for a photographer.

When the shutter clicked, they were smiling.