Stay Gold.... Pony League....

In the spring of 1987 I was on the Christopher's Restaurant team in Woonsocket Pony League Baseball. I don't remember what number I was, but I do remember that the jerseys (t-shirts) were maroon with white print. It wasn't actually a silk screen print it more more like heat transfer letters, but of a higher quality then you could get done 'while you waited' at T-Shirt City in the Lincoln Mall. Probably because Christopher's Restaurant is located on North Main street across from Turfer which did embroidery, screen printing and all sorts of stuff!

I actually went to Turfer a few years later (around 1990) and had a custom made 'Howard Beach Batting Cages' hat made based on my love for the first Biohazard record and my desire to make light of a tragic event that involved a racially motivate beating and at least one death. (Yeah, I've always been an asshole, but I used to be worse... sorry!) Anyway, that's another story....

So its spring, 1987 and I'm on a baseball team. I had never played baseball before. I knew how to catch and throw and I had been to some batting cages before, but I never played on an actual team. At this point I was 13 years old which seems pretty young now, but at the time was actually pretty old to start playing an organized sport. Most of the other kids in the league had been on teams for 5+ years and knew each other as well as knowing a lot more than I did about baseball.

Being a fan of (mostly the bad guys from) Star Wars & G.I. Joe I thought that guys with masks were cool so obviously it was my dream to be a catcher (no gay jokes please) but with VERY limited baseball skills my dream was not to come true and I generally found myself in right or left field where I seldom, if ever, had to actually field the ball.

Now hitting was a slightly different story. Being 'new to the game' I showed up to games with my classic black WOOD Louisville Slugger! I didn't give it a second thought really. I mean baseball bats are wood right? Well, not in little league/pony league! Being the only player in the whole league with a wooden bat, in addition to being slightly large in stature (read as fat) and having long hair made me stand out a bit. So with the WWF being at one of its peeks, following Wrestlemania III and my appearance being as described as above I gained the unflattering nick name of "Hacksaw" (based on the wrestling character Jim 'Hacksaw' Duggan who would carry a 2x4 to the ring with him). It would be borderline chanted by the opposing teams as a taunt and I hated it, especially since I thought wooden bats were the standard and I didn't even totally get the joke until it was explained to me. This fueled me to find something in the game I was good at. Fielding was obviously out and I wasn't that much better at hitting, but I was aware of it and caught on to something that made me more valuable to the team. In my second or third game I got hit by a pitch and thought to myself.... "that didn't really hurt very bad!". From that point on I would crown the plate like no ones business and my 'on base percentage' went through the roof! I hardly ever got a hit, but I almost always ended up on base.

The Christopher's team didn't make the playoffs that year and I didn't continue playing. My baseball career started and ended in 1987. The only reminders of that time were some time spent in high school Spanish class with Joey Fugere (the first pitcher that hit me with the ball) and any time I drove by the DiPardo Funeral Home because Steven DiPardo was the catcher for the team and only player to make the pony league all-stars, and his parents owned the funeral home.

I guess I wasn't destined to be a baseball star because it was only about a year later that I discovered 'punk rock' and went to my first hardcore show at the Living Room (Murphy's Law, Low Meato & The Wurst) and the rest is history.