Play Softball at Perkins This Summer and Embrace Your Inner Child

Luckily for me, playing sports as a kid isn’t about being good. It’s about sitting in the dugout swinging your feet through the dust, trying to eat sunflower seeds without choking on the shells. It’s about seeing how much Big League Chew you can fit in your mouth (also without choking), team pool parties in the dog days of summer, and the sense of camaraderie you instantly feel with kids you’ve never spoken to before, just because you happen to be on the same team. It’s about walking around Pioneer Park on off-days with Slush Bombs and pizza, heckling your friends on other teams. Most of all, it’s about the joy of play, without any real expectation or consequence.

As adults, we’re constantly shackled by expectation and consequence. Did I pay my excise tax? Does this guy or girl like me? Am I doing ok at work? Should I ask for a raise? Can I afford that house? Do I have enough PTO for a vacation? Am I a good parent? These heavy questions aren’t outliers — they define adult life. Even the games we play to divert ourselves have consequences: a nasty hangover after a night out, losing $200 on a stupid DraftKings bet, the emotional pain of coming in last in, well…anything.

In a world of fantasy football, sportsbooks, and $700 million contracts, sports have become a business – not just for the players but the fans. We often forget what “sport” should be: a refuge of pure play, of distraction.

Enter the Perkins Softball League.

It started at Perkins Playground over 20 years ago as a church league, mostly older guys who gathered every Sunday for a casual pick-up game. It’s since evolved to include players of all stripes – old-timers, college kids, sons, daughters, wives, children, and even a contingent from the Link House, an addiction recovery center on Washington Street.

It’s not really a league at all. Imagine your high school gym class where teams are chosen at random, and score is kept but doesn’t really matter. Teams are different each week. There are no league standings, no playoffs, and no trophies. Some might prefer the more competitive league at Cashman Park, where wins count and teams actually wear uniforms. To me, though, Perkins Softball represents something more meaningful.

The field sits at the bottom of a hill beyond a playground. From the batter’s box you can see the woods past the outfield fence, home to herons and egrets that nest in the trees. On a clear day, fielders have a view of Plum Island across the river. Insulated from all car traffic and most foot traffic, the field – like the game we play – is timeless. It’s not just a two-hour diversion on Sunday afternoons; it’s an escape from the stressors of work, politics, relationships, and personal struggles, into a world both pastoral and childlike.

Do we want to hit homers and make heroic plays in the field? Of course. But unshackled from team rankings, personal statistics, and the judgment of an audience (there are no bleachers), we do these things for their intrinsic joy.

I always remember one game a few summers ago, when a kid from the Link House — no older than 19 — stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the 9^th, with the bases loaded and two outs. A home run would win it. I didn’t know this kid’s story. I didn’t know what struggles preceded his approach to the plate, or the inner demons he fought even as he gripped the bat. And it didn’t matter. On that field, your situation in life is irrelevant. Your responsibilities melt away, your problems feel insignificant, and you forget, for a few hours, that you’re an adult. Because when we play the way we’re supposed to, there’s no such thing as too old, too slow, too weak, too troubled; we’re all just children on a field, chewing gum, trying to blow the biggest bubble.   

No, that kid didn’t homer to win the game. He hit an easy pop fly to right field, which, after a (not-uncommon) comedy of errors, resulted in four runs scoring. Like the rest of us, that kid wasn’t great at softball. He wasn’t even good. But for one humid night in July, he was a Griffey-esque hero, with a Griffey-esque smile, at the bottom of a heap of teammates.

“You can’t go home again,” the old saying goes. But we do go home when we stand in the outfield with the egrets; we go home when a fly ball bonks us on the head, and when when lose our voices cheering for a meaningless hit, in a meaningless game. We go home every summer Sunday.

You can too.

Come play with us this summer, starting Sunday, May 4^th, at Perkins Playground in Newburyport. All are welcome. Batting practice starts at 5:30pm, game at 6pm. Just show up, or contact Gregg Picillo with questions (gpicillo@comcast.net).

Eben Diskin
Editor, The Townie