OK, kids, gather close and stare into the campfire while I tell you a story about the greatest catch in the history of baseball. The greatest snag of all time was NOT the back-to-home-plate basket catch by Willie Mays off the bat of Cleveland’s Vic Wertz in the 1954 World Series. ESPN had that story recently and yeah, Mays made a miraculous catch. But, the distinction for having made the best catch in the history of baseball goes not to Mays but to – well, you’re looking at him. Yes, me, your camp director, old Mr. Wipfler himself. It’s a good story, one I call “Touchdown, We Win!” TOUCHDOWN! That’s a football term, yes? Better listen closely. This story has some peculiar twists and turns. Here goes.
I was sixteen years old, a high school sophomore from the city of Elmira, New York. I played on the JV baseball team, coached by a Mr. Pillard, who was also my math teacher, school advisor, and father of my best friend, Eddie. Coach Pillard had grown up in a small town about 30 miles east of Elmira called Nichols. Nichols, like several other towns in the area, sported a local baseball club that played games on weekends. They called it semi-pro ball and there were no age limitations. Coach Pillard, age 40, was the Nichols manager and occasional relief pitcher.
One Saturday in late May, Mr. Pillard approached Eddie and me, commanding us to be ready to drive down to Nichols with him next day as replacement players for the Nichols town team. “We shove off at 12 noon. Bring your own bats. You can’t be breaking any of ours,” he grunted.
On the ride to Nichols, Eddie and I got the scoop from old man Pillard. First, we learned that the shortstop and best fielder on the team was getting married today. One of the powerful hitters was best man. A couple other guys were in the ceremony. Thus, including us, just nine players made up Nichols’ roster that day. The game had been rescheduled from a previous rain out, the change announced long after the wedding plans had been made. Then, Pillard told us our opponent was the Vestal town team, the best squad in the league. “More bad news,” groused Pillard “is that Vestal gets to be home team at our field since the rainout was at their field which is not available today. Vestal gets last at bat, if they need it,” he moaned. “Worst of all, Doc Watson, Vestal’s ace pitcher, is on the mound today. You bums haven’t got a chance, but at least look like ball players while striking out.” Eddie and I became very quiet in the back seat and when it started to rain, first a shower and then a downpour, I began to wish for this game to get cancelled, too.
The Nichols town field was really nice, with a small grandstand, dugouts, and a green painted wood fence all the way around the outfield. As we arrived, another game was going on, it clearly having been delayed by the rain. “Curses,” muttered Pillard, “We’ll never get our game in by dark.” Sure enough, we did not get started until a little past 6PM but the showers had departed and it had become a bright sunny evening.
I’ll spare you many of the game’s details. Just know that we played great ball – way over our heads given Vestal’s clearly superior talent. I played left field and made a fine running catch in foul territory early in the game. Eddie knocked down a vicious grounder with his chest, picked up the ball and stepped on third base for a force out, ending a major Vestal threat in the seventh. Naturally, Doc Watson, Vestal’s terrific pitcher, struck out both Eddie and me a couple times. But, in the eighth inning, with two outs, I fouled off a 3 ball 2 strike pitch, just barely ticking the ball, for my first and only contact off Watson. Next pitch, though, I took for ball four and gleefully trotted down to first base. Then I stole second base and on the first pitch after my theft, Eddie broke his bat but looped a soft fly ball just barely over the second baseman’s head into right field. I scored standing up, and, with this run, we took the lead 3-2.
Just about the time I touched home plate with the go-ahead run, I began to notice it getting dark. We got Vestal out in the bottom on the eighth and we, too, went down pretty fast in the top of the ninth. But, another twenty minutes had passed since twilight had started turning into night. So, when Vestal came to its last at-bat in the bottom of the ninth, I could barely make out the pitcher’s warm up tosses to the catcher. Mr. Pillard himself was on the mound. My heart was in my throat. Three outs and we beat the best team in the league. Darkness was upon us.
