My Field of Dream

One day we were told there was a big softball tournament going on in New York City. Hundreds of teams would compete in the tournament. The championship game would be played at Yankee Stadium. My friends and I were all very excited about this news. We knew we were a good team and we believed we had a very good chance to play the championship game, which meant we would play at the Yankee Stadium.

We indeed had a very good team: Howie was the best short stop, Jason was a power hitter at 3rd. Raul of professional caliber played outfield. Danny the “George” (he was like the twin brother of character George in Seinfield) played second base. I was the best pitcher at Great Lawn... After our team finalized the roster, I told my teammates I would take them to Chinatown for dim sum on game day. We gathered at Howard’s apartment on 21st and 7th and took the N train to Chinatown at 10:00 that morning. We could not stop talking about how we would play at Yankee Stadium, especially those who were Yankee fans.

I took them to Silver Palace at Bowery Street. My friends loved dim sum! I ordered all the dishes for the group and they tried every one of them, except for one: chicken feet in black beans. I told them they were not really having dim sum if they didn’t try that chicken feet dish. Howie and some brave ones reluctantly tried it at the end of our brunch. But right before we were leaving Silver Palace, some of them started running to the rest room. I didn’t know what was going on and just as I was wondering, they had that discomfort look on their face when they came out of the rest room. They said they were having diarrhea. "It must be the chicken feet!" they said. But I was fine and I ate the most, I told them.

We had planned to have some warm up games before the game, just to make sure we were all still fresh for the game. But we had to cancel them due to this unforeseen event. Luckily the game would start until 4:00PM. So we had enough time to wait for our team mates to recover.

3:30pm, we made it to the field. It was at 53 and 10th. It seemed my team mates all had recovered. Game started ata 4:00PM sharp. We found our opposing team had a celebrity: Bill Evens, the Channel 7 weather man. We were even more convinced that we would match to Yankee Stadium without problemo, even playing with diarrhea. Because we had never seen those people at Great Lawn before and we knew how good we were. It was not if we would win, it was how bad we had to beat them.

The first pitch I threw was a fast ball. It was my signature pitch: inside fastball set up by "Taxas" Don, the catcher. Usually batter would get jammed by the pitch and popped it out in left. The first batter from the opposing team was frozen by my pitch and didn’t bother to swing the bat. I knew I had my stuff that afternoon. The empire, however, came to the mount after that pitch, telling me I had to pitch a certain way during this match. To be precise, I could not pitch fastball like that. "It's illegal. " he said. Well, basically my fast ball was too fast for this tournament. So in stead, I had to lob the ball to the plate. The requirment was when the ball came out pitcher’s hand, the ball needed to be at 10 feet high and dropped slowly at strike zone. Hitters would have to wait till the ball dropped then hit. Great Lawn softball was a competitive softball. Many of us played in an organized league. The “best pitcher” crown was earned. Batters gave me a great deal of respect. Lobbing the ball to the plate was neighborhood, street corner type of soft ball, not Great Lawn softball, I said to myself.

It turned out our first opposing team was our only opposing team. I got hammered and had to be relieved at the end of 2 innings. It was the first time that I was relieved during a softball game. Well, reliever Jack wasn't any better. We didn't just lose the game, we were completely humiliated. At the end of the 6th inning the mercy rule imposed. Our dream of playing at Yankee Stadium was crushed. Afterwards my teammates blamed on the chicken feet they ate at Silver Palace that morning. Even today they still blame me for losing that game.

Years later my wife wondered why I did not want to join the softball league in our little town. I didn’t bother to tell her the truth: I saw the guys played in the field right cross my house. They played lobbing, slow-motion softball game, the type of softball only guys like Bill Evens would play. There was no chance that I would be part of that. Whenever Bill Evens makes comments about playing softball on the air, I would grind my teeth and switch the TV station quickly. Obviously, the wound inflicted from that lose hasn’t healed completely.

Becoming a Great Lawn Pick-Up Game Junkie

It’s hard to imagine what my life would be like without Mets baseball. Lucky for me, I became a huge Mets fan soon after I came to New York City. And Tim McCarver had a lot to do with it. His simple, clear yet masterful baseball analysis was and still is the best way to learn baseball. He is Master McACarver! In the middle of August, only 2 weeks after I came to Sloane House, Mr. McAfee gave me a baseball ticket. “It’s American sports. You have to come.” Mr. McAfee had worked abroad before he became Executive Director of Sloane House, so he knew the thought process of people like me. All international staff felt very comfortable with him. Mr. McAfee took all of us to Shea Stadium. It was between Mets and Cubs that night. None of the international staff really knew anything about baseball rules but we all enjoy the game. It was YMCA night and everyone from YMCA got a Mets Year Book. Mr. McAfee pointed one player and said to me: “This is Ron Darling, the only Chinese American playing baseball. He is doing many good things at Chinatown YMCA.” I did not remember who the Mets pitcher was, but I sure remembered the pitch for Chicago: it was Rick Sutcliff. I was impressed by his poise when he walked off the mount after each innings. Towards the end of the game, there was loud chanting from the audience “Darryl, Darryl…” The chanting was for a player called Darryl Strawberry. I thought it was beautiful but a strange name, a name after a fruit. Mets lost the game that night. But from that day on, I gradually became a Mets fan and was hooked on baseball. Tim McCarver was and still is the best baseball play-by-play TV announcer. No one can explain baseball rules better than Master McCarver. Besides Mets games was my first baseball game, this was another reason why I became Mets fan: Ron Darling. How could I not be a Mets fan when it was the only major league team that had a Chinese American in it? Well, he was half Chinese.

