The Manhole

So what do you call it? A manhole, or a manhole cover? On the street I grew up on, I never saw a manhole cover removed, therefore I never saw the “hole” underneath. But it was too tedious to call it a “manhole cover”.

We simply called it a manhole. Drab, inconspicuous, simply functional. A thick, heavy, iron disk, more than 2 feet in diameter, with the letters “BSBQ” imbedded in the iron. (“Bureau of Sewers, Borough of Queens” -- I found out much later on). And though they’re probably all the same to manhole workers, there is a very special one on 46th Road, between 202nd and 204th Streets in Bayside, NY.

It so happened that this street was chosen by some Founding Baby Boomer kids to be a favored street for stickball. Not the kind of stickball you see in schoolyards, with some guy pitching at a rectangle “strike zone” painted onto a brick wall. (Not that there was anything wrong with that!).

By the time I was old enough to play with my earliest pals, bases were painted in strategic places on the street, and the game imitated real baseball, at least in the sense that baserunning and fielding were key elements. Pitching was eliminated -- the batters held the ball (Pensy Pinky or a “Spaldeen”) and bounced it whatever way they pleased before swinging the stick.

However, the “field” was ridiculously elongated. The street was only 28 feet wide, so first and third base were painted at the left and right curbs, 28 feet across from each other. To allow for a 60-foot run from these bases out to second base, or in the other direction toward home plate, the standard 90-degree angles of a baseball infield were dramatically stretched, and became more like two 30-degree angles at home and second, and two 150-degree angles at first and third. Runners “rounding second” had to do something resembling a U-turn, and many a kid fell on his butt out there for lack of traction.

One particular manhole -- The Manhole, to be reverent about it, served as home plate. No need to paint a 5-sided “home plate” figure. The Manhole was perfectly located, about 80 feet in from the 202nd street corner, surrounded by houses full of kids. The asphalt “field” ran some 250 feet down the street, toward the less-developed far end of the block.

The Manhole was the Center, where sides were chosen, where you ran to score a run, where you threw the ball to prevent a run, and most of all, where you stood alone for a few seconds, keenly observed by all present, with stick and ball.

In the beginning, it was where I watched “the big kids” play. They were fearsome and macho, and some of them could hit the ball over Mr. McHugh’s house into the trees of the woodsy vacant lot at the far end of the block on the left side. This was an automatic home run.

Mr. McHugh’s property made for some rather curious Ground Rules. McHugh, shrewd dude that he was, owned 2 adjacent properties, far down the left side of the street. The first property, occupied by nothing but weeds and flowers, was unfortunately completely enclosed by tall hedges, not quickly accessible. Any ball hit there was an automatic Out.

The second property -- adjacent and further out, contained the McHugh house, and was equally inaccessible. The only people who deliberately hit the ball toward McHugh’s house were those who hoped to clear it. It was either Home Run or Out, and batters who adopted this strategy were especially subject to scrutiny.

The crazy layout of the bases dictated that you hit the ball straight ahead. There was hardly any Right Field or Left Field. This was good, because there was really no practical way to play the game if the ball was hit too far off center.

Nonetheless, there were some properties just past first and third base, on the right and left sides, that were considered “Fair Territory”, and kids could be seen scampering into driveways, through lawns and bushes, on walkways and porches, chasing that elusive pink rubber ball.

If the neighbors were annoyed, they never seemed to show it. Kids and adults alike might drop what they’re doing at any given time to observe some stickball. As in pro baseball, where the focus is usually on the batter -- on 46th Road the focus was on whoever was standing at The Manhole. It felt like a stage.

One of the more heartwarming sights was that of a kid named Gerald, a 15-year old Polio victim who could barely stand. Yet the big kids let him play. He would stand for a minute at the Manhole, actually get the stick around and hit the ball -- a soft ground ball usually, and another kid would run the bases for him.

A more amusing sight would be some young teenybop girl in short shorts, hanging out with the big kids, trying her luck at batting both the ball and her eyelashes.

Less amusing were the frustrated attempts of the youngest kids trying to get the hang of it. Bounce the ball once? Bounce it twice? Hit it high or low? Short fat broomstick or long skinny one? Two strikes, yer out, on this street. I was pretty lousy at first, actually got “chucked” (fired from a choosed-up team) a few times.

Then, at some point, I got the knack. My 46th Road stickball got supplemented by some real baseball with bats and gloves at a real field elsewhere, with a different group of kids. There I learned to whack a baseball, flipping it in the air and not attempting to bounce it first. This transferred over to the broomstick and rubber ball pretty easily. Eventually I had enough strength and skill to knock a few over McHugh’s house, quite a sweet experience.

I never did become part of a “big kids” crowd that played stickball and flirted with the girls. The aforementioned “big kids” social crowd disappeared, and was not replaced by a new group of big kids, it seemed. Perhaps I was at the tail end of a Golden Age of Stickball on 46th Road.

I passed by the old neighborhood recently. There was absolutely no one to talk to, half of the houses had been razed and replaced by larger, gaudier structures. Mr. McHugh was long gone, and his two properties were completely unrecognizable from long ago, now occupied by large showy buildings. My dad’s old house, right across the street from the former McHugh properties, was also barely recognizable.

I had a few minutes to kill, so I got out of the car, talked with the Asian man who now owned my dad’s former house. Strolling down the street, I was awash in all the memories and images of kids and adults on a young and happy new suburban Baby Boomer street some 50 years ago.

Presently the asphalt looks pretty new, perhaps recently re-done. Certainly no sign of painted bases, nothing to indicate that anybody had ever played stickball there. Which is all perfectly fine. Everything evolves, as it should, on 46th Road and elsewhere.

Then I came to The Manhole, located exactly where it always was, looking like it always did, the “BSBQ” still quite clear to read, stepping out of the past without a trace of age.

I stood there staring out at the ghost of an asphalt stickball field, seeing one kid after another, facing me 60 feet away in between third and first base, playing the closest “infield” position. I saw Gerald, the teenybop girls, big kids, little kids, and the curious onlookers. I summoned my imagination and pictured the top of McHugh’s house, as it was back in the day, 250 away and inviting us all to reach it. And if it was possible at the moment, I would have emptied my wallet for a broomstick and a Spalding rubber ball and one more time at bat at The Manhole.