Baseball is a part of my mind. It is as if my father held me down when I was seven years old, drilled a hole in my head, and shouted the names "Ted Williams, Dizzy Dean, Lou Gehrig, the Brooklyn Dodgers, Wally Pipp!" into the hole. Then it is as if he took some putty and sealed up my head again so that the baseball names couldn't get out.

Now I can recite them all:

• Ted Williams, the Splendid Spitter, of the Boston Red Sox (in '40 I saw Mr. Williams in the airport; I was disillusioned when I looked on his feet and saw Black socks!).
• Dizzy Dean, who I think had problems with vomiting and a brother named Paul.
• Lou Gehrig, "The Iron Jackass," whose bat was as feared as vampires. Back then there was a lot of vampire paranoia because of Senator Joe McCarthy.
• The Brooklyn Dodgers, who we lovingly called "Some Bums." To this day, every time I see a bum I say, "you guys sure were great in '54" or "what was Jackie Robinson like?" I think they didn't get paid much, because now their clothes aren't very nice. They smell worse, too, and time has worn their minds; none of the bums remember playing for the Dodgers. Too bad, for now the Dodgers play in Los Angeles, which is in the Californias somewhere, and the tradition of the Brooklyn Dodgers is in the hands of those who can't get it right, like sports historians and journalists. I remember the year Jackie Robinson first played for the Dodgers. I don't remember why, but all of the fans would yell at him and shake their fists to and fro when he went to the plate. Then he would hit the thing and it would go through them! Whoo! Then he ran and the next batter came up, and by then the fans were calmed down. I remember now that they hated him because he was Canadian; I still get hungry for peanuts when I think of Canada. I can still remember Jackie Robinson, his face some shade of a color and his uniform on as he ran around, from base to base. Faster and faster he ran until he had to sit down on a bench, then he would thrill the crowd by putting a glove on his hand and catching things!
• Wally Pipp I can't remember.

My mind is full of vivid memories of baseball from when I was young. Though I'm really, really old now and everyone I know is dead, I can still remember yelling at them to get the hell out of the way because I'm trying to watch the baseball. I guess I owe it all to my father and his drill.