It was the Dodgers vs the Yankees in Beckley, WV in the summer of 1954. Freddie Arnold was the 11-year-old manager, star pitcher and slugger for the Yankees, I was 10 and filled the same roles for my version of the Dodgers. A game was underway in the vacant lot beside Freddie’s house. He had Warren Furrow, a promising 9-year-old at short stop and Judy Meadows in rightfield, picking dandelion blooms. My team had Johnny Dilley, an up and coming 8-year-old at short with Judy’s older sister, Diane, roaming the outfield. Outfielders were hard to come by in our neighborhood, so we told the girls we’d play a half-dozen games of hopscotch with them if they would make an effort to shag our fly balls for 6 innings. It was more or less an even swap, though the fleet-footed girls cleaned our clocks in hopscotch. They could tip-toe through a minefield stuffed with explosives and never set off a bomb. They were even better at Jack Rocks, but that’s another story.
The game was tied going into the fifth inning at 26 all. If you hit a fly ball it was about the same as a homer, with the girls trying to track down the balls in the high grass. Our groundskeeping crew was not the best.
Johnny was dancing off 2nd base with me at the plate. Freddie threw a wicked fastball clocked at nearly 42 miles an hour and I drilled the ball down the left field line and began to round the bases as Judy blew the last petal off another dandelion.
“That was foul,” Freddie yelled.
“Foul nothing. It was on the line, assuming there would have been a line,” I countered.
A heated argument ensued. We went toe to toe, arguing our cases, occasionally pausing to kick dirt on one another’s blue jeans.
“That’s it,” Freddie said in disgust. “I’m taking my bat, calling my team off the field and going home.”
“Then I’ll take my ball and do the same,” I huffed.
The two sides were far apart, and the Jennings Street Sandlot Baseball season appeared to be over. For a while, anyway.
About two hours later, after watching Queen for a Day reruns on TV, I came outside and sat on the porch, tossing my ball in the air. Freddie also made an appearance, picking up small rocks from his driveway and swatting them out to the field with his bat. I began walking towards the field and he did the same. We met at home plate.
“Might have been foul. It’s hard to say,” I mumbled.
“Could have been fair, who knows,” Freddie added.
“After we play hop-scotch with Meadows’ girls, d’ya want start another game,” I asked. Freddie nodded, “Yes.”
That’s how you solved a baseball labor dispute in 1954. Today, they do it with lawyers, which is why they’re not playing baseball.