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I’ve known Jonathan Bloom longer than I’ve known most of my closest friends. A friendly rivalry developed between our fathers who coached our little league teams. Every year Jon’s team was stacked with the same superstar eight year olds while ours was always respectable but never a title contender.

Every school district has that one eleven year old with acne, a full beard and a voice that would put James Earl Jones to shame. In our case we had Mikel Stark. Nobody would dare make fun of him for spelling it like that until high school when he was three inches shorter than everyone else rather than taller. The best thing about Mikel, in the little league sense, was that he was a package deal. His “little” brother Andrew (and also his battery mate) was always an automatic inclusion for the team that picked up Mike. The kid was a little shorter and a little wider than the older Stark but just as dangerous. The beard wasn’t there and the voice was higher, and the kid had a cannon behind the dish. He was the only catcher opposing coaches refused to run on. Everyone was convinced they were going to make it to the big leagues. Last I checked, I think both of the Starks are police officers.

Every Sunday morning the fathers who coached the teams got together for a friendly softball match in Cedarhurst Park. Prior to the game, all of us kids would be in the outfield shagging flies while the Dads took batting practice. Jon and I were as close as can be. Our Dads were two of the best players — mine having a slight edge. Some of the fondest memories from my childhood would be those brisk April mornings at the park where we all got to see the children still lurking in those old men. During the softball game itself, the kids would be over on the basketball court next to the field playing stickball.

The season itself very typical from years past. My team respectable, but despite landing the Stark brothers, Jon’s was the heavy favorite to win the town championship. Earlier in the season, he struck me out to end a classic game and for the first and only time in my life I began to cry from embarrassment. There’s no silence more deafening then when a continuous roar from your friends, teammates and family instantly gets turned off with the swing of your own baseball bat. Even as a child there’s a feeling of emptiness that’s only identifiable to those who have played the game.

After beating up on the Devils Rays and Yankees, in my final year of little league we were heading for my very first title game against none other than Jonathan Bloom’s Mets. The game was down in Atlantic Beach on fields that overlooked the ocean. Sure, each team had two or three kids who spent their time in the outfield squishing bird poop and picking daises, but the majority of us were pretty serious about the game and looked forward to playing once again in middle school. To this day, those afternoons with my friends and our fathers remain the happiness, and more importantly, the purest days of my life.

There were about 50 or 60 people in attendance for the big game – a turn out unprecedented for any game I had been a part of. With the exception of the moms and dads who’s kids were on the Mets, everyone was in support of us Indians. Generally speaking, the Mets were as hated as a bunch of kids can be. They were a reflection of their parents – a clicky group of self-absorbed assholes who thought they were better than everyone else. It didn’t matter that the children had no last name on their back, but rather an advertisement for Victor’s Auto Body Shop, and it didn’t matter that their numbers were tucked into their underwear. Make no mistake about it, these children would grow up worse than their already insufferable parents.

In hindsight the dynamic of the area I grew up in is utterly remarkable. You had the filthy rich Jewish population who attended Hebrew school and welcomed a strange mix of self-loathing and pride. Then you had the guidos, straight out of Inwood and proud of it because much of Inwood is black and financially insufficient compared to the other areas of the Five Towns. I suppose it gave them something to identify with, something I myself identified with that afternoon – being the underdog.

Then of course, were the Puerto Ricans, most of which in the Lawrence School district illegally. They lived in Far Rockaway, which is actually closer to Lawrence High than some of the area the district claims, but because it’s technically in New York City and technically poor as hell they had to technically bullshit their way into a system that offers a decent education.

Most of tri-state New York is as racially convoluted as my area, but I don’t think many towns have all of these groups of people living and functioning together with the regularity that we do. Everyone was so proud of who they were yet, for the most part, we all lived so peacefully together. Things are quite different now with the war between public culture and the Orthadox Jewish population. Back then, it was an immeasurably important learning experience – to do things side by side with people who were all so very different.

I was unique in that I belonged to nothing other than myself. I’m a mix of Irish, Italian, German, Polish, English, Native American and French-Canadian. I haven’t been to church in years. I don’t associate myself with anything other than New York itself, and in a town where almost everyone has some race or religion that they link to their character I found myself darting from theme to theme trying to find a niche to call my own. Skater jeans and pro wrestling turned to hip hop, and by hip-hop I mean Will Smith songs. Metallica was big for a while.

Things would come and go and I’d find new short-term fascinations to associate with. Still, throughout everything there was always baseball. When I close my eyes I can see each meticulously trimmed blade of grass darting up at the legendary Yankee Stadium. The idea that the likes of Ruth and DiMaggio played there is foreign since they were never a part of my life, and still there’s a sense of nostalgia that existed before my time that can’t help but swim through my every breath. Experiencing that stadium in it’s finest moments is one of the few things in this world that gives me hope for life after death. The place isn’t just alive with history, but it’s almost as if it’s alive with spirits that made it into the cathedral it is today. With spirit comes immortality, and with that, perhaps comes God.

I wanted that game badly. I wanted to beat my friend Jonathan and for once have the bragging rights he held for five years. My father, who looked at coaching more like time with his son than time in competition, had a fire about him that I had never seen before. He was normally a baby-sitter making sure nobody swung a bat and accidentally knocked out little Alan, the mildly retarded right fielder who got a roar from the crowd with every foul tip. Today he was a general, the Stark brothers were his finest soldiers, I was the child he groomed for battle. We were going to win this together in the final game of my little league career.

I can still feel Brett, our second basemen, jumping on my back when Mikel delivered the final strike-out in our 8-1 victory. The game was never even close. The Stark brothers alternated inning after dominate inning on the mound. I delivered the big blow in the bottom of the 4th with a double off the left field fence that cleared the loaded bases. I’m 100 pounds heavier and have since been through middle school and high school baseball. I can’t think of a single time I hit a ball that far since that game. Jon stood on the mound staring blankly at his father while mine delivered fist pumps which almost lifted me off second base like a rocket into the sky.