As I stood my solitary ground in left field, I remember thinking “Don’t let Zimmer get to the plate.” He was fifth up. If we could get three outs before two guys got on base, the game was ours. Zimmer, you see, was the most feared hitter in the league. He’s the one who hit both the long foul I caught and the hard bullet off Eddie’s chest. Vestal’s two runs came home off Zimmer’s thundering double to the left-center field gap in his other at-bat. “Please, no Zimmer.” I forget the actual order of events, but we got two outs and Vestal had a runner on first. Then, the fourth batter of the inning, with Zimmer on deck, took a full count pitch, which Pillard has griped about for years. “Right down the pipe,” according to him, but “ball four” in the umpire’s eyes. In near total darkness, up stepped Zimmer. I nearly croaked.
This next part takes a while to explain, so bear with me. Vestal had the tying run on second, the winning run on first and “Zimboat,” as the Nichols guys called him, at the dish. I’ll say it happened on the second pitch. THWACK! Zimmer belted Pillard’s delivery. In an instant I knew three things: One: the ball was high in the air. I saw it rise above the backstop into the night sky. Two: The ball was coming right in my direction. Three: It was over my head. Now, even before the pitch, I had backed up several steps not only out of respect for Zimmer’s power, but I did not want any ball hit over my head, which surely would have allowed the winning run to score from first. So, I was within a few steps of the left field fence to begin with.
Let me tell you about that fence. It had been built with plywood strips about 2 ½ feet wide, nailed horizontally to posts every ten feet or so. Earlier in the game, I had noticed a lower section of the fence in left field was warped somewhat and stuck out a bit from the plywood board above it. Someone had jammed a paper cup in the crease between the sections. Now, with Zimmer’s ball soaring high in the air and over my head, I raced back to the fence at the precise location of the warped crease. Guys, this only took an instant: I got to the fence, observed the cup jutting out just a smidge, got a bead on Zimmer’s blast starting to descend, but knew it was still over my head. So, I placed my left foot in that crease, sprung my right foot to the top of the fence, looked for a fraction once more at the ball, extended my left arm fully, then leaped straight up into the night. At this moment, fellows, I not only could see the ball, but I could feel its electric presence. I could hear it swishing. I could even smell the rawhide cover. To review real time: Zimmer cracked the ball. I raced to the fence, stepped first onto the crease, then to the top of the fence, turned and jumped. I saw the baseball. I felt the baseball. I heard the baseball. I smelled the baseball…………… I DID NOT CATCH THE BASEBALL. I did not catch the baseball. It went past my glove by inches. Home run for Zimmer. Vestal should have won the game. They did not. Nichols won. Here’s what happened.
As I reached the high point of my jump, I saw, I felt, I heard, I smelled the ball fly above my outstretched arm. But, just before the ball passed over me, I heard a light thud and something soft landed in my glove. In an instant, my body turned toward the field once again and I faced the long fall to earth ten feet below. “Roll over your shoulder,” I had time to say to myself on the descent. I hit the ground with both feet, and, tumbling forward, allowed my left back shoulder to make contact with the grass and my left arm fly up into the air. It was now that I noticed a brownish mass of something lodged in the pocket of my glove. It was a bird, a brown sparrow, lying nearly face down. And, here’s where I got lucky. As I spun back up onto my feet, I observed a small sliver of the bird’s underbelly: white as snow. In the fraction of a second it took me to regain my balance, I reached into the glove with my right hand and gave the bird a twist to expose his entire white tummy. Then, I was on my feet, left arm extended, white stomach of the bird fully showing. There came the infield umpire racing from second base toward me. Up went his right hand. “BATTER IS OUT!” he bellowed.
