Woodsdale Field of Dreams

Each year the first week of April brings not only the promise of spring, but also opening day for major league baseball, the national past-time of our childhood.

Baseball was my favorite sport growing up in Woodsdale. My first memories of the game involved sitting on our front porch with my Great Aunt Ann listening to Bob Prince describe all the action of the Pittsburgh Pirates. I can remember watching the 3rd and 4^th graders playing baseball on the Woodsdale playground during recess and after school. When school was out for summer, the game moved to St. John’s Episcopal Church on Heiskell Avenue.

This baseball diamond was our “field of dreams”. St. John’s was a short bike ride for everybody in the neighborhood. The Dad’s of the neighborhood had marked out a baseball diamond with a pitcher’s mound. To top things off, they even built a backstop behind home plate.We cut out cardboard squares for bases, but more often than not, our T-shirts served as a handy substitute.   The entrance fee was a baseball glove and a baseball. No matter when you got to the field, there was always a game going on.

The game was called “Work-up”.  The object was to play each of the field positions to earn the right to bat. Players started out in right field and “worked” through the positions; right field to center field to left field to 3^rd base, and so on until you got to the batter’s box. You continued to bat until you struck out, flied out, or were put out at a base. When you were called out, you returned to right field, and once again had to “work” your way back to the batter’s box.  If we didn’t have enough players to fill out the positions, we simply declared that if you hit the ball into an area without a player, you were out. Although it was rare, if we had a line of kids waiting to rotate in, four foul balls qualified as an out, and you went to the end of the waiting line to await your turn to get back in the rotation. We all learned how to play baseball playing “work-up” on St. John’s field during those warm summer days in Woodsdale.

By the time we reached the age of 10, most of us had out grown St. John’s field. However, by then, we had developed the skills necessary to take the next step…..try out for the Pike Cubs.

But that’s another story.