The (Neighborhood) Boys of Summer 1963

The above photo was taken Sunday afternoon in Nelson Park on W Nelson St., almost across from my old house. I will assume it was some wag who put the plate in front of the sign and I commend him, but I found it quite a bit more sad given the historic context of the sign. To wit:

The empty lot that is now Nelson Park was long used by us neighborhood kids for play, kite-flying and other games, but baseball most of all. Home plate used to be in the northwest corner of the park, but this had the disadvantage that home runs to right field landed over the fence in the beautiful gardens around the small brick house still there, tended by an old couple remembered by some of us only as "The Shelleys" (sp?). The Shelleys reasonably did not like have us kids trampling their flowers and so we generally knew them as people who were not very nice. (I related earlier in this blog their response the one time I politely requested entry and when it was granted I was very careful in recovering the ball. They were forever nice to me after that and that's how I remember them to this day.)

Sometime around 1963 the neighborhood parents got together to buy a backstop for the "park", and put it in in the southwest corner where only pop flies would land in the Shelleys' garden. This did have the new disadvantage that home runs to left field tended to hit the Andersons' house due north of the lot but this didn't seem to be a problem. Though I did watch in horror one day as my one and only ever grand-slam headed right for one of the windows of the Andersons' house (Ken's room, to be exact), then to be amazed as the window bowed in... and back out as the ball bounced off! Of course we were using tennis balls, because anything else would have been more damaging.

That was still the setup when I left in 1968.

I had noted before my return visit that this was now a city park with trees, and I'd wondered how they made that work with baseball. The answer was: They didn't. There is a sign posted, explicitly prohibiting baseball and golf. Golf? Okay -- there is some history I do not know.

Fair enough, I guess. If the city bought the park they can make the rules and I am sure some subsequent resident of the Andersons' house was not much into broken windows and lobbied for the ban.

But when I looked at the setup in the photo it looked to me very much like the fencing frame upon which the prohibition is posted is a remnant of the original batting backstop dating back to 1963. I could be wrong, but I see no other reason for that frame to be just where it is, sized as it is, angled as it is.

If so, that's just a little slap in the face. But for my part I'd vote to keep that plate exactly where it is! Sign it "The (Neighborhood) Boys of Summer 1963" if you have to. This was once a neighborhood ballfield, and a few of us Midlanders won't soon forget the fun we had playing ball there.