But, I had a bird in my mitt, not a baseball and the umpire was near. I made the instant decision to get out of there. The ump had stopped in medium left field, but Eddie and the shortstop were racing out to meet me in the area just in front of where the umpire was standing. “Kick off return,” I muttered audibly to myself as I began running diagonally to my left, away from all these guys. But, now the centerfielder appeared to my left. As he reached out to embrace me, I dodged him neatly, moving laterally right. The second baseman came next and his approach was dangerous in relation to the ump’s position. To make matters worse, this teammate was aware of my avoidance scheme. He attempted to tackle me at the waist. He got a hand on me with solid contact, but I twisted and pivoted, and his arm bounced meekly off my body without his gaining a grip. At this point, finding myself in medium right-center field, I had just the right fielder and first baseman left to allude. I could see their angle of approach had me pinched. So, I summoned one last blast of speed and bolted straight ahead toward the right field foul line. Both players converged on me together. One of them tripped me at the ankles as the other connected solidly at my upper back. I went flying through the air once again, this time horizontally. Mid-trip, I spied the right field foul line coming toward me. I became aware that the bird had shifted from the pocket to the webbing of my glove. So, I extended both hands as far forward as I could and hit the ground forearms first, then chest, but with the web end of the glove clearly across the chalked foul line. As I skidded to a halt, I cried out loudly, “TOUCHDOWN, WE WIN!”
Within seconds, of course, the whole Nichols team had jumped on top of me. I was nearly smothered by the ensuing flesh pile celebration that seemed to last forever. My face got ground into the grass. Finally, the madness tamed down enough for me to get up to my knees. I swear this is true but as I refocused my eyes in the now pitch darkness, there was Mr. Pillard with the ball bag zipped open: “Give me the ball, Wipfler.” “I don’t have the ball,” I said quietly. “Where is it?” he demanded. “It’s over the left field fence,” I enunciated slowly but much louder. “Well, what’s that in your glove?” “A bird,” I mumbled. Then, “IT’S A WHITE BIRD,” I yelled, opening my glove for all to see. No body uttered a word. All were shocked into silence as they stared into the webbing of my mitt. “Give me the bird,” Pillard responded finally. He took the dead creature out of my glove, and delicately placed the unlucky sparrow into the ball bag. He slowly zipped it shut.
“Ssh, ssh, ssh,” muttered several of our guys as the Vestal team and umpires walked toward their cars. “Make like we are having a meeting,” whispered another as we kneeled quietly to watch a slow but steady procession of automobile lights make their way up a small hill, around a bend, and soon disappear from sight. We were alone, our secret now safe.
“Winston, Meacham, get your vehicles. Drive out beyond the left field fence and light up the grass so we all can see,” barked Pillard. “The rest of you knuckleheads, get out there and find that baseball.” So we all meandered across the ball field, out past the third base dugout, and around behind the left field fence in search of Zimmer’s home run ball. One fellow found a ball so old it was practically black, but Pillard just the same, unzipped the ball bag and slipped this useless orb in next to the bird.
Finally the game ball was located in the high grass. Pillard, however, still refused to crack a smile. “Now drive your cars through the gate and up to home plate,” he grumbled to the two drivers, “and you other chumps get over there, too, pronto.” Once assembled, we stood quietly while Pillard, having grabbed a shovel from the maintenance shed, very slowly, carefully, and without disturbing and dirt whatever, removed home plate and its anchoring pins. With the shovel, he dug a small hole right in the middle of where home plate had been. Then, unzipping the baseball bag one last time, he picked up the bird with both hands, gently sliding it into the hole. “Let’s have a moment of silence in memory of the bird,” he said. We took off our caps, placed them over our hearts and stood silently in a circle around home plate for a good thirty seconds. Then, just as methodically as before, Pillard shoveled the dirt back into place atop the memorialized sparrow, smoothing the ground to its exact original state. Then he repinned the home plate anchors in their same holes. “OK,” he said, you can go home now.” With almost no more talking, players got into their cars and left.
On our ride home, Mr. Pillard did not say anything more about the incident to either Eddie or me but I believe he chuckled to himself several times. Some ways down the road, we stopped at an ice cream stand where he bought three of the biggest ice cream banana splits I have ever seen in my life. I hollered to Eddie to pass me a plastic spoon. When he tossed it to me, I dropped it. “Darn you, Wipfler,” snarled old man Pillard, “you can’t catch a thing!” Eddie and I looked at each other in amazement, then shot a glance at Mr. Pillard. A small trace of a smile appeared on his lower lip. Eddie and I started giggling. Mr. Pillard smiled openly. Then all three of us laughed until we cried.