Once upon a time in a world where I had black hair, I tried out for the New York Yankees. That’s right. THE New York Yankees. I’d just published my second novel, The Man Who Wanted to Play Center Field for the New York Yankees. The story was a baseball Rocky where a failed, former ballplayer gets signed by the Yankees as a publicity stunt.
In the novel, the protagonist Danny Neuman attends an open tryout for 18-21-year-olds at Yankee Stadium. If it’s good enough for my 33-year-old main character, maybe it’s good enough for the 30-year-old author to do his own publicity stunt.
Now a little background. I grew up in the East Bronx, in New York City, in the shadow of the great Mickey Mantle, a boyhood idol. You’ll recognize me. I was one of those kids who never stopped hustling because I had to compensate for a decided lack of talent. I was always coming home bleeding because I shredded my skin diving headfirst into a base or skidding along our garbage strewn fields trying to catch a ball.
I had a lot of heart. Maybe not brains because who dives on broken glass pretending to be Mickey Mantle?
So I called the Yankees front office and spoke to the late Murray Cook, asking if he could waive the age limit of 21 to allow me to promote my novel. He thought it was a funny idea – he wouldn’t be the first – closing by saying, “Sure, just don’t get hurt.”
Who wouldn’t be buoyed by such faith? But I needed more. Like becoming a vague suggestion of a ballplayer. I turned to friends to see who’d practice with me, but this person was crazed at work, that person had lots of weddings coming up, another person admitted his wife didn’t like me.
Disappointed by humanity and not for the first time, I turned to G-d. I explained what I was planning and asked for a big favor.
“See, Lord, Mickey Mantle has been retired for fifteen years. C’mon, he’s not using his talent anymore. Who would it hurt, what would it matter in the scheme of the Universe if You loaned me The Mick’s skills for a few hours? I promise to give it back. I mean, you know where I live.”
I waited for the burning bush. And waited. Clearly, I was on my own. Carrying my vintage Tony Oliva bat and Brooks Robinson glove, and wearing very fashionable tapered Yankee pinstriped jersey bottoms, I showed up in my ancestral homeland at 9am. Now the superb head of publicity at my publisher Atheneum had worked the press phones with great zeal.
When I arrived at the original Yankee Stadium, that one, not the faux Yankee Stadium, but the one which Babe Ruth built, I was greeted by local press. Yeah, I felt pretty special. Until I was seized by the mild hysterical insecurity all writers feel beneath our hubris and arrogance.
I hadn’t hit a baseball in nearly twenty years. I hadn’t thrown a baseball in twenty years. Now I was going to showcase my skills in front of TV cameras?!
Sure. Anything to sell a few books. Even if it meant humiliation. I am a writer, after all.
We started the day off by stretching. Fortunately, I didn’t tear a muscle although there was a lot of “snap crackle and pop” sounds. Then we had the 60-yard dash. Since the longest I’d run lately was down steps to catch a subway, you can imagine. I was still running a few minutes after everyone else had finished. Okay, I wasn’t going first to third on a single anytime soon.
Then we were deployed to the outfield. Strange, but no one hit the ball to me and me. Maybe it was pity. Maybe they worried if I missed a high fly, the ball would crash into my skull and who needs my brains splattered in center field with cameras around. Besides, the real showtime was ahead at home plate. Me, the bat and the pitch.
Now I don’t want to make excuses. But I ‘d expected a real person to throw batting practice. Instead, we got a pitching machine which made it more difficult to pick up the ball as it left the “pitcher’s” hand”.
Let’s be kind because no one else was. I didn’t make much contact. I did manage a ground ball to the right side which, if the hit-and-run play was on, would’ve bounced quite nicely into right field. Otherwise it was swing and a swish. Someone around home plate complained about getting a draft. Everyone’s a comic when someone else has the bat.
Paul Blair, one-time outstanding center fielder who was a Yankees scout, was asked about my athletic abilities. He said, “Well Gary better stick to writing because he didn’t hit anything.” Which long-term is preferable to a book reviewer saying I should’ve stuck to baseball because my writing didn’t hit anything.
But look what I’d done. I stood at home plate at Yankee Stadium. Where the greats had swung. Course they hit the ball, but did that really matter? Because a dream is part fantasy, part wish. And for that afternoon, I was Mickey Mantle. Joe DiMaggio. Derek Jeter. Aaron Judge. I could’ve whacked the ball into the seats because, in my mind, I did.
And if you’d like to see how it all happened, please click on the YouTube link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQWqvq_cha8 (Is this Gary Morgenstein's 1983 "Field of Dreams"?).
The RV Book Fair 2024 Special.
Article published in The Relatable Voice Magazine - November 2024. Downolad the full magazine at:
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