Young and Old

Right now, I’m reading a biography of Joe Black, who pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers and in 1952 became the first African American to win a World Series game, against the Yankees, no less.  It never ceases to amaze me that ballplayers from the 1950s and ’60s, to say nothing of the ’20s and ‘30s, were just kids or very young adults playing a kids’ game.

I met Luke Appling when he was 82, Bob Feller when he was 71.  Those times I spoke with Billy Pierce, he always came off as somebody’s incredibly polite grandfather.  Yet Feller broke in with the Indians at the tender age of 17, while Pierce had a cup of coffee with the Tigers in 1945 at 18.  But they never sounded that young, any more than Joe Black does in this book.  This is all part of the wonder of baseball.

Players from a half-century ago or more carry around career stats that belie their age; they tell stories that change according to their age.  The callow youth becomes the wise commentator.  Joe DiMaggio and Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams and Hank Aaron now have an element of myth about them.  The passage of time does that to a person.  All that the pictures of DiMaggio et al do is to remind people how we, they, don’t look like that anymore.

And then you have Carlos Sanchez, a 24-year old utility infielder for the White Sox from Venezuela.  Yesterday, Sanchez hit a walk-off single against the Indians, a feat that earned him a postgame interview.  Sanchez sounded so young, so sincere, so much like somebody’s son rather than an octogenarian.   

Baseball will always be about the young and old alike, even at the same time, even with the same person.