Here’s one memory that will not die
In my long life, I remember this day more or less precisely: Sept. 7, 1958. Exactly 67 years ago, I sat in the stands at Forbes Field on a sun-splashed Sunday afternoon with my dad and brother, an uncle and a cousin, and two companionable acquaintances.
We witnessed a baseball doubleheader between the Pirates, tied for second place in the National League (long before expansion made them necessary, there were no divisions in those days), and the league-leading Milwaukee Braves. (It would be another seven years before the Braves moved to Atlanta.)
Though decades have come and gone, that singular event and date have remained lodged in my brain. Why?
There’s no one answer.
As a 10 year old, baseball was my life. My life, I tell you! We neighborhood kids played in a field next to our house on Brown Street in Uniontown, using taped balls and bats. We also played a variant of the game on a small plot of land one street up. We played organized baseball at Bailey Park on teams sponsored by service clubs such as the Kiwanis, Elks, Knights of Columbus, and B’nai B’rith.
It was around this time that my dad began smacking ground balls to me. My brother Doug and I used to pester Dad to throw pitches to us on Sunday afternoons, when I’m sure that’s the last thing he wanted to do, after working six days a week. I had an Andy Carey glove (he was a Yankee infielder). I vividly recall the Johnny Mize (he’s in the Hall of Fame) first baseman’s mitt we all wore and an uncle’s minor league baseball uniform I sometimes draped myself in. Around October or so, we’d carefully store the gloves away for winter, wrapping them with a ball or two in the pockets. In March, giddy with anticipation, we’d retrieve them.
Of course, the Pirates were my team. Two years earlier, I saw my first big league game, the Pirates vs. the Brooklyn Dodgers. From our seats behind the screen in right field, Brooklyn pitcher Don Newcombe looked huge, as did the pitcher’s mound. The only other player I can see in my mind’s eye from that great Dodger team is Carl Furillo, who was positioned just below us in right field. I don’t recall the identity of the Pirate right fielder on that drizzly afternoon. The year 1956 was a bit too early for a focus on Roberto Clemente.
In addition, the September 1958 game remains alive in my bank of notable events because it was an unusual occurrence to get together with the Connellsville branch of the family.
My dad was a Connellsville guy, having been born and raised there, and Bill worked six days a week alongside his brother (my uncle) Bob at Robbins Market, situated at a sharp bend on Morrel Avenue, so, I suspect, there was no real urgency on his part to spend even more time there.
As a family unit, we were Uniontown oriented. My mother’s family, the Sanners, hailed from Downer Avenue. From the backyard of our house on Laurel Terrace, we literally had a bird’s-eye view of the city. And though we lived in North Union Township, we were a foot away from the city line. We played ball in Uniontown, we went to church in Uniontown, we shopped and paid bills in Uniontown.
Because of this focus, I barely knew my cousin Grant, Bob’s only kid.
And I barely knew my Uncle Bob, who, in subsequent years, I grew to know as a quietly insistent man with a head for business. Robbins Market was at the core of his life, along with the church. He was a Lutheran, pale and bespectacled. Uncle Bob was tolerant, pleasantly earnest, understated, a real gentleman.
Having Junior and Cecil from the grocery store join us for the excursion to Forbes Field seemed extraordinary. Junior was a tall, rangy, good-natured fellow, a bit of a wild man who every now and again courted trouble for which he was readily forgiven. As for Cecil, he called my dad “Willie,” a chuminess which still delights me.
A&P grocery workers were on strike, the “two” Chinas were coming to blows, and the Kremlin and White House were trading accusations on that Sunday in 1958. Nearly 37,000 fans crowded Forbes Field. As Pittsburgh sports columnist Al Abrams put it, “The Bucs carried the battle to the Braves in an atmosphere laced with World Series fervor.”
The Braves took the first game, the Pirates the second. The Pirates’ Hank Foiles missed a foul ball pop up, the Braves’ Wes Covington crushed a double to deep right center, Warren Spahn kicked high and delivered, young Henry Aaron lashed line drives, and Dick Groat, to my utter shock, lifting his cap for the National Anthem, exposed a bright patch of scalp to the unforgiving light.
The roar of the crowd, the aroma of cigars and spilt beer, the green, sandy field – baseball at Forbes Field. Little wonder I can’t get it out of my head.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.