by Barry Hastings
I was born in ‘38 wi
th rickets, wore braces to my knees, all night, as a small child. My vision wasn’t good — astigmatism.
I read, all the time, soon adjusted to the hindrance. In 1950, we moved to a fair-sized lake, sparsely populated area (then), can’t find an open lot on it now. There were, at best, two dozen homes. It took the whole week to put together a Saturday work-up softball game. In the winter, my friend Jim Bowes moved here from Redford Village. We played ping-pong, rightly called table tennis today. Both of us developed a very good game over four -plus years.
I lost the braces completely (I credit lots of swimming) about half-way through my sophomore year.
Later in life, at maybe 24, 25, and a few years after release from the fightin’ CG, my lady friend and I went to Detroit for a weekend. We were visiting her former high school friend, from Holland. Her boyfriend was the Canadian National Singles Champion. Next day, he thoughtfully asked me over to their clubhouse for a few games. I’d brought my paddle. It was a pretty expensive toy for the times. One face was halfway between medium-fine, and fine sandpaper, the other was bright red rubber mat, with teeny-tiny little red rubber fingers sticking up about l/16th of an inch. Later, I liked cork faces most.
As you’ve guessed, this guy was good. But my friend, Jim, was a hell of an athlete, competitor and ping-pong player. We played nearly every day for four years. Then, in the Coast Guard, as often as not, was playing on the shifting deck of a ship, with all its rocking, rolling, and pitching. I mean I could get on top of a ball with top English, drive it to within a foot-and-a-half of the striking point (if the ship rocked or rolled favorably).
But this guy was good. We played 9-10 games. I actually beat him a couple of times, he only skunked me once, and most of the games were close enough to make me “pleased as punch.” He was a good guy, bought me lunch and slightly more than a few beers.
I doubt I could survive a match, now. Great exercise. Fun. He said he’d only played a few times that winter. He worked up a sweat, at least. So did I.
At about that time (a year earlier, I guess) a group of guys, ranging from a dozen to two dozen a week, were meeting at John Ball Park, Saturday afternoons, for a few hours of football. It was always followed by a longish visit to our favorite Northwest side tavern. Into our lives one sunny Saturday, came a young fella’ (we all were) named Tom Miller. He was a quarterback, and sported big, really ugly, early 1960s knee surgery scars. And what an arm — he could throw a football, on a rope, to 60, 65 yards – even 70 yards, with good blocking. Hell of an athlete. Sometimes, he’d even run.
Pretty soon we realized we had a very good group, knew one-another well, and were a team. Tom found a sponsor, and in the fall we were playing out in Wyoming every Monday evening.
Tom was so good. He was the leader. I say this in a hedging way, but believe it to be absolute truth — I don’t believe we ever lost a game in our 7-8 game regular seasons, while I played, at least. Our problem was the Steelcase #1 team, perennial winners of the other division. I started playing in the Park in 1961. I left the team when I moved to the U. P. in Spring ’74.
Man for man I never believed Case #1 matched us. Not that they weren’t good — they were. The real reason they had such monotonous success against us (every year at league championships)- they had a secret weapon, their center. He could hike the ball, very accurately, 20 yards to the QB. He wasn’t a secret long, but we never found an answer. We were lucky if we could get to him two, three times a game. We never could beat them for the league championship, because their center neutralized our defense. Our defense always crushed in our own division, as did our offense.
Tom shot barrages of bombs to sticky-fingered receivers like (then and now) G.R. Attorney, James Booth Burr. Jim was a cut above as player. Still is as human being, and professionally. Jim was our center, and had a knack for losing defensive players as a receiver. Jim scored many a TD, leaving defenders scratching heads, and mumbling, “where the hell did he come from?” He’ll remember our O, D and ST dominance (all of us remember), modestly vouch for last sentence in the last paragraph.
I played at high school level for one season, the first for he legendary HHS coach, John ‘Jock’ Clarey. He taught me both offensive and defensive blocking. I liked both. The next year, I was in a car-wreck in mid-August – just as practice began. Never played ‘organized’ football again, ‘til our ‘scratch play’ at John Ball Park became organized in ‘65. I didn’t have a receiver’s hands. I was not big, but I loved the clash, could always ‘get under’ people
I relished Tom Miller’s nickname for me, “Alex”, after the great Detroit Lion Alex Karras, ‘cause I was an aggressive, driving blocker. As proud a title as I ever won, right up there with the fast-pitch Nom de Guerre “Hummer.” Our equipment was tooth guards and football shoes.
I drove back to Wyoming from Kalamazoo (where I was doing graduate studies at WMU) for every game in the ’72 and ’73 seasons, then migrated north and west, and lucked into fast-pitch softball at the Green Light Bar in January, ’75. My next 36 years in sports were, though unknown to me, charted. Just like the guys said, there was, “No hassle in Chassell.”
