Call it an impulse, an inspiration, a wild hair.
“Dumb idea” might fit, too.
Whatever it was, it led me out of my house, where I’d had about all the bouncing off the walls I could take, and in search of … geez, this is kind of embarrassing.
In search of, well, a different wall to bounce off.
Specifically, the red brick wall beyond the left-field bleachers at Wrigley Field. Right there between Gates 5 and 6 on Waveland Avenue, across from Chicago Fire Department Engine Co. 78 and just a few steps from the media entrance to the ballpark.
I didn’t bounce myself off that wall, though perhaps I should have. It wouldn’t have looked any more ridiculous than what I did do, but it would have been more entertaining for the few passersby on the street and whoever might have been looking (and laughing) through their apartment windows.
No, instead I brought a nice, new first baseman’s mitt, borrowed from a friend, and an old, rubber-coated ball, borrowed from the same friend — who’d heaved them at me from his front stoop with an “I don’t even want to know” sort of flair — and then I played catch.
Off that wall. By myself. Social distancing and all, right? At least, that’s what I told myself.
When you’re unusually large and 50ish and standing in the street, bouncing grounders, soft liners and low-arcing popups to yourself off the wall of a ballpark — or of any other place, really — chances are, you’re not going to find many fellow humans wanting to stand there with you.
But stand there I did. Bounce, bounce. Bend, stagger. I haven’t been on a baseball team since I was 12, but it was just as I’d remembered it. I still had the first step of an ocean freighter. My range could still be best summed up as, “Go ahead, you take this one.”
I figured I’d stay until a cop or a security guard told me to beat it or, more likely, until the ball squirted under my glove and rolled far enough away that I would be too lazy to retrieve it. (My friend would get over it, OK?)
Not a great baseball player (or selfie taker).
For a couple of minutes, it was almost fun. Or more like a refreshing thing to do.
As a native son of the city, I recall few things more fun than playing “fastpitch” against schoolyard walls in the late 1970s and early ’80s. I don’t know about you, but when I pitched, I always aimed for the top of the spray-painted strike zone. Why I was so much better throwing off flat concrete or asphalt than a mound of dirt, I’ll never know.
Right up there with fastpitch was “pinners,” a game we played on Maplewood Ave. in West Rogers Park by bouncing a ball off the bottom step of a front stoop. Infielders took their positions near the curb, and outfielders in the street. A special thrill.
Playing catch with myself outside Wrigley felt something like that. Or would have if I were 40 years younger and surrounded by pals.
What brought me out to the ballpark? Several things, I suppose. Being bored. Missing sports. Hoping for an idea worth writing about. Feeling vulnerable on the job front, no doubt. I wanted inside that media entrance, that’s for sure.
Whatever it was, I don’t think I found what I was looking for. No cop or security guard came. The ball didn’t roll into a sewer inlet. It just got kind of weird. Probably as weird as it sounds.
I wondered how appropriate it was, too. Even being out there alone, what kind of an example was I setting?
Very soon, it felt like time to go. Besides, I had someplace to be.
Where else?
Home.
