Inheritance
Inheritance
Lindsay Borden
Line Up
Me
My Father – In his eighties, less straight-backed, less sure-footed than he was, still dapper in his button-down shirt and tie (a knit tie, in concession to the weekend) as we sit in field level seats at the old Yankee Stadium one summer Sunday early in this century
Uncle Dave – my dad’s uncle, 1920s dandy and bon vivant
Babe Ruth – New York Yankee outfielder, 1920–1934
Lyn Lary – New York Yankee infielder 1929–1934
A Yankee Stadium usher
Play-by-Play
Top of the 1st
It had become tradition to take my dad to a game for Father’s Day, if the Yanks were at home. Although he was of the firm opinion that there had been no real baseball in New York since the disloyal Dodgers left town in 1957, he would humor me by venturing to the Bronx, tickled, perhaps, that it was a daughter not a son who would take him out to the ballgame. If we arrived in time, he’d get a promotional gift. A cheap wallet. A hat, I think, one year. But my budget didn’t run to pricey seats. The expanse between field and nosebleed was where we’d sit.
Bottom of the 2rd
Born and raised in Brooklyn, my dad had grown up spoiled for baseball choice, what with the Dodgers, the Giants and the Yankees, but Dem Bums from Brooklyn were his true loves. How could you not love a team so quintessentially Brooklyn that they were originally called the Trolley Dodgers?
Bottom of the 3rd
Our father was not one of those super athletic dads. He did enjoy tennis, but I don’t recall, growing up, him ever playing catch with me. Then again, I had a built-in team of brothers for that. I think he did teach me to ride a bike, though I’m not sure I ever saw him ride one himself.
Top of the 4th
As a young Jewish boy whose father and maternal grandparents were Eastern European emigres, his job hadn’t been to excel in sports, but to get an education and make his people proud. His family was successful enough in business, but it was to be college for him and for his older sister. Still, he did love the Dodgers.
Top of the 5th
In 1936, my father’s family would change their surname from one that was clearly Jewish to one that had a WASPy ring. Soon after, sixteen-year-old Arthur would accompany his sister and mother to Germany to persuade relatives there to leave. The Olympic Games were held in Berlin that year, but my dad didn’t get to go.
Bottom of the 5th
My father would go to college. And briefly to grad school, until interrupted by World War II. He served in the Signal Corps. He helped liberate a concentration camp. He would never, ever, talk about that.
Top of the 6th
He married his childhood sweetheart, took advantage of the GI Bill, and went back to grad school—law this time (not philosophy, which perhaps seemed senseless after the Shoah, or perhaps just impractical for a married man). Had a daughter! Had twin boys!
Bottom of the 6th
Widowed by the time the boys turned one.
Top of the 7th
Married again. A Southerner, this time. Had another daughter and two more boys! Made a career, raised a family, did the expected things with grace and integrity. Divorced, and committed anew to the calling of fatherhood. Married again, divorced again, dated. Retired. Dated. Delighted in his grandkids. Humored his younger daughter and trekked up to Yankee Stadium.
7th Inning Stretch
We stand up to stretch, my dad and I, and we stay up. With my father aging and the challenge of exiting the Stadium increasing, we now start our leave-taking two or three innings early. Slowly, carefully, we wend our way down, pausing now and then to watch play, so that we’re safely at ground level well before the final out.
Top of the 8th
As we linger to admire the field from so close and catch the last innings, an usher, an old guy—though not as old as my dad—comes up and instead of shooing us off, ushers us forward: “Take a seat anywhere!” It’s earlyish in the season, the score uneven, the game unmemorable, the seats already emptying out. We sit back in our excellent borrowed box seats, my law-abiding father relishing the idea that we have “snuck” into the deluxe level. As the half-inning ends, he asks, Did I ever tell you about the time I got Babe Ruth’s autograph?
Bottom of the 8th
I just stare at him. No, he did not.
Top of the 9th
It was probably 1929, Dad says. Maybe’28. Uncle Dave—you remember your Great Uncle Dave?—he was quite the man about town, you know.
I did know. Uncle Dave had, among other things, married a Ziegfeld Follies girl, a beauty till the day she died at 100-plus years. My dad, only a few years younger, had adored her all his life.
Uncle Dave was a regular at all the fancy nightclubs and speakeasies. And he got to know a fellow named Lary. Lyn Lary. Played third base, I think, for the Yankees, and was a buddy of Babe Ruth’s.
Lyn Lary, infielder, came to the Yanks in 1929. Babe Ruth gave him the nickname Broadway.
Uncle Dave took me to a Yankees game. Oh, those were good seats! After the game, we went down onto the field—onto the field!—and met Dave’s friend. Lyn Lary. And he signed a baseball for me! And then Babe Ruth came over. And he signed it too.
I ponder that for a moment. Then, “Dad!” I demand, “Where’s the ball??” But I have a feeling, deep down, that I already know.
My father laughs. That ball? It’s long gone. We hardly ever had a baseball back then, not in my neighborhood. We played with rubber balls, sometimes. Whatever we had. I brought that baseball home, and we played with it! Played with it till we knocked the cover right off. Then we wrapped it up in tape and played with it some more!
For one beautiful summer—at least until it disintegrated completely, maybe until the stock market crashed come autumn—had that autographed baseball made him—a four-eyes, an egghead—a hero?
“Dad, where’s the ball?” becomes my best story to tell while watching the game in my local bar.
Bottom of the 9th
To confirm, with regret: I am not in possession of an official Major League Baseball signed by Babe Ruth (and Lyn Lary) in 1929. My father has been dead for over a decade now, and there are no more Yankee Stadium Father’s Day trips. But I am the proud owner of a Yankees-WABC Radio giveaway nylon wallet—relic of one of those outings. Its print is somewhat faded, as is the stiff one-hundred-dollar bill that had been tucked inside, years ago now, by my shaped-by-the Depression Dad. Just in case.
And I also have this image, imprinted on my imagination, filling me with pleasure and tenderness: well before old age had slowed him in body and mind, well before heartbreak and joy had alternated to form him into the man he would become, before Bell’s palsy marred his handsome face and a World War shook to the core his earnest and hopeful soul; before, that is, life did what it does to us all and made him grow up—a little boy I never met, hair tousled, glasses askew, face alight with glee, runs down a Brooklyn street with an arm held aloft, fist clutching his prize, crying, “Fellas! Hey, fellas! I got a baseball!”
Lindsay Borden has been an actor, a chef, and a pastor. Officially retired, she lives in New York City where she preaches, volunteers, cheers on the Yankees, and writes sermons, fiction, CNF and some pretty fiery Letters to the Editor (usually unsent). She is honored that her flash fiction story “Glimmering” was selected for Early Innings, The Twin Bill’s recent anthology issue.
Sam Williams is a cartoonist, comics publisher, and baseball enthusiast based in Bournemouth, UK.
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