Play Ball!

``I was a pitcher,’’ Tom tells the Washington & Lee oral historian about playing Varsity baseball at college. ``At that time I had the American male disease, which is the abnormal and inflamed desire to become a sports star, and if I could have become one, I don’t think I’d ever have written a word. If I could have played Major League baseball, who cares about writing?’’

Tom tells me, ``I first became interested in baseball because that was the way you won applause. Whatever school I went to, I was always good enough to make the team. I had a sidearm and an overhand screwball and curve. I used to read all the books I could get hold of, on pitchers and their favorite pitches, and I’d study the diagrams of how you held your fingers on the ball.’’

In the summers after his junior and senior years in college, Tom pitches for Westhampton of the Monarch League at home in Richmond, which plays most of its 21-game schedule on Sundays, although there are some Saturday doubleheaders. This is sandlot or amateur or even ``semipro’’ baseball. This isn’t the organized, professional minor leagues, but a step well below. The ranks of these teams are filled with college players and others hopeful that a scout will see them and sign them to a minor league contract and start them on their way in the system.

These leagues are extremely popular right after World War II as veterans flood home looking for something to do, but are already on their way to consolidating by the time Tom begins playing.

``I had tremendous stuff,’’ Tom tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch more than a decade after the fact, in a column about the native son’s rise in New York City journalism. ``I could make the ball do anything – but the trouble was, I gave the batters too long to look at it. I was not fast, you might say.’’ He continues, ``I developed this screwball that was even slower than my other pitches.’’

The local newspapers cover these leagues, and you can more or less trace Tom’s semipro career, although not every game carries a box score. I don’t mean to scant his ``semi-pro’’ baseball career, but the following is what I could locate in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about his record.

In 1950, he won 5 and lost 5, with 24 strikeouts and 26 walks. On Aug. 13, the Times-Dispatch writes, ``Tommy Wolfe went the route for the winners, allowing five hits’’ while striking out 8, in a 10-1 win over Ashland. On Aug. 21, he did even better: ``Westhampton clipped last-place Doswell, 13-0. Tom Wolfe turned in a three-hitter for the winners.’’ He also batted .172 that season.

In 1951, the year he graduates from college, he goes 4-2, with 26 strikeouts and 17 walks. On June 17, the newspaper reports, ``Hurler Walter Wolfe . . . won his own game in the ninth when he laid down a perfect bunt down the third-base line to squeeze in the winning run.’’

On June 28, the newspaper makes up for its error: ``T.K. Wolfe Jr. last night hurled six-hit ball as Westhampton defeated Rural Point 11 to 6, in a Monarch League game called at the end of seven innings because of a 10:30 p.m. curfew at Fonticello Park.’’

That must have been a pretty wild game. Tom makes two errors, walks five, and strikes out 8.

He bats .211 that year.

That’s what I could find from existing box scores. But in his correspondence at the New York Public Library, there’s a letter from a columnist at the Richmond Times-Dispatch stating that ``a historian’’ wrote in after his column on Tom appears, who says his record in 1950 is 5-5, with 30 strikeouts and 29 walks, and in 1951 is 5-3, with 40 strikeouts and 32 walks.

It is sometimes written that Tom ``earns’’ a tryout with the New York Giants. Not actually. On June 18, 19 and 20 of 1951, the New York Giants hold an open tryout at Mooers Field in Richmond, home of the minor league Class B Richmond Colts.

This is Tom’s big moment.

``All the pitchers got to throw three innings of a big, never-ending game,’’ Tom tells me. ``I was very happy because I didn’t let anyone score. But I didn’t even make it past the first cut. So I asked the scout to make sure I wasn’t on the roster: I was sure that there was some mistake. The scout said, `Yeah, I remember you – you’ve got a lot of cute pitches. When you get a fastball, come back.’ I was crestfallen. But of course, what they wanted was a pitcher who could throw fast enough to tear the catcher’s head off.’’

Thus closes Tom’s baseball career.

He remains a fan. Tom says he likes watching baseball on television, because ``you can always see the pitching better than you can at the park.’’

And then: ``When I’m sitting there watching the pitchers, and thinking about how I would pitch in the same situation – well, it’s the same with people who play tennis these days. They say it‘s all for exercise, to keep in shape, but they want the applause, they secretly desire to get better, to win the `Over 40s’ Tournament or whatever.’’

They want the applause. Italics mine.