There was a sprawling tree of essential importance in the yard of my childhood. It stood in the crook of the northeast elbow of our yard. The grasses of the back and side yards blended there.
It was a climbing tree.
It also was a spectator tree at times, standing almost enough to the side that when we played football in the backyard we wouldn’t fear running into it. Though, its branches did become an extra defender, with long and varied reaches across the flight path of spirals cast on that end of the field.
It also meritoriously served as second base when we played wiffle ball in the side yard. Again its branches played defense, factoring into the fielding of fly balls. The fullness of its summer reaches blocked center field, a good portion of the airspace in right-center and extended well toward left.
Our rule was that if you could catch the flyball coming down through the tree, it was an out. The trick was reading the fall and anticipating its bounces from branch to branch on its way down. Like a Plinko game being hosted by Bob Barker calling play-by-play on his wand microphone, the tension building as the wiffle ball took each bounce and change of direction.
If the ball made it safely to the grass, it was a hit. If the ball got snagged by the crotch angles or forks of the tree, it was a do-over. In which case, the tree had to be climbed for the retrieval of the ball.
If a flyball cleared the top of the tree, especially to dead center, it was nearly certain to land in the neighbors’ yard, a colossal feat worthy of a homerun.
The field, as viewed from the batter’s position at home plate, was played uphill. To connect with a pitch and get such dead-center homerun loft required a precise and mighty upward swing. The arc of wiffle white on such a fly was exhilarating. Not unlike facing The Green Monster of the famed Fenway Park in Boston, it called for nuanced dynamics of longitudinal and altitudinal travel.
All base hits required an uphill sprint to first base, the white downspout affixed at the northeast corner of our sky-blue house. Then to second base. And on to third, another tree that blocked fly balls to left field and knocked down foul balls near the line.
The bid for home plate, which was a worn dirt patch sheltered beneath the branches of a third tree, offered a short downhill line in the baserunner’s favor.
It was an asymmetrical diamond that suggested the shapely ambitions of a parallelogram that fell short. The basepaths to first and third were the longest. The stretches between second and home asked the least of a runner and the most of a fielder.
There were three ways to get a batter/runner out: 1) strikeout 2) catch a flyball 3) field the wiffle ball and throw it at the runner. If you hit the moving target before he made it safely to base? Out!
The risk of violence was essential. We had too few players to assign fielding positions, such as first baseman. At times, games consisted only of a pitcher and batter.
As we aged, so did the trees. There came a day when third base was deemed in need of removal, limb by limb and eventually the trunk. A marginal stump would be all that remained.
It changed the aesthetics of our wiffle ball field. And the dynamics of play. Though, soon enough we outgrew the field all together.
And the trees.
The Trees is #Thirteen in the weekly memoir series, Among Other Things. What’s it about? Read Introducing ‘Among Other Things,’ A Weekly Memoir Series.
