Fred Bruning: Life lessons from the old ballgame

The baserunner forgot to advance. The pitcher couldn't find the plate. A grounder earned an upgrade to grand slam. An errant throw beaned a player, who, thinking nothing out of the ordinary, barely complained.

These were not the big leagues but the very little, where slapstick is as much a part of the enterprise as rainbow ice pops after the game, where kids like my 7-year-old grandson Jack O'Beirne race onto the diamond with gloves as big as their bottoms and devotion undiminished by bulging wallets, gold chains, free agency or long-term contracts.

Some of this Jack will never forget.

I haven't.

Back then, we played on a sandlot -- an oily field that now might qualify as a superfund site -- between Seventh and Eighth avenues in Brooklyn. Neighborhood boys, we had no league to join or uniforms to wear but we had a name -- COBRAS -- and red T-shirts with yellow felt letters sewn tight by our mothers. We had wooden bats and raggedy baseballs and handled umping chores without adult counsel.

"Yer out!" we shouted after every close play.

"Safe!" complained the opponent.

"Out!"

"Safe!"

"Cheater."

"Am not."

"Are so."

I was chubby enough to be called "Campy" -- for Brooklyn's beefy catcher, Roy Campanella, No. 39 -- and, if the pitching was sufficiently slow, and perfectly straight, I could hit.

On a sunny summer day, I put one over the fence and the ball rolled to the little repair shops and supply houses across 65th Street.

"Hey, Campy," cheered the boys as I huffed around the bases. "Boy, Campy parked one, didn't he? D'ya see that?"

But, overnight, it seemed, the pitching changed. Balls sailed in with a hiss and broke this way or that at the last moment. A husky batsman -- by then 12 or 13 -- was apt to back off, or duck, or swing under or over and retire without achieving so much as a foul tip.

Fastball and curve predicted a future more daunting than a boy might have imagined -- one where skill and courage and determination would be demanded, at the least. Suddenly, it appeared, standards -- high and maybe out of reach -- would be applied.

If there were any doubt, Tubby and Butch settled the question.

The boys -- accomplished unknowns from another neighborhood -- often played at the sandlot. They invented a two-man game, pitcher and batter, but would accommodate any challengers, the baseball version of doubles.

Tubby was not fat, at all, but hefty and strong, and, if he got hold of a pitch, could launch it to the tennis courts on the other side of the field.

Butch, likewise, was an awesome pitcher and batter -- and one with a disability worth mentioning. Butch was missing most of an arm. Decades before one-handed Jim Abbott threw a no-hitter for the Yankees, Butch showed where grit could get you.

They were an imposing duo, Tubby and Butch. Men of few words, they let line drives and strikeouts say it all.

I played them once with another boy. I'm not sure, but it might have been my last game.

Tubby threw only heat and had a murderous curve. Butch matched his partner, keeping the glove under the remains of one arm until he fired and then smoothly switching the leather to his good side, ready to snag anything that came his way.

My teammate fouled a few off and maybe even got a hit -- depending on where the ball landed, the poke would be declared single, double, triple; over the fence was a homer -- but I could do nothing.

I can still see the horsehide streaking toward me, coming for my head, it seemed, until it bent and dropped over the plate. "Stee-rike," Tubby would announce, going quickly back to his windup. And again: "Stee-rike." A third time the ball raced my way, sizzling like a firecracker. To preserve what little dignity remained, I managed at least to swing. Nothing. "Next batt-ah," said Tubby.

In their ups, Butch and Tubby punished us with hit after screaming hit. My recollection is that both players reached the fences -- Butch batting with one hand! -- but I know Tubby smacked one to the tennis courts.

We were no competition. "That's about it, boys," Tubby said after an inning or two. Butch agreed. "No use, fellas."

More than defeated, we were undone. Butch and Tubby might as well have scrawled a message in the sand that said: "The End."

Sometimes baseball gets oversold as a metaphor for patience and perseverance but -- more than most, I think -- the game is instructive and important. At the major league level, where celebrity players pursue their livelihoods, the drama may not seem as immediate or the lessons as useful.

Below, where mortals dwell on sandlots and Little League fields, reality is not apt to be masked by glamour and fame. It's too soon to tell whether Jack will be able to handle the fastball or hit the curve, though I wish him more luck than his grandfather. Mostly, though, I hope he takes from the game, and from life, all each has to offer. Batter up, Jackie, batter up.