Tii left Sloane House two months after I got here. Gary from Student Center on 3rd floor filled her position. Gary was a true New Yorker. He was loud and funny. Part of me like him alot and part of me just wanted him to stay away from me. But overall he was a likable person, if all this makes any sense. One of his “missions”, he said to me, was to teach me to play softball. “Knowing how to play softball will Americanize you faster.” He said in a cynical way. But I didn't care. I appreciated his effort in helping me.

I was athletic. So it didn’t take me too long to learn playing the game. On the weekends he took us to softball fields in Central Park by 63rd Street entrance. But it was hard to sometimes to get a field to play. So we moved to a less grassed and less crowded fields at Great Lawn.

Right under Shakespeare Castle, there were 6 playing fields. Field 6 was always occupied by CPAH players from 11:00 Saturday morning to 6:00 Sunday afternoon. CPAH stood for Central Park Ass Holes, a name we gave to those guys. They were intense and completive softball playing people. They had played with each other for many years and they would not let anyone else get in the game. Once in a while, they would agree to play with us. Not that we wanted to play with them. But their arrogance and their superior attitude towards us that made us want to beat them badly. I was a pitcher, hitting was not my game. So these guys would intentionally move in from the outfield, just to mock my hitting ability. One day I hit the ball real hard and it sealed over the center fielder’s head and kept rolling and rolling…I had a base-clearing, Great Lawn-type of home run. It drove these guys crazy and we all enjoyed it very much. We were laughing and talked about every details of that home run on our way to McDonald’s after the game. But I gave them credit, the center fielder, who made fool of himself for coming in so much to cause that home run, came to shake my hand to congratulate me for a solid hit after the inning was over. That was Great Lawn spirits.

Some fields reserved by some corporates for their employees recreational purpose. So most of the time there were about 3 fields left for pick up games. With limited fields available, winners stayed on. Losers took a seat and had to wait for next game. From time to time, people who were waiting in the long line for the Shakespeare plays would join us for a game or so, just to make the day pass by easily. I studied Shakespeare’s at college. It would have been a dream came true for me to see Shakespeare plays in Central Park. But Great Lawn softball pickup games were priceless for me and nothing could come between me and Great Lawn softball pick-up games. There were drama and unpredictable endings in each game and best of all, I was on the center stage. I was the most winning pitcher from our “league”, if you could call it. I became a “legend” for pitching a one-hit game. Eddie, the third baseman for that game told me he had never played a one-hit game, nor had he heard of it, ever since he started playing softball at Great Lawn. Given his age, I think I had made a “history” at Great Lawn. Since I was not much of a hitter, this was the only thing I can brag about it to my “teammates”.

Eddie was a unique person. He always wore that same 60’s hippie style t-shirt every weekend. I could spot him miles away. At age 50 or so, he was the best 3rd baseman in the game. But that’s not the reason I remembered him. What impressed me was his porn collection, his knowledge of porn stars: a couple of times, he brought his porn collection to the ball park. The collection was a thick, 3rd grade notebook with glued cut-outs of the porn videos. I don’t know if he knew who the president of the United States was but he could tell the names of every porn stars and their specialties in that notebook. But more bizarre thing was his girlfriend sat right next to us when Eddie was flipping the pages and boasting his collections. Showing off your knowledge of porn is one thing, but doing it while your girlfriend was right next to you? I think there was a serious self-esteem issue. Well, who is the judge for that?

Another unique character was “Little Ricky” His name was not “Little Ricky”. We called him “Little Ricky” because he was 5.0’ and always wore his clean Ricky Henderson’s full uniform every weekend. Not only he dressed like Ricky Henderson, he even imitated how Ricky Henderson caught fly balls. The funny thing was he dropped most of the fly balls in the outfield. If you couldn’t steal the base (not allowed in softball), unable to catch a fly ball, and couldn’t get on base, a right minded person would be subtle about his demeanor and style. Real Ricky Henderson was not known for humbleness in Major League, nor was our “Little Ricky”. He didn’t care much about anyone’s comments or chuckles. He came to Great Lawn weekends after weekends, with the same attitude, the same clean uniform and just enjoyed the game, even he was not good at it. Everyone of us had been made fun of by the crowd, but who cares? That's the spirit of Great Lawn softball.

There was no Great Lawn Spirit without Diego. A son of a well-known political film maker of Argentina, his mom took him to the US when he was 4, after his dad was murdered by Argentine police. Ever since then, he hated police. He was one of the least “talented” players in the game, but we all liked him. His fun in the park was hanging out under the sun every weekend, making joints in between innings, or games, get stoned and be mellow the entire day.

Playing softball pick-up games at Great Lawn was the most relaxing time I ever had since I came to America. It was the fun, the openness and freedom Great Lawn gave me that no other place could offer. I went there every weekend religiously. It was quite therapeutic.

Die-hard players like me played from spring till the end of summer, without taking a day off, not even when it was 100 degree humid July 4th weekend. We would play from noon till dark, then get a bite at McDonald or a pizza place nearby for dinner to mark the end of the day. For us, Great Lawn was not just a playground for softball games. It was an emotional sanctuary. There was no prejudice, no repercussions, no harassment, no worries, no guilt, no responsibilities... just grass, fresh air, blue sky and softball. It was pure joy and laughters. It was pure excitement and enjoyment. As if I was in another world when I stepped on the grass of Great Lawn. It enabled me to forget my loneliness, unhappiness, homesickness. Great Lawn has its own culture. it is the best place on earth, if you can play softball in the summer.