We All Had A Ball

Did you have any of those inklings with the Cubs?

I had so many inklings, I may never sort them out. "You look like you've played some ball," Hundley told me, and to give you some idea how that made me feel, here's a story. A reporter at the camp overheard some of the Cubs saying that Ken Schwab, a 55-year-old Illinois grain-farm owner, looked pretty good. After asking another camper to point out Schwab, the reporter went up to another person he thought had been indicated and said, "Hey, the Cubs are saying you look pretty good." The guy nearly fainted. "My lifelong dream!" he cried. "You can't imagine what this means to me. For a big league player to say, 'Irvin Singletary looks pretty good!' " (I have changed his name.) Here's how I felt: 1) "I have played some ball! I have played some ball. I must have! All those years, some of the time, anyway, that was actually ball I was playing!" And 2) "Me?"

Then, too, there were simpler moments. Grounder hit at me, bing-bing-tapocketta, it's in my glove, I'm up with it smoothly, throwing, zip, it's over to the first baseman chest high, a couple of murmurs among the campers: "Got an arm."

"Don't throw too hard too soon," Santo tells me. And the next day he asks me, "How's your hose?"

It wouldn't have sounded much sweeter if it had been Jessica Lange asking.

How was your hose?

My hose was there, all right. My hose wasn't dead.

You sound surprised.

The irony of all this is that before the opportunity to play with the Cubs arose, I had planned to retire from organized ball. I had given Willie Stargell, who is my age, the chance to hang it up first. I didn't want to steal any of his thunder. This spring I was going to make a simple announcement.

There had been certain telltale signs. For instance, when the slo-pitch softball team that you think you belong to fails to inform you that the season is under way, you begin to wonder. That happened two seasons ago. Then, too, I had doubts about my hose.