The Little Boy Is Overjoyed Once More

  I was so fixated on my subjects last week that I missed sharing something. It might sound self-serving, but I believe we can all relate to this.

        On July 17, 1958, a seven year old Mark Sperber went with his father, an established dentist in Edison who had time on his day off, to Yankee Stadium. This was young Mark’s first trip to the Bronx which he could remember. 

        I had discovered baseball at the age of five. First in the backyard of our small Edison home, then when, in 1956 we moved to a dead end street in Highland Park, in an upscale neighborhood. 

        My love affair with the game took hold in Highland Park. I had my Rawlings Charlie Neal glove. Neal was among the handful of black players who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers; I am sure the long defunct Two Guys from Harrison store on Route 18 in East Brunswick had purchased a load of these gloves cheap, knowing that the Dodgers were likely to abandon the East Coast for Southern California. 

I looked for anyone to play catch with—my father, the neighbor who attended New Brunswick High School and would go on to be a cardiologist, or just throw a ball at a wall or in the air. Similarly, I had old broken bats which I used stones to hit into fields adjacent to our property. Anywhere I could, I would play baseball in some form—or what I perceived to be baseball. 

I went to the summer day camp at the high school and evidently the people running it saw my raw ability along with my love to play catch, Whiffle Ball or any other kind of baseball. For somehow, in the Summer of 1958, seven year old Mark joined many older kids on the Police Department Midget League team. As an infielder in a uniform which was way too big.

Another great influence were the Yankees broadcasts on WPIX. Seemingly every game was being shown from Yankee Stadium. Our televisions were black and white models, yet I did not discern the difference; I was color-blind to baseball, I guess. 

Anytime I could watch, I did. With great enthusiasm. You could guess that Mickey Mantle was my favorite player—he was why I learned to switch hit as a batter and wanted to play centerfield. But I knew all of the players on the roster, along with the coaches. And I supplemented my burgeoning knowledge with the paper of the day; The Daily Mirror; The Daily News; The Sunday Times; The Journal-American; and The Home News, the local paper. 

So when my father said we were going to Yankee Stadium, I was overjoyed. I can recall the ride in his 1956 Chrysler, taking the New Jersey Turnpike to its then-terminus at Route 46, which took us to the George Washington Bridge. There was no lower deck; thus the Manhattan skyline gleamed in the not-too far distance. 

I recall that my father went big-time with box seats on the side with the Yankees dugout that cost $3.50 each. What stunned me was the enormity of the ballpark, the cacophony of colors from the awning extending from the roof, to the billboards on the back wall, to the blackness of the outfield walls. The grass was immaculate and the dirt infield had been watered down and looked pristine. 

Then there were the sounds. The legendary Bob Sheppard announced the lineups. The breaking of bags. The cheers and the boos. The smashing of seats. I had never experienced so much beautiful noise. 

The Yankees, in their white pinstripes, hosted the grey-clad Detroit Tigers. Detroit players Harvey Kuenn and Hall of Famer Al Kaline stood out for me, along with left-handed pitcher Billy Hoeft who absorbed the loss.

I saw Mantle single. Catcher Elston Howard hit a homer. Right fielder Hank Bauer had three hits. Art Ditmar, a pitching favorite for my Yankees, pitched well enough to win. Final score: New York 4 Detroit 2. And here began a lifetime addiction to live sporting events. 

Now there is another thing I loved to do as a child. Which has carried on into adulthood. Follow schedules. Whether it was baseball at first, which I would make up my own on Saturday mornings, or other sports, I loved to see how the games would unfold. So much so that I would love to sit down with a schedule maker to see that exactly it takes to put together a logical and coherent plan for a season. 

I was fascinated this week when MLB decided to have some rivalry games on the docket. First and foremost for me was the second part of the Subway Series with the Mets coming to Yankee Stadium for two games. Along with the New York City tussle, Oakland and San Francisco met perhaps the last time in SF as Bay Area rivals; the Cubs and White Sox resumed the Windy City hostilities at Guaranteed Rate Field; Texas’ two teams played in Houston; Miami traveled to St. Petersburg to take on the Rays; and the Braves went from former home Milwaukee to Boston, the franchise’s original location, to take on the Red Sox. 

This weekend’s series have a different flavor for some matchups. The scheduler went with old school meetings in the respective leagues. Original American League franchises New York and Baltimore (St. Louis) and Cleveland And Chicago meet. In the National League, the Reds play the Dodgers; the Cubs journey to St. Louis; and interstate foes Philadelphia and Pittsburgh clash. 

Whoever decided to do this has my gratitude. These are the kind of mid-summer delight which baseball can effectuate, while resonating with the seven year old inside of me.

I get excited when the NHL schedule is distributed, for I know which New Jersey Devils game my son and I will see in Canada. Being a Jets season ticket holder, I want to know how September to January will play out in my life. And with the NBA, I look to see where the Golden State Warriors might be, lest I get the chance to see Steph Curry. Call me a schedule nerd, I guess. 

I also look at Franklin and Marshall College schedules to see when I might see my alma mater in football, men’s basketball and the sport I played while there—baseball. I integrate the F&M contests into the myriad of other sports I watch—Rutgers men’s basketball and baseball.

When the 2023 slate for F&M football was announced this week, I was stunned. No longer were Juniata, Moravian and Susquehanna opponents for the Diplomats. Instead, Kean University, The College of New Jersey and Montclair State University replaced those three schools. It was the first time that the trio had not been on the schedule since 2003. 

F&M usually blasted Juniata; Susquehanna had a rich football history going back to Amos Alonzo Stagg, and they gave the Diplomats trouble in the latter years. Moravian was easy to travel to and the weather usually cooperated in late October or early November, so that was a big personal loss. 

Having added three New Jersey schools, I now had the luxury of two being within very reasonable driving distance—Montclair State this season and Kean next year. Even better than going to the closest opposition schools—Moravian and Muhlenberg. I want to thank the administrators at those schools for being as far-sighted to let the Landmark Conference expand to football for its members, releasing Juniata, Moravian and Susquehanna, while the Centennial Conference and the New Jersey Athletic Conference joined together in a 2022 agreement to jointly address football scheduling needs. 

The little boy in this 72 year old body is overjoyed once more. Like he was 65 years ago at Yankee Stadium.