Baseball a Love Story

Bill Leonard was born under the hit and run sign, a zodiac marker first identified by W.P. Kinsella, author of "Shoeless Joe." He played sandlot, recreation department, high school, American Legion, college, and town team baseball. He coached the game and he umpired. His dad was a wonderful father, but they never played catch and he knows of only a single relative, Uncle Wayne, who ever played baseball, and that was before his time. Nonetheless, baseball is in the makeup of his genes. No one had to introduce him to the game or encourage him to play. It was as predetermined as the salmon swimming from the ocean up the smallest stream. He knew instinctively the feel of the game: the solid, hollow-sounding explosion of the barrel of the bat on the baseball, the thwack of the short hop into the glove; the sounds of the game: the chatter of the sandlot players, the pop of the catcher's mitt enveloping a fast ball, the strike call of the umpire; the smells of the game: the lanolin rubbed into the pocket of the glove and the red-hot on the arm, the cloud arising from the rosin bag, the damp sweat in the leather margin of the mask; the sights of the game: the white ball landing on the green grass between two outfielders, the ballet around second base on the double play, the third base coach going through a set of signs. He played rounders and stickball and he threw a hard rubber ball against the wall of Fredrickson's Food Store until it hurt to lift his arm. He chose to catch because of some latent strain of masochism. "Love Story" is an attempt to record those sensations before they are gone.