Under the Ramada

TOTS Senior Baseball Network

60-and-over baseball


There are a dozen or so old timers who gather under the Ramada at Udall Park on Friday mornings. They meet after a 60-and-over baseball game. They pop a beer can or two, talk about the close plays, the booming hits, the dropped fly balls, the errant throws...well you name it -- everything (I mean everything) is open for discussion.

The dozen or so old-time ball players -- some with dust still clinging to their uniforms, some with bloody knees and skinned up elbows -- range in age from 62 to 82. Baseball, America's favorite pastime is generally the first subject discussed as the old timers try their best to recall stories of yesteryear  -- back in the day, back when the LA Dodgers were the Brooklyn Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants were the New York Giants. Back in the day when players like Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Mickey Mantle, Duke Snider, Henry Aaron led their teams to victory.

The "Dirty Dozen" sit around and talk about Ebbetts Field, Fenway Park, Camden Yards and Wrigley Field. Some of the old timers tell of the day when they were just a youngster, with a bag of popcorn in one hand and a soda in the other, as Ted Williams stepped to the plate in Boston, or Ernie Banks knelt down on one knee in the on deck circle in Chicago, or when Pete Rose went 5 for 5 in Cincinnati, or when Hoyt Wilhelm unleashed a knuckleball in Baltimore.

The conversation moves on to "life in general" -- to such things as my first car, my first truck, my first job, the worst job I ever had, the best job I ever had...or there was a time I froze to death in Pittsburgh, Buffalo...or how I survived a cold and windy day at the ballpark in San Francisco...in Milwaukee, Cleveland or Chicago.

The old-timers will outdo one another with stories like: I walked five miles to school -- in a driving rainstorm, or snowstorm..or drove to my first job with ice covering the front windshield. They will recall their first week at boot camp...when they got out of the service...their first day of college...the day they met the gal they would marry...or the day they walked down the alter with the confetti swirling above them as they hopped into a convertible and sped off with nothing more than a handful  of dreams and a goal or two, written on a piece of paper and tucked away in their pocket.

The Dirty Dozen, now 50 years later, 60 years later...and in some cases 70 years later, grab their beer and toast one another. Nice hit today! Good throw! Way to run!

Somehow, someway the "Dirty Dozen" converged on the cemented bench at Udall Park, under the Ramada... on this beautiful spring day.

They had survived the game. They had survived a lifetime.

And they aren't done yet.