with Asperger’s Syndrome in mid-life. He is happily married and has two sons, one of whom is also diagnosed with Asperger’s.
The Trouble with Sports
As my first-grade year was coming to a close, the flyers announcing the 1972 Little League season were distributed. Should I give it a try? Why not? My father had, in fact, played professional baseball in the 1950s, so I hesitantly said, “Yes.”
Most of us boys in the first grade were seven years old, and we were placed in what was called the minor league. There were four teams: Reds, Pirates, Tigers, and Yankees. I am not sure how teams were selected, but I landed on the Yankees team coached by big-framed Butch. Butch had had a lot of experience coaching Little League, and he knew how to run a team. And he knew how to maintain respect.
After he had tested our fielding skills by batting the ball to each of us in turn, I was selected for the outfield. The outfield was where you went if you were lousy at catching the ball since, at this young age, very few players could hit balls that far. That was fine by me, for I had better things to do in that lonely outfield. Turning around I could watch airplanes take off from the adjacent runway of the regional airport.
“Turn around, Tim!” was an imperative I heard on many occasions. But I didn’t care. I was busy counting airplanes and watching the magical aerodynamic lift of those Cessnas and Piper Cubs. Then there was that incredible roaring growl of the engine as a newly airborne plane struggled to climb toward the clouds. That was fun. But not the baseball game. It was not fun. It could be hell.
Trying to swing the bat at the correct moment as the ball zoomed over the plate, and making sure the bat was swinging horizontally through the correct altitude of the vertical plane, and trying to keep my eye on the ball at the same time as making sure my bat was where it was supposed to be was difficult and…“Strike One!” How could that be strike one? I hadn’t even swung the bat.
“Just watch the ball,” Dad always said, and swing…“Strike Two!” Okay, that didn’t work either. More than once, at this critical moment, I would look toward the lawn chairs down the first base line where Mom and Dad were sitting. Dad would give me that raised eyebrow with a half smile and a look of “Remember what I told you. You can do it!” I would watch the pitcher launch the ball at what seemed like 200 miles per hour, and hear my bat softly and slowly swish over the plate one second after the ball had smacked the catcher’s mitt.
“Strike Three. You’re out!”
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I heard that exclamation behind home plate. Then there was that long walk back to the worn-out bench where my teammates were anxiously awaiting their turns to hit a line drive toward second base. I, on the other hand, quickly earned my way into the ranks of the “Easy Out Club.” For some reason, I just could not seem to hit that ball, although Dad had worked with me a lot.
Sometimes, I got by with luck. By not swinging at the ball, I might get walked — especially by the not-so-skilled kids who threw pitches that even I perceived to be a ball. Those were my glory moments at the plate. After hearing the heavenly “Ball Four,” I made plenty of home plate umpires and catchers run for cover as I abruptly launched my bat in the air. Where it landed was anybody’s guess. But it didn’t matter. I was safe on first base.
All was well for the moment — but then the next batter took the plate, and the confusion began.
Should I lead off first base in anticipation of second? If I did lead off, how would I know when I was supposed to steal second? How was I to know whether I was supposed to step back on first? How was I to know…?
This was not my comfort zone; it was my confusion zone. There were too many signals coming from too many people. Were those hand signals for me or for the boy on our team trying to steal third base? Or were the signals for the other team?
“Run, Tim!” barked the coach, three seconds after the crack of the bat.
While most kids improved, I did not. Baseball was not going to be a sport I was good at. I was below average and miserable with it. But it was too awkward for me to tell my parents I didn’t want to play anymore. They assumed I wanted to play. I didn’t know until years later that it didn’t matter to them whether I played or not.
At the close of that first baseball season, in the late summer of 1972, our team had finished in first place. I can assure you that I had nothing to do with the victorious season. But I was part of the team, and I got to share the benefits of the prize — a trip to watch the Cincinnati Reds play a home game at Riverfront Stadium. It was not until many years later that I learned the significance of what I had witnessed.
I heard members of our team talking about the upcoming game. It didn’t interest me. But there was something they talked about that did — the awesome and incredible Bat Bank at the Riverfront Stadium souvenir shop. I had a clear image of the Bat Bank in my mind, and I planned on buying one.
On Saturday, October 14, I was on the road in Butch’s over-crowded van with a load of fellow teammates heading down U.S. 52 along the Ohio River. On our way, we passed a scene of horror that haunts me to this day. On Kellogg Avenue, at the edge of Cincinnati, were the skeletal remains of Coney Island Amusement Park, a place of magic. I had ridden my first roller coaster, the Teddy Bear, there in 1971. After the savagery of the wrecking ball, the Teddy Bear now lay intertwined in a heap of pealing lattice work with its big brother, the Shooting Star.
While the other boys looked ahead through the windshield for the first glimpse of Riverfront Stadium, my head was turned around to look out the rear window and say goodbye to an old friend.
Sitting in the nosebleed section of Riverfront, my eyes strained to watch Johnny Bench catch 90 mile-per-hour fastballs from Gary Nolan. Much to the home crowd’s dismay, Gene Tenace hit two home runs, and the Big Red Machine lost to the Oakland A’s. Years later I realized what I had witnessed — the opening game of the 1972 World Series! No wonder there had been such pomp and circumstance before the opening pitch.
After that game, I felt like a sardine smashed up against the bustling crowd. Butch took us to the souvenir shop where we were prepared to buy a memory. I could not focus on anyone in my group. It was a static-like blur of confusion, a mad whirlwind of relentless bees buzzing about my personal space, swarming madly, while I tried to focus on finding that Bat Bank. But where was it? I couldn’t find it anywhere in that cramped store. I looked and looked and looked… until I almost gave up. I saw the other boys with sacks filing out of the shop. They must have found their Bat Banks. Why couldn’t I? But I didn’t give up. I went to the man behind the cash register and asked him where the Bat Bank was.
“Just a moment,” he said as he finished with a customer.
He soon shuffled over to one of the shelves I had previously investigated and brought me a Bat Bank. “What? That’s not the Bat Bank,” I thought to myself. But the sales clerk was not mistaken. It was the Bat Bank — a six-inch-tall red cone with a coin hole on top surrounded by a multitude of miniature baseball bats. Inscribed on the plastic bats were the names of each team of the National and American Leagues.
Yes, it made sense now — sort of. The Bat Bank, in my mind, was supposed to be made of glass and shaped like the flying mammals that lived deep in caves. That was what I had been searching for. And to this day, I can still see what that bank was supposed to look like, for its image is forever engraved in my mind, along with the skeletal remains on those barren midways back on Kellogg
