November 28, 2001
I recently attended a funeral in my home town of Billerica and I met some people I hadn’t seen since I was a kid. It was very interesting to go way, way back in time and kick around some old memories. Doris Joncas was there and she reminded me of the baseball games we used to play in the field next to her house. Later I talked with my brother, Eddie, about those games and he quickly brought up the name of Old Tim McCarthy.
I still remember playing in those baseball games as a kid. Unfortunately, I was the youngest kid in the neighborhood so sometimes it was pretty scary competing with kids who were older, bigger and tougher. Somehow I had acquired an old first baseman’s glove. It was really beat up. I had to put rags in it to soften the impact of the ball and the leather laces had long gone. I had replaced the leather laces with some old shoe laces.
Since I had the first baseman’s glove I got to play first base.
When It was time to pick the teams I can still remember hoping that Glenn Watson was not on my team. Glenn was the biggest of the big kids and he could throw the ball real hard. He always played third base. And when he picked up a grounder and threw that bullet toward me I was really terrified. Sometimes he would throw the ball so hard it would rip the glove right off my hand.
But things changed when old Tim McCarthy came to play baseball with us. He lived in the big white house across the street. And when he came to play baseball with us he pitched for both sides. And he made sure that the game never got out of hand. So I really felt safe when he was on the field.
When the smaller kids got up to bat he had special rules for us. He always threw underhand to us. And he made it a point to throw the ball really slow. We knew we would never strike out because after strike two he would shift into a series of imaginary “foul ticks.” After we swung and missed he would hold his ear and say, “Did you hear that? Foul Tick.” And we would keep on swinging until we finally hit a pitch.
He invented a colorful selection of pitches for the smaller kids. He would give us the raspberry ball or the strawberry ball. But the one he liked the best was the old banana ball. He saved the old banana ball until we were desperate. And then he would serve up the old banana ball with an underhand toss as soft as he could so we could save our dignity and get a hit.
When I got home from the funeral I got to thinking how important it is for a kid to have a person like Old Tim McCarthy around. You just felt so safe when he was around. And at the bat you seemed to have so much more confidence in yourself. You knew he was rooting for you and you knew you had plenty of time to take your best cut at the plate.
I probably was never aware of why Old Tim McCarthy made the smaller kids like me feel safe. But I guess it must have had something to with the kindness, the gentleness and the patience he had.
During the winter months the same kids played hockey on the river. And hockey can get real rough when there are no referees. And I was still one of the youngest kids and I was not too good at skating. But I played in the games and took my licks.
But luckily for me and the rest of the smaller kids, Old Tim McCarthy had a son named Tim. And Tim was just like his Dad. He was much older than us and he was a great hockey player. Most of the time he would play in the games with the older guys. But sometimes he would play with us. And when he played with us, it was just like having Old Tim McCarthy on the ice.
Tim could have hogged the puck and scored as many goals as he wanted to. And he could have really knocked the smaller kids around. But he was not that kind of guy. I guess he had learned a lot from his dad. Because when Tim played with us he spent most of the time passing the puck so we could take a shot or he was holding us up so we didn’t fall on our face and get hurt.
When my sons were kids I played a lot of sports and a lot of games with them. I think I tried to make the games safe and take some of the pressure off. But now when I play games with my grandchildren I will try to remind myself about Old Tim McCarthy and his son Tim. And I will try to remind myself to add a generous amount of kindness, gentleness and patience to our games.