By Stephen Smoot
“That morning began with wind and hairy clouds. It was late March and the day rose brisk and uncertain, with gusts suggesting January and flashes of sun promising June. In every way, a season of change had come.”
This paragraph opens one of the greatest books ever written about baseball. Roger Hahn wrote “The Boys of Summer” about the Brooklyn Dodgers, the perspective of a man who grew up by Ebbets Field, then became a sportswriter covering the team through the 1950s. Since then “Boys of Summer” has been a phrase to refer to baseball players in general, reaffirmed by the Don Henley hit song of the same name.
To preface the book, he quoted a bit of poetry from the Welshman Dylan Thomas, who wrote “I see the boys of summer in their ruin/Lay the gold tithings barren/Setting no store by harvest, freeze the soils.” This poem described young male farmers who wasted their youth in silly things and did not learn early enough how to be a man and do the right things in the right way for the betterment of those around them.
Some “Boys of Summer” dropped into Pendleton Manor last week, clad from head to foot in Pendleton County Wildcat uniforms. Their very presence and purpose shows that they face no ruin and set great store by doing the important things, not only for themselves, but for others as well.
The day on which they came to Pendleton Manor resembled very much the day described by Hahn to open his book: gray, dreary, with cold temperatures giving way begrudgingly to bits of sun here and there.
Inside, however, the joy on the faces of the residents lit up the room like the sun. Warmth came from the generous gesture that the ballplayers made in helping Pendleton Manor make a special day for everyone in attendance.
Well before the players arrived, staff set up tables, hung a banner, and set helium balloons fashioned like baseballs and catchers’ mitts on each table. Pendleton Manor nurse Robin McDonald-Alt, whose photography captured so much of the Wildcat softball team’s state title run last year, had camera in hand to capture the event fully.
“They’ve got some big gosh darned guys!” shared one resident as he shook their hands.
Many of those men who came into the cafeteria for the special event have their own “boys of summer” memories. There’s just something special about how summer pulls together all American themes like warm breezy days, the crack of an honest wooden Louisville Slugger on a well-pitched ball, dads and sons, coaches and players, and memories of the good ol’ days.
Some represented their high schools as they battled cross-county and regional rivals. Others enjoyed time in little league or at least played catch with their dads. And others taught the game.
Among those who came in to greet the players was T. E. Wimer, former head baseball coach of Franklin High School. Wimer had a place of honor reserved for him as players gathered to talk to him, shook his hand, then posed behind him for a photograph.
After the picture was taken, the boys apologized because they had to join their teammates on a bus headed toward Paw Paw where they would take on the Pirates.
A team could triumph in every game, win every title, earn every accolade . . . and still not be winners in the same way as these young men who took a few minutes out of their day to make that of others a little brighter.
