It was more than just a game

Cold weather will make the mind think warm thoughts.

When the temperature outside dropped to a wind chill of minus 20 degrees, I remembered a softball game I played 47 years ago.

It wasn't just a game, you see. My high school friends and I set out to break the record for the longest softball game ever played that lasted 40 consecutive hours.

To put this challenge into details, we began play at 8 o'clock on a Friday night and we had to play until one minute past noon on Sunday to set a record. We organized two teams of 10 players each. All 20 players had to play the entire game with no substitutions allowed.

On a warm and muggy July evening in 1969, our marathon softball game was about to begin.

A half-hour before we were to start, one player was absent. In a desperate attempt to avoid having to cancel the game, I flagged down a little kid riding his bike past the field.

"Hey, you wanna play in our softball game?"

"Sure," he said.

He was all of about 10 years old and I never asked his name. At 2 o'clock in the morning, two police cars pulled up to our field looking for a missing child. After his parents were called and told of the circumstance, they rushed to watch the game and cheer us on.

Ah, the good old days!

Food would become our enemy. Poppy's Pizzeria delivered eight free pizzas. With cupcakes and sodas donated by a neighborhood deli, we ate and ate and ate.

Conserving energy was not a pregame strategy. We hit the ball. We ran the bases. We chased down deep fly balls. Each team scored about 20 runs before darkness set in.

Speaking of the dark, our field had no lights. Parents drove their cars onto the outfield grass and turned on their headlights. Beams of light pierced our eyeballs as we swung our bats. The battery of a Camaro Z28 died, leaving a huge black hole in left center field.

Spectators arrived in cars, on bikes, on sneakers and even one on a horse. Rock music blasted from car radios. Dogs ran across the infield. The circus atmosphere made us all delirious with excitement.

Then her eyes caught mine as I stepped up to the plate near the stroke of midnight. She had long, blond hair and short brown shorts. I was in love with this girl though we would only stare at each other for two hours and never share a spoken word.

The crowd began to leave about 2 a.m. Exhaustion set in. Billy, our right fielder, took naps lying inside the foul line when the other team batted. We followed the rules. He was still "in the game."

After wolfing down a half of a pizza, three Tastykakes and two bottles of Pepsi, my friend Jeff barfed all over third base. We dragged him on and off the field to keep him in the game.

Then the Saturday morning sun blistered the already parched field. Everyone moved in slow motion. A man who lived nearby brought us bottles filled with his well water.

At 11 a.m., with the July temperature already reaching 90 degrees, someone hit a foul into the woods. While we looked for the ball, our pitcher walked off the mound.

"I quit," he said. "I'm going home."

Just like that. Game over. Our attempt to set the record fell 25 hours and one minute short.

As we left the field, a car pulled up next to me. The words, "Cooperstown Hall of Fame" were printed on the door. If we had broken the record, we would have been put into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in a special section for great softball achievements.

I walked home too tired to cry.

I still have the T-shirt I wore that day. It's pinned to a wall in my basement. It's yellowed with age, but the black magic marker letters and numbers that say, "Pride 69" still look strong.

For weeks, people would tell us our attempt to set the record was a waste of time. Classmates called us losers.

Courage is accepting challenge. Failure builds character.

We didn't lose that day.

We learned.

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com