It’s been more than 60 years since I began my athletic career as an 8-year-old Dunkirk Little League baseball player in 1959. There’s just not much I remember about that first year.

As best I can recall, 1959 was the last year 8-year-olds were originally permitted to try out and play for Little League.

My year-younger brother, Tom, and future Major League catcher Dave Criscione did not play in 1960, but were drafted into the Dunkirk Little League as highly regarded 9-year-olds in 1961. Tom joined the Silver Shields (sponsored by the Dunkirk Police Department) and Dave was added to the Columbus Club roster.

As far as the new Woodrow Avenue Field was concerned, I remember a constant sea of bicycles in the grass behind the home plate bleachers. Riding bikes near the field was banned. You could only walk your ride through the grounds.

Bill Hammond

There was the candy-heavy refreshment stand run by team-moms-of-the-week. It came complete with a back room filled with unused outfield advertising signs, boxes of extra uniform pants, tools, umpire gear, banners, and the lone restroom on the property.

Next to the refreshment stand was a small shed that held extra bases, larger tools and field maintenance equipment, including a line marker. And bags and bags and bags of lime.

The field stood next to the impressive and memorable Dunkirk Athletic Field complex. It included the DHS football field and field house, a cinder track, a basketball court, kickball court area, giant metal swing sets and two softball fields — one on the corner of Woodrow and Sixth Street and the other down in the creek-framed “Gully” where right field featured an impressive hill that led up to the tennis courts. In the winter, the land at the bottom of the hill easily converted into a highly popular ice skating rink.

Memories from my first LL campaign are sketchy, at best. There were three divisions of teams that year and I was on a team I believe was named Fredonia Police.

See MEMORIES, Page C2

Fredonia and its whole division of teams broke away from Dunkirk in 1960 to begin playing its games down below the Eagle Street School in the village.

I believe there were no mandatory play provisions in LL rules the year I started, so 8-year-olds were little more than batboys. And that was OK. There was no way I should have been sent to the plate to bat against a hard-throwing 12-year-old about to turn 13.

But that’s what happened to me late in the season when my elderly (probably early 40s) manager met me at the dugout entrance after I’d retrieved yet another bat.

“How’d you like to pinch-hit next inning?” he asked.

I responded, “I don’t think so.”

When he stopped laughing, he ordered, “Well, you’re gonna hit anyway, so grab a bat and find a helmet that fits.”

My first at-bat quickly arrived and I trooped my way to the plate. There I saw who I’d be facing. It was my across-the-street neighbor Chad Madden, you guessed it, a hard-throwing 12-year-old right-handed pitcher for the yellow-clad Lake Shore Delivery team.

He was the kid who once traded me a heavily wrinkled but still recognizable Mickey Mantle baseball card for a king’s ransom of cards because he knew The Mick was my idol.

I’m pretty sure it was Mick’s 1956 Tops card that unfortunately did not survive the rigors of playing card baseball on our family’s living room floor. Mick’s cards from that year are worth thousands today. Oh, well.

But let’s get back to my first official at-bat. I stepped in the batter’s box, recognized my neighbor and smiled at him.

His first pitch unintentionally hit my left shoulder and I immediately started to cry. Chad was upset, too, but the damage had been done.

I was quickly replaced without even walking to first base. I was crying that much.

Back to the dugout I went, never to play again that season. Being a batboy was a whole lot safer.

But my Little League adventures were just beginning. Wait until you learn how I spent my 9-year-old season living in Dunkirk but playing in Fredonia.

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DO YOU have a favorite memory of your time in Little League? Drop me a line at mandpp@hotmail.com and let’s reminisce.

Bill Hammond is a former EVENING OBSERVER Sports Editor.