Little Girls and Baseball
BY JOANNE CELI
KONKLIFE FEATURING WRITER

It was a long time ago when I was a kid. I’m not sure if it was the times or just my family, but from where I sat, little girls didn’t get taken to ballgames. 

My brothers were a lot older than me, so they got the younger version of my father. They got the dad who took them to Ebbets Field to see the Brooklyn Dodgers. When I came along, he might have just been tired. But that didn’t stop me from becoming a baseball fan.  

My mother, a little Italian woman, was a crazed Brooklyn Dodgers fan. We watched them on our wonky black and white tv. I remember Sunday games with the smell of cooking sauce mixing with the sound of Red Barber and my mother yelling “LINE DRIVE!”  I was only four years old, but I remember the Dodgers beating the Yankees to win the 1955 World Series. 

The reason I remember that final winning game was because my mother made me say the rosary for the Dodgers to win. Oh, what excitement and happiness! Oh, what power I thought I had! 

However, I was helpless to cheer my mother up when the Dodgers moved to LA. Eventually, her misery turned to anger. She met the betrayal by turning her loyalty to the entire other league. It was then that my family became Yankees fans. 

I finally got to the ballgame when I was 27 – one of the most exciting days of my life. I’ll never forget walking through the tunnel of Yankee Stadium and seeing the field and those bigger-than-life players. It was the year Ron Guidry had 18 strikeouts in one game. And he was pitching. So many stars: Reggie, Thurman, Willie, the Goose, the list goes on and on. 

That first live game was worth the wait. I was old enough to take it all in. I’m still a big Yankees fan.  I was lucky enough to have tickets for Jeter’s 3,000th hit. He went 5 for 5 that glorious day. Although I watched from home, it was nail-biting excitement to see Judge make history by hitting homer 62. 

Here we are with the Yanks going for the ALDS win. No matter how old I get, the post season is always exciting. And a little nostalgic. 

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