Aug. 25, 2008

Former Dixie Youth players reminisce about good old days

BY ROY MITCHELL

CENTRE — Other than a rusted, chain-link backstop and a weather-beaten scoreboard, little remains of the old Dixie Youth baseball field in Centre. A chipped concrete slab beckons to the wind and fallen leaves that it was once the foundation of a home dugout — a pre-teen refuge for a plethora of Jimmy Carter-era little leaguers.

The outfield fence, concession stand, light poles and dugouts vanished years ago. The league ceased using the old field at the Centre Elementary School campus in the early 1980's. But what is missing on the field still remains in the memories of middle-aged men (and a few women) who, years ago, performed on this most pastoral of stages.

The Centre Dixie Youth teams of the 1970s and early 1980s consisted of players aged 8-12, divided into teams with major league names like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Tigers. Each team had a “farm” team of the same name for the younger players.

Scores of men in the county now pushing 40 and beyond can not only describe in staggering detail team records and coaches from that heralded age, but also trivial facts such as the flavors of bubble gum and snow cones available at the concession stand.

They might tell you that you could get a Cherry Sprite for a quarter, or that a mean cup ball game often broke out behind the bleachers. It was an era in a boy's life when legends weren't made based on intelligence or finances, but instead hinged on whether someone could hit a ball onto the school gym roof or stomach a pickle-juice snow cone.

Superintendent of Schools Brian Johnson, who played for the Yankees in the late 1970s, achieved a feat that made him the awe of other little leaguers.

“My claim to fame was hitting a foul ball on top of the elementary school gym,” he says.

Though the titanic foul amazed his peers, Johnson's inaccurate on-the-field pitching left a different impression. Johnson's coach once told him that he would pitch later that week on the night a radio station had planned a broadcast of the game.

“My grandparents didn't go to the games very much, so I had them listen to the radio and tape the broadcast,” Johnson says. “I walked the first six batters of the game before the coach took me out. I erased the tape when I got home.”

Centre City Councilman Tony Wilkie, who took to the diamond for the White Sox, remembers that while pitching he could hear the radio announcer's comments from the booth on top of the home dugout.

“I could hear the broadcast from up in the booth,” Wilkie remembers. “He would tell the audience that I had just thrown a curveball. I couldn't even throw a curveball!”

Wilkie and boyhood friend Brett Keasler still chuckle about a collision in the outfield.

“I was just a little bitty fellow playing centerfield,” he says. “I called for the ball, and Brett came from left field just mowed me over like a bulldozer plowing over a loose pile of dirt.”

Keasler remembers, too.

“I got a nickname from that,” he says. “Our coach said the collision was like a tank running over a jeep.”

Steve Mitchell, a Tiger through 1981, once broke an aluminum bat at the park; it was a clean break a few inches above the handle.

“The bases were loaded and I swung,” Mitchell recollects. “Half the bat went right over the pitcher's head.”

Unfortunately for the Tigers, Steve remembers that the ball didn't travel much farther.

Mark Gossett, a former member of the Red Sox, was a bat-boy for the team even before he was old enough to play. He remembers his team's unique uniforms.

“All those years, the pants for other teams were white with just a regular-colored shirt, but our pants were solid red.”

Gossett also recalls the precariously close proximity of the concession stand to the centerfield fence. His twin brother, too, recollects vivid details about that old stand, mere feet from the field of play.

“I can tell you everything they had there,” Mike Gossett says. “The Cokes were a quarter. They used to mix ketchup and mustard and put it on the hot dogs. You didn't get to choose condiments. You got it as it came.”

One of Mike Gossett's favorite Dixie Youth snacks was the snow cone. He fondly recalls both the “suicide” snow cone – a combination of all available flavors – and another flavored with pickle-juice.

Cup ball, a baseball-inspired game with a ball formed from crumpled paper cups, was almost as popular as the real contests.

“What I remember most about the Dixie Youth field were the cup ball games that went on behind those old wooden bleachers,” Mike Gossett says. “All the bases were the trees.”

Former Cedar Bluff football coach Steve Smith, who donned Indians orange through 1982, recalls an injury factor in the cup ball games amongst the trees.

“I remember kids biting their tongue or running into the trees,” he says. “A lot more injuries happened on the cup ball field than the baseball field.”

Smith also remembers the dismal play of his Indians.

“When I first started, we were pathetic,” he says. “Other teams went to get ice cream after a win. We got ice cream if we lost without the game being stopped by the 10-run rule.”

Despite the Indians' poor record early in his Dixie Youth career, the Indians won the championship in Steve's final Dixie Youth season.

“We learned the lesson of perseverance and not giving up.”

Unwitting Centre drivers may sometimes become frustrated at middle-aged men who slow down ahead of them on Highway 9 between the National Guard armory and Highway 411. But please be patient. Chances are, those poking motorists are thinking about the teammates, cup ball contests, and suicide snow cones they recall so fondly from decades gone by as they drive by that old ball field.