From the day I attended my first major league game at Wrigley Field as a seven-year-old, bringing my first mitt, of course, I’ve been in love with the game of baseball—for all the reasons you often read about (the timeless nature of the contest because there’s no clock, the awesome arc of a titanic home run, and the spider’s web of statistics that entrap so many), but a couple more reasons as well. I’m a general manager of a fantasy baseball team in a league of old friends. Baseball is the glue that helps hold us together. I’m also a collector of ballparks—that is, I try to attend a game in as many different stadiums as I can—major league and, increasingly, minor league venues, where the prices are reasonable, the ballparks more intimate, and the summer evenings just as balmy. So far, without embarking on a dedicated ballpark tour, I’ve been to 20 past or present major league stadiums and 11 minor league ballparks.

But my favorite diamond, surely, was the one on which I got to man all nine positions as a player for a day with a very special team. Bless the Internet, for it saves me from rooting around in my attic to hunt down musty old magazines that bear stories I’ve written. Just recently I came across a story in Sports Illustrated’s online archives about the day I combined business and pleasure and donned flannel pants and a white shirt bearing an Olde English M, tied a red cravat into a bow, tugged on a pillbox hat with two horizontal stripes, and took the field as an Ohio Village Muffin. The Muffins played in a league that adhered to Civil War era rules, back before base met ball in the name of our national pastime. No gloves. (still 20 years shy of the first padded glove) No stealing. (also not yet part of the game) Balls caught on the fly and on one bounce were outs. While hurling (pitching) I caught a one-hopper, and in the heat of the action unknowingly started a double play. Here’s the last paragraph of the story that Sports Illustrated ran in its June 27, 1994 issue:

As a striker I went 2 for 4; in our game-breaking bottom of the third inning I scored one of our seven aces. My ace, however, was not automatically registered when my foot hit home base. According to a wonderful bygone ritual, I was required to first visit the tallykeeper’s table, which on this day was decorated with red, white and blue bunting and situated some six feet in foul territory between home and third. With my left hand on the table and my right hand raised as if in a courtroom oath, I looked the tallykeeper in the eye and uttered the spirit lifting words: “Tally me, sir.” And then I rang the tallykeeper’s bell.


Get more on Gordon Hempton at SimonandSchuster.com