Gene Moore

He was a baseball prodigy. At the age of fifteen, Gene Moore was a boy, playing like a man, in a game where men, play like boys.

Headed for baseball stardom with the Brooklyn Dodgers, his destiny was interrupted by
Pearl Harbor.
His life... and
maybe our
national
pastime...
would be
forever altered.

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Thank you to all who participated in our Father’s Day baseball essay contest. We truly enjoyed reading your stories and learning how baseball has impacted your lives.

Congratulations to our winners:

Winner: Wesley Harris

Runner-up: Mike Peters

Wesley Harris will receive a signed first edition copy of “Playing with the Enemy: A Baseball Prodigy, a World at War, and a Field of Broken Dreams” when it debuts this September. Runner-up Mike Peters will receive an 18-inch “Playing with the Enemy” collector’s baseball bat. The winning entries are reprinted below.

Stay tuned for more Playing with the Enemy contests and updates in the months to come. Remember, if you sign up for the Playing with the Enemy newsletter, you are automatically entered in a drawing to win a first edition signed copy in September!

Backyard Ball by Wesley Harris:

I never played Little League. Shy and small for my age, I had no inclination to play organized sports as a kid. Backyard ball was a different matter. There was nothing like playing ball with Dad.

Dad ran a route on a soft drink truck, refilling machines. I thought it was the most marvelous job in the world. A beautiful yellow truck loaded with Coca-Cola. I had no idea of the physical demands of lifting crates of Coke and Fanta all day. Dad wasn’t overflowing with energy when he got home but he still got out in the backyard after dinner.

I had an old raggedly glove. One ball. Dad got broken bats from the coaches when he refilled the Coke machine at the college baseball field. We mended the bats with tape and nails. My hands stung every time I made contact with the ball and splinters were evidence of a big hit.

The pecan tree was first base; the magnolia Dad had planted was second. Third was anywhere near the kitchen window. I rarely stopped on a base—I was the next batter up—and Dad often ran me down and tagged me out.

Occasionally Dad and I would go out to Fraser Field by the fairgrounds to see the Ruston Volunteers play other teams from the north Louisiana league.

A Fraser Field trip was an adventure. The aroma of roasted peanuts sold by the tiny one-legged black woman. The pow of a foul ball pounding the tin roof of the stands. The dust floating in from the dark parking lot. It was fascinating and a little scary. Dad’s presence was comforting. Sitting beside Dad was as good as playing in the backyard.

Admission and peanuts cost less than three dollars. It was an extravagant expenditure. Dad bought groceries and gas on credit at Goolsby’s Store and settled up on payday. There was little money for leisure activities. We went to high school football games after the third quarter when the ticket booth closed. Rarely could we afford the sodas he hauled around town every day. I think Dad saw a trip to the ballpark as an essential expense. Fraser Field was an education that fathers owed their sons.

Even into my teens, I could coax Dad into the backyard. He would pitch, but years on the Coke truck and later on a walking mail carrier route had worn him down. If I ran after my own hits, Dad would stay in the game just a little longer.

My own son has outgrown his Little League days. He received an education as well, both in the backyard and at the ballpark. While Dad and I could only read about the Braves, my son and I attended many Atlanta games during his youth. Now my daughter is into softball. She dreams of pitching for the same college that furnished me with broken bats. Both kids have learned one thing: Dad always has time to go out in the backyard.

Baseball Memories by Mike Peters:

Most of the memories, the fondest recollections of my ten short years with Dad, revolve around the great game of baseball. Dad was quite passionate about the sport. It was a love affair that was nurtured in Korea. When Dad wasn’t playing soldier, baseball occupied most of his spare time. He listened to all the games he could, absorbed all the box scores & debated the merits of DiMaggio & Williams. Ted was the “pure hitter,” but he sure did fancy the “peek-a-boo” batting stance of “Stan the Man.” Baseball was the buffer zone his sanity craved. Dad came home in 1953, realizing he would never be the same because of war. He needed some stability, wanted to know that things hadn’t changed too much since he left. And again baseball obliged. In the Fall of that year, the Yankees won their 5th straight World Series.

I remember playing in the front yard of our Abilene, Texas home. Dad had just bought me a new first baseman’s mitt, a 32 Louisville Slugger with Henry Aaron’s facsimile autograph stamped on the barrel and a baseball. We were trying them out, “breaking them in” as Dad called it. However, since we were playing close to the house, Dad opted for a tennis ball instead of the shiny new baseball. “We could break a window,” was his explanation. A few minutes later, he pitched me one inside and I turned on it just as Mom stuck her head out the front door to yell, “Lunch is ready!” The ball caught her square in the right eye. She was crying. I was scared and trembling. Dad settled us down and Mom had a shiner to explain to the neighbors. She laughs about it now. I’m just glad that Dad replaced the baseball with the softer tennis ball.

Another time Dad and I were at a garage sale. I saw something I wanted on a back table over in the corner with a price tag of 50 cents on it. It was a cigar box filled with some 500 baseball cards from the years 1957-1964. Fifty cents was my entire weekly allowance. This was toward the end of the week and I was broke. So I had to ask Dad for a loan. He asked why I wanted the money and I told him. His reply was, “50 cents for some cardboard!” He shook his head, questioning my investment, but gave me the money anyhow. I thought half-a-dollar was more than fair considering the lot included Mantle, Mays & Musial.

I remember watching baseball on Saturday afternoons. “Pee Wee” Reese and “Dizzy” Dean were the announcers. The first World Series I recall watching was the 1965 version won by the Dodgers of Los Angeles over the Twins of Minnesota. Koufax, the “most dominant pitcher” my father ever saw, was just too much for the likes of Oliva & Killebrew. Dad sat beside me on the couch & occasionally kibitzed the play-by-play.

On Sunday June 18, my daughters will probably bring me breakfast in bed as is our tradition. They’ll also bring me the newspaper to read. I’ll smile at their homemade cards and bask in all that is Father’s Day.

Maybe, I’ll start a new tradition. Maybe I’ll substitute the sports section for some pieces of cardboard. The cigar box is gone now, replaced by a notebook and some clear protective pages. Maybe I’ll show the baseball cards to his grandchildren and tell them the stories.

Maybe they’ll ask me, as they often do, to play catch in our front yard. It will be reminiscent of a time when a young boy lived for baseball, when he collected cardboard portraits of the players and when he played with his hero in the front yard.

And this time, I’ll make sure that Mom ducks!

Thank you to all who participated!

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