'Root, root, root for the home team'

I grew up around baseball, and I am excited about Winston-Salem's new stadium. By golly, it looks like a stadium ought to look, and it's going to be a Winston-Salem landmark. When the gates swing open, and the sooner the better, I am going to be there cheering for the "Dash."

After the death of my father when I was 7, I went to live with my Aunt Stella and her husband Earl Smith. Uncle Earl was the baseball coach at Campbell College. After spring arrived, I came home from school, changed into play clothes, and headed straight for the ballpark.

I was the bat boy -- a position coveted by my new friends in Buies Creek. The players were my heroes -- 10 feet tall. In turn, they befriended the slight, barefooted urchin who handed them their favorite bats, chased down foul balls and was audacious enough to drink from their water bucket. For some reason, my uncle is still amused by that.

Buies Creek also had its own baseball team, as many small towns did after World War II. These boys home from the war nicknamed me "Peanut." Some of them were battle scarred -- honest-to-God heroes -- and no one minded if they limped around the bases. Sadly, the last of the old guys who called me "Peanut" are now gone.

My Uncle Earl, now over 90 and a member of North Carolina's Sports Hall of Fame, took me on weekend road trips with the Campbell team. Campbell was a junior college then and played schools such as Pembroke, Belmont Abby, PJC in Laurinburg and Atlantic Christian in Wilson. There was an additional perk. My brother Don and I got the pick of the broken bats -- Louisville Sluggers made from ash, not aluminum like the ones used now that make that metallic noise that offends my ear.

There is a science to repairing a broken bat so it doesn't sting your hand and jar your arm. We perfected it. Tiny finishing nails placed strategically -- plus a wrap of black electrical tape -- gave a cast-off "Joe DiMaggio" a second life on the sand lot.

Baseball gloves were a prized gift from Santa. There was an art to breaking them in and oiling them to make them pliable. We even had a catcher's mitt -- a prized possession -- but you caught for my brother Don at your own risk. He threw sidearm, and hard. And he was wild. I cringe when I see the occasional sidearm pitcher on TV. It is a frightful sight to see a baseball coming at you from such an angle at high speed.

In my opinion, catchers are not fully appreciated. Many guys are "bat blind" -- they shut their eyes when the batter swings. Joe Gregory was fearless and would claim that position when we played by declaring, "I'll be the ‘back stropper.' " No one ever contested him or told him that the colloquialism was actually "back stopper."

We also had "Negro League" baseball. The Cedar Grove community team rented the college field by the hour for Saturday night games, which were spirited and high-scoring. It was expensive to burn the banks of high-watt lights, and someone stood by to throw the switch at exactly midnight. He showed no mercy -- you couldn't be playing ball on Sunday -- and was roundly booed. The team ahead at the time won, and fans exited by the light of the moon, grumbling all the while.

Collecting baseball cards was important, but we had our own personal connection to the majors. Woodrow Upchurch, our next-door neighbor, had pitched for the Phillies before being injured and returning home to farm. Legendary Phillies manager Connie Mack supposedly said Woodrow had a million-dollar arm and a ten-cent brain. Woodrow helped kids with pitching technique and umpired ball games. And when the Phillies played an exhibition game in Raleigh, we all piled in Woodrow's old Chevy and he took us to meet the aged Mr. Mack.

We created our own baseball board games, and each year our teams battled it out. We flipped the "spinner" until our fingers were raw. On the weekends, we bought The Sporting News at Cad Upchurch's soda shop in Dunn. Once it was read and digested, we ravaged it, cutting out pictures for our voluminous, string-bound scrapbooks. I became a Yankees fan for life.

Sometime after college, my interest in baseball waned. I guess, as they say, I had other fish to fry, and the spark has never rekindled. But when I saw the stadium coming out of the ground beside Business 40, my pulse quickened and the memories flooded my mind. As I said, I like the look of the place.

I have bought two tickets on the first-base line and can't wait to hear, "Play ball!" the first time. Treat me nice, and I'll take you out to the ball game.

■ Carroll Leggett is a public-relations professional. He does not represent any interest in the new Winston-Salem stadium or the team. The Journal welcomes original submissions for North Carolina Voices on local, regional and statewide topics. Our e-mail address is: Letters@wsjournal.com. You may also mail a typed essay to: Letters to the Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. Include your name, address and telephone number.