A Beleaguered Young Sandlotter Finally Has His Moment Of Stardom

In my near-adequate athletic career, what with rodeoing and track and baseball and a little college football, I had, well-spaced though they were, my few moments of glory. Nothing spectacular, you understand, but, still, enough to stay with you for a lifetime.

So it might seem strange that my greatest moment—and the greatest accolade I ever received as an athlete—came on Dr. Simon's vacant lot in Bay City, Texas in 1946.

I don't know who your heroes were back in the mid-'40s, maybe Sid Luckman or Doc Blanchard or the immortal Frankie Sinkwich, but mine were Al Blaylock and Dee Dee Pollard and Steve Long. I'm talking giants now. Two even played on the high school team.

I was about 12 years old, and, since we played sandlot football all year long, in the off-season I was occasionally afforded the chance to play with them.

The games always ended the same: just about dark, with someone's mother stepping out on the front porch and calling, "Yoo hoo! Charles (or Bill or Mack or Morris), it's time to come in to supper!"

Now we grammar school kids, "small fry," as the big boys called us, didn't always get to play. Sometimes the sides were even, and we simply stood around on the sidelines hoping we'd somehow get into the game. We played Saturdays and Sundays and a few times after school, but mostly it was those Saturday afternoons when the Big Games occurred. And it was at the end of one of those Big Game days that my greatest moment came.

Getting into a game depended on how uneven the sides were among the high school boys or just how benevolent they were feeling that day. Actually, though, the most dreaded thing was being picked last. When it came to us sideliners, there were few feelings spared. One of the captains would say, "Well, I'll take Fred and Guy: You can have that other kid."

And the other captain would say, "You kidding me? He couldn't catch a pass in a washtub."

"So what, you ain't going to throw to him anyway."

"Yeah, but them two you want might get in somebody's way as blockers."