Published: May 16, 2008 12:40 am            

ADAMCZYK: Where everyone gets to play

When I was a kid, much of my time not spent being chased by dinosaurs was taken up with frolicking in Buffalo’s Delaware Park, a 350 acre haven of recreation and inspiration that included four baseball diamonds, three in plain sight on the Ring Road near the zoo, and Number Four, referred to as “Hidden Diamond”. It was tucked away on a tree-surrounded breadth near Rumsey Road, far away from any other park expanse dedicated to organized sports. To get there --- well, you had to know where it was. There was no signage, no nearby parking, and only the baseball crowd knew its existence.

It was later converted to a soccer field, and the last time I was there, was dedicated to free-range dogs and their owners. Off-the-leash urban dogs, getting a workout in the park.

I thought of it again when I discovered a hidden diamond of sorts, in Kenmore.

In the center of the village, Kenmore Middle School faces west and Lindbergh Elementary faces east, and between them is a one mile-plus expanse called Crosby Field. A city block wide, it is verdant, green and untaxed recreational space, ostensibly for Kenmore’s school population (Kenmore West High School plays its football there), but open to all residents in the evenings. Soccer moms, weekend warriors and the class of citizen that calls itself “masters athletes” (i.e., oldtimers) can run on the 400-meter joint-friendly asphalt running track, play basketball on shortened courts, or enjoy a tennis match.

After a furious workout earlier this week (all right, I walked several laps of the track), I stumbled into an adjacent glen surrounded by trees, found a baseball diamond, and was suddenly and surprisingly young again.

In far-away centerfield, girls were engaged in a sloppy game of softball on a relatively untended diamond of their own, but here was a place for Kenmore’s small fry to play baseball. An all-dirt infield, sixty feet between bases, and genuine wooden benches, a little field of dreams of their very own.

I sat in the rickety bleachers, depleted from the aforementioned workout, with parents and big brothers and the rest of the families. Some were scattered around the field, parked in those ubiquitous fold-up chairs of canvas and aluminum tubing, and some were on cellphones to monitor the progress of that evening’s 3-hour traffic tie-up on the I-190, but all were ardently watching the action on the field.

Actually, there was no action on the field. The 7- and 8-year olds, about 20 of them, boys and girls, were sitting cross-legged in short-left field, listening to a coach explain the game of baseball. Today, I learned, was opening day of baseball season in this particular league, and it began with a lecture. We in the crowd couldn’t hear his wisdom, but the coach’s body language gave it away --- proper stance at the plate, proper method to field a grounder, proper way to hold the bat. The rudiments of the game.

For an eager pile of Kenmore kids, this was the first experience with organized sport. It was probably the first time they’d been on a real field of athletics, and in the glimmering twilight of a spring night, they were drinking it in. This wasn’t playtime, this is sport, and they looked serious.

I have spent a lifetime pondering sport --- its sociology, its demands in a changing culture, what’s the problem with the Sabres (these issues never seem to change) --- but wandered home that evening with a another perspective on it. Kenmore is not an athletic crucible in the mold of Harlem, the Alps or southern California, but more significantly, access is available merely by stepping out the front door. There were joggers on Crosby Avenue, dogwalkers of every age on Delaware Road (granted, that’s probably “getting exercise”, not sport), bicyclists and razor scooter enthusiasts on that crosshatch of streets west of Delaware Avenue. Homebrewed games erupt in the street when traffic’s not around. The Dairy Queen on Elmwood Avenue is overrun with customers, nearly all in one uniform or another, after the game in Mang Park is over.

Many of these young athletes, incidentally, will be marching as teammates in the village’s upcoming Memorial Day parade. Just count the uniforms, of soccer, baseball, or whatever, as they walk by. Every kid in Kenmore (and plenty of grownups) seems to be on a sports team of some sort.

The activity of heated discussion about sport is sometimes referred to as the hot-stove league, and practitioners can argue points about the best sports city in America until they all fall asleep. Los Angeles, Boston, New York. Maybe the best sports town is the one in which you live, as long as you lace up your sneakers and play the game.

Ed Adamczyk is a Kenmore resident whose column appears Fridays in the Tonawanda News. Contact him at EdinKenmore@gmail.com.

        

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