--------THE COMPETITION--------

I basically grew up in Skokie. My very early years were on North Christiana Ave. in Chicago but we moved to skokie when I was 7. My father was born in Sweden and moved to Chicago at the age of 12. He didn't know the language but even more important he didn't know American sports. I remember the first baseball mitt that he bought for me was for the wrong hand and I had to put it on backwards. This put me at quite a disadvantage trying to play little league baseball. Back in the '50's they didn't take everyone like they do now. I didn't make the cut but my good friend, Emil Lazar, did make it. I persevered over the next couple of years and finally learned enough to make a pony league team. Emil peaked at little league and stopped. I played freshman baseball at NTHS but, and this might sound like sour grapes, the coaches had their ideas as to who was a good athlete and who wasn't. After a bad experience with frosh football and baseball I was type cast. The summer between freshman year and soph year I went to California to stay with my aunt and uncle for 2 months. When I came home my parents were surprised to see that I grew 6 inches. I played basketball and had a modicum of success but nothing great. Moving on through marriage, children, coaching T-Ball through colt baseball (7 yr olds to 17 yr olds) I decided to play senior men's baseball. I was 55 yrs old and those 90 ft. bases were a long run. I enjoyed it so much that I invited Emil to come and play. Needless to say Emil and I have had an ongoing competition going over just about everything. He was really in bad shape but we played a whole summer. Well we are in the last game of the season and I'm hitting a couple of points better average than Emil. He gets a couple of hits and I get a hit and came to bat for the final time with everything on the line. I hit one up the middle (right over 2nd base) and their shortstop races over to get the ball. I am streaking down the line trying to leg out a hit. The shortstop gets to the ball but because it was a difficult play he juggled it. When he recovered he threw to first but missed getting the blue flash. The manager on our team was sitting next to Emil on the bench and I know there was some money being transferred when he called it an error and Emil won the batting competition (TILT).