The snow was melting. I was getting scared.. All I envisioned from the fall of 1963 to the winter of 1964 was playing baseball. If the seson was baseball season I played. If the season was not baseball season, I would think about playing again when the new seaon started up again. Yeah I thought about baseball a lot.

Weequahic High School's baseball season started when it was still pretty cold. Sometime around March 15, 1964 could not have arrived swiftly enough. Even if tryouts started outside in the snow, I would have been there. But they started in the gym, because it was too cold for outside baseball. Just like most schools in the North.

I look back walking through the hallways of school on that first day of tryouts in a baseball befuddlement. I was like a baseball zombie. How would i hit today? do. Would I hit? How would I look? Would I trip over my uniform? Hello. I did not want to embarrass myself. After school was where the phase of the daze turned into the hits and the mitts.

"Time to get a move on boys. Get the lead out." I heard Mr Ginsburg say, as he walked out of his office. The coach had spoken. It was time to get moving. My time to show em all what I had. I knew her would be taking a long look at me. He told me last summer he wanted me to come out for the team.

So I started playing catch. My partner was my best buddy Mel Schnur. He and I were the catchers. I was so excited to have a glove on and playing ball. The winter is always too lengthy when you yen to be playing baseball.

After tossing the pill around for a while it was time to hit. We had no pitching machine so we improvised. Now get this. The gym at Weequahic High had a regular sized basketball court. On both sides of the court there were two more basketball baskets. From each basket a rope was tied that hung to a height of my belly. Attached to the end of the rope was a baseball. Yes the rope went through the middle of the ball and out the other side of the ball. It was my pursuit to hit the baseball into the mat that was positioned up against the wall, under the basket.

I was nervous as I heard the coach tell us what to do. So simple a concept. Hit a ball into a mat. What if I messed up? Would I be cut in less than an hour of tryouts?

Now my time arrived. Hitting a ball was like food for me.

If I couldn't hit this somewhat stationary ball - I should rest my bat in the bat rack. No way was that going to happen. I hit the ball so hard the sound it made hitting the mat had everyone in the gym looking at me. Boom. Another boom. And another. I can still hear the echoes in the gym. It was reverberating in the gym. My buddies patted me on the back, told me how well I did and smiled. I was relieved. I had passed my first test.

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