It won't be the last thing to be thrown, but it has already survived two major moves of all our stuff, including the "stuff" in the basement, a basement we no longer have. It's still with us--I should say with me, however, since my wife won't lose an ounce of concern if I'd have tossed it before our move into the country north of Alton.
It's just I'm proud of that trophy, dang it. I won't forget when the baseball coach told me that I was going to be the catcher on Dordt Colllege baseball team. I'd played for two years; that spring was the third, and I was being ejected from third base, where I'd played, successfully, I might add, for most of my baseball career. He wanted to stick me behind the plate.
Made all sorts of sense too. I was a fair-to-middlin' hitter, but beating out a bunt would have been miraculous, touched by an angel. I was--and still am--built something like a pear, all the heaviness down low, big butt. But I also had a gun for an arm--sounds like I'm bragging, but I'm not.
In other words, I was built to be a catcher, and when push comes to shove, I ended up loving it. There's so much of the game you feel like you control from behind the plate. You call pitches, you call plays, you call sweetness to whoever's chucking in the hope that the bat in the hitter's hands turns suddenly into a cucumber. As I remember, it didn't take more than an inning to convince me that this whole position re-assignment was a great switch. I loved it.
I should mention also that when he announced his plans, I rebelled--not to him, but to a kid named Herbie, who was my teammate at Oostburg High baseball team and a bunch of others as we grew up together in town. Honestly, my first reaction, unuttered, was that catcher is a position that simply belonged to Herbie (who wasn't anywhere near Sioux Center).
The end-of-the-year baseball banquet meant the coach giving out a whole raft of awards after a buffet meal at a place, long gone now, called, conveniently, The Holland House.
I was surprised when I got this thing, in part because I had missed a double-header (we likely played no more than twenty games) because I wanted to show my criticism of the Vietnam War by marching in Washington after those four college kids were shot dead at Kent State--May, 1970.
I told him I was going no matter what he said. He wasn't happy, but I went and missed a double-header. Later, he told me he told the team where I was and let them vote whether I should stay on the roster. They voted yes, and I finished the season. Nothing justified my going to march in Washington like the assent that bunch of guys to my being where I went.
So a couple of weeks later we're at that end-of-year bash, and he says there are these awards he wants to give out--btw, we didn't have a bad season, lots of wins. "And then the defensive award," he said, "goes to our catcher, Jim Schaap."
This one has a story.
Today, once again, I walked around the track in the Dordt University gym, took 15 minutes on the nu-step, then finished with a walk (using only the cane) around a basketball floor. I stopped four times, which is four times more than last time, but then healing, my physical therapist tells me, does not move up in a straight line, especially when you're pushing 80.
None of the kids working out--and today there were quite a few--none of them have any idea who the old bald guy who stoops behind his walker when he's taking a trip around the track, the guy that, sad to say, stumbles a bit when he walks but stays at it, the old man--he must be 80--once upon a time so fricken' long ago, that old man that's here almost everyday with his wife--"she's really beautiful"--that old man was once upon a time an athlete at this very school and in this very gym; what's more he's got a trophy to prove it.
A catcher. "Well, he looks like a catcher."
Maybe they'll read this. I'd like that.
Yeah, I'm an old man.
7 comments:
a great picturesque illustration in spite of physical impairment,
Dr. Schaap remains a faithful "Defender of the Truth"
Always interesting
Yogi Schapp??????? Hmmmm!!!
I have a memory of seeing you run a side street in the early to mid-80’s. It was obvious you weren’t built for running, but there you were putting in some miles. As an avid runner myself, I thought, “Good for him.” It’s hard to visualize you now at the Dordt gym walking with cane in hand, likely anonymous to most student gym rats in the prime of life. Little do they know your history and contributions to the college (along with many first generation profs who expended to much of their productive years setting the foundation for where Dordt University is today). Something better is coming though - a time when we will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant” accompanied by a time when shorn of all weakness, we will “run and not become weary.” Thanks for sharing.
I hate to say it, but I don't think I went to a single baseball game while at Dordt. I was all about choir. But boy, I could use someone to walk around that gym with today. We could have some good talks, I think. And we could see whose back would last the longest! Keep going, Jim. You still have a ton to offer the world. And I wish some of those young kids would learn who you are!
Surely you must have a pic of you as a player from back then. Please post it, we would love to see it.
I do--or did. we lost a bunch of treasures in the flood, especially most of my old pictures. I'd pull one out of a 1970 Signet, but the high school and college "annuals" all got swept away too.
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