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Posted 08.10.05 Entering This Hall of Fame Takes Heart (And One Spaldeen) - (The New York Times 7/4/05) The New York Times, July 4, 2005 By Janelle Nanos Charlie Ballard retired his broomstick a year ago, but he still talks a good game. "I can still hit better than 50 percent of you bums," he called out to members of his former team, the Old Timers, as they took turns smacking spaldeens through the legs of their opponents, the Young Bucks. Mr. Ballard, who is 86, was sitting in a lawn chair on the sidelines of the stickball court on 108th Street in East Harlem, and his rollicking banter served to keep the players on their toes. "What a beautiful game," he added, almost to himself. "There's nothing else like it." Within the New York City stickball community - or at least what remains of it - Mr. Ballard is widely considered a legend whose bat has launched more than 10,000 line drives over the past 50 years. So it was no surprise that Mr. Ballard was the first inductee into the Stickball Hall of Fame in 1977. The hall was founded with the most modest of goals: to formally recognize the sport. The founders - all members of the Old Timers, including their manager, Carlos Diaz - picked the top players from throughout the city, including those who parlayed their street skills into professional baseball careers, like Phil Rizzuto, Joe Torre, Willie Randolph and Rusty Torres. Every year they held a block party in East Harlem to celebrate the game and talk up their talents. "Baseball has statistics," Mr. Diaz explains. "We have bragging rights." Now the Stickball Hall of Fame will have a home of its own, albeit one without walls. The wide swath of pavement on 109th Street between Second and Third Avenues, which has been the site of hundreds of games, will be renamed "Stickball Hall of Fame Place" on Friday, to coincide with this year's induction ceremony. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is scheduled to be on hand for the renaming of the street, as is Joe Pepitone, a former baseball player and one of this year's inductees. "The history of East Harlem isn't complete unless we talk about the wonderful stickball games," said Councilman Philip Reed, who, though he plays handball, helped Mr. Diaz to sponsor the renaming of the street. A few years ago, Mr. Diaz started having the Stickball Hall of Fame's annual ceremonies at the Museum of the City of New York, and invited New Yorkers who had started teams across the country to play in a World Series. He commissioned plaques for the Hall of Fame honorees and often made trophies as well. Mr. Diaz and others tried to have a wall at the Museum of the City of New York devoted to stickball, but their efforts fizzled when the museum canceled plans to move to a larger building and a new director took over who was not interested in pursuing the project. For many who play the game, stickball is a New York institution, even if it has lost its popularity to basketball, and its playing fields to more cars and less space. Between their cat-calling, teasing and occasional quarreling, the players at the recent game in East Harlem described how they thought the game had shaped the city. They said it helped break down racial tensions and provided a haven from gangs or drugs. It was also cheap to play: spaldeens used to cost 15 cents, and Con Ed manhole covers made fine bases. "When I first came to New York, there was a lot of animosity among the different nationalities," said Mr. Ballard, who started playing when he was 7 and was one of the first black ballplayers to play on a previously all-white team. "There used to be fighting all the time, and if I went into a white neighborhood, I'd get beat up. But with stickball the hatred left." Sarah Henry, the deputy director of programs for the Museum of the City of New York, said she has incorporated elements of stickball into several exhibits over the years. "It was the social glue that held together the neighborhoods," she said. "Stickball grew up at the time when baseball was becoming the national pastime and it fits into the whole street-play legacy of New York. It's the importance of street as outdoors. It's the backyard, the front yard, the everything for an urban kid." And for the urban adult as well. There are seven organized teams in Manhattan and the Bronx, and the Old Timers are working to keep the game alive by sponsoring clinics and introducing stickball into gym programs at the elementary schools. As for those who still play, John Keeney, 81, said, "Maybe it keeps you young, maybe it keeps you going, and maybe it stops the osteoporosis and arthritis from setting in,." He added, "You go as long as you can, because you're dead a long time." |
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