A Ton Of Fun …

We weren’t very good.  But we had a ton of fun. You can look at the picture above and probably figure that out.

Ridgewood Oil Co. was my first baseball team. At least, it was the first team that was truly organized with uniforms and in a league.  I often tried to put together a sandlot game with neighborhood friends, but we could not always find a bat or ball or yard big enough to mark off the bases.  And, finding the bases themselves could be a challenge – we’d use a rock or hat or somebody would volunteer their shoes and play barefooted.

But we didn’t have to worry about any of that when we played for Ridgewood Oil. The field was just off Westwood Drive on the grounds of Heyward Gibbes School. The bases were real.  Home plate was real. Real umpires.  The base paths were straight and marked neatly with chalk.  On game day, we had died and gone to baseball heaven.  Didn’t matter that most likely we would lose to another team in our league.

Our uniforms were treasures although you might never know it from the picture above.  Some guys might have to borrow a teammate’s hat or glove on game day, but nobody ever misplaced their Ridgewood Oil Co. shirt – unless at the end of the season when all equipment and uniforms had to be turned in. Guys thought it was a badge of honor to be caught wearing a team shirt weeks after the season.

The land behind the photo above eventually became a street with several new homes.  A friend for many years, Fred Best, and his parents and two older sisters moved into one of those new homes and was the envy of many of us.  Fred had a pretty house, pretty yard and … pretty sisters.  The field we played on did not have an outfield fence.  That meant you could run forever if you could hit the ball between the outfielders and toward Fred’s house.

While a lot of those days and facts in the 1950’s with Ridgewood Oil are a blur, lots of  memories are distinct.  Especially memories of teammates.  While I could use some help identifying several in the picture above, I do remember most of the guys.

Back row, first on the left, is Skip Clark, probably the best player on the team.  Good glove, good arm, good hit, as coaches would say.  Next to him is Heyward Sutherland, our best pitcher whose Dad just might have owned Ridgewood Oil (a blur).  Then there is Jerry Cannon, the smallest player on the team who lived just up our street on Margrave for a while.  Next to Jerry is Donnie Jeffcoat, one of the best catchers ever – youth ball and otherwise – in the Eau Claire area.  Mostly because of the position he played, Donnie stayed dirty a lot.  Donnie’s brother Jerry is kneeling on the front row, fourth from the left.  Jerry, probably the fastest runner on the team with the strongest arm and a close friend in our teenage years, sadly passed away last year.

Standing next to Donnie is Kerry Brown, a year younger than me who lived on Myles Avenue.  His sister Donna was in my class or maybe a year behind me.  That’s me next to Kerry with the goofy look on my face – good glove, fair arm, no hit, as the coaches would say.  Alvin Loupe is last on the right.  Alvin was slightly taller than our bat boy, quick and always had tons of energy.  Seems like his mouth ran a lot, too.

That’s Larry Dodd, kneeling second from the left.  Larry and Skip were our best players, and I recall that Larry could knock the cover off the ball.  Often he would keep running after hitting the ball toward Fred’s house even though our base running coaches would holler for him to stop.  The bat boy is my brother Harry, and the coach is my Dad.  Harry didn’t really have much to do.  He was along mostly for the ice cream cone after the games.

While I cannot recall names of the other teammates, I do remember that a couple of them were real rascals who would just as soon be elsewhere on game day.  Probably lawyers or politicians or incarcerated today.

Game day for Ridgewood Oil Co. was always special.  No worries about homework or chores – things required of kids back then.  And, despite only one car per family in most cases, players generally were at the field on time.  A lot of them, like me, walked a mile or two to the field and arrived in plenty of time.  My Dad usually came straight from work to the field with the equipment bag in his trunk.  The big stress came if the equipment bag was late; everybody used one of only two or three bats in the bag.  Nobody toted their own personal bags with personal helmet, personal batting gloves, personal water bottle and a couple of personal bats.  Are you kidding?  We never knew what we didn’t have.

But we had a ton of fun.  If you doubt it, just take another look at that picture above.