TAYLOR MADE: THE SEASON THAT WASN'T (2020-04-12)

Youth baseball and softball opening days around the area are / were scheduled to begin in two or three weeks (depending on the league). Unfortunately, our children are in danger of missing out on America's pastime.

In a time when several churches around the nation have violated the Covid-19 restrictions to hold Easter services and Major League Baseball is pushing to resume its season, albeit with radical changes, it's a travesty that our youth may not get a chance to hit, field and run in the great outdoors of upstate New York. Unfortunately, we are stuck in a pandemic that demands we stay apart so that hopefully we can play together soon.

I recall (barely) the days of my youth when my brothers, my friends and I had to push through without a summer filled with baseball. When I was growing up back in the 1970s, there wasn't much to do in the small village of Nichols (population 500ish) so us kids would play a lot of "pick-up" sports — Bowen Bowl tackle football, almost-as-physical basketball, ice hockey on the Tioga Country Club pond and even the occasional boxing match under the street light near the Sutfin funeral home.

Through all those years, there was only one organized sport in the village for kids to participate in — Nichols Ro-Ki youth baseball. We didn't have a Little League-sanctioned organization, but I'm pretty sure nearly every kid between the ages of 8 and 13 would come out to play.

Games were played at historic Kirby Park, which was quite a sight with its a giant grandstand looming on the eastern end of the village. If you've never played in front of the fans at one of those old-time grandstands, you don't know what you're missing. The grandstand at Kirby was a stick-built monstrosity which could be a little intimidating to a 10- or 11-year-old. With steep bleachers and a chicken wire backstop, it was a popular place for parents to sit and watch the games from.

If memory serves me right, we had two fields behind the grandstand near the Wappasening Creek, another one beyond the big field's outfield near the levee and, for a few years, across the road where all the cars would park on Old Home Day.

For whatever reason, the powers that be built a levee to keep the overflowing creek, and the waters which would back up from the nearby Susquehanna River, from flooding into the village. Why they didn't include Kirby Park within the borders of the levee, I will never know — probably some government BS they had to deal with.

Playing baseball at Kirby Park was special, even during The Season That Wasn't. In 1972, Hurricane Agnes devastated the Twin Tiers of New York and Pennsylvania. We managed to get just three games in before the park was flooded, abruptly ending the season.

That may have been a blessing in disguise as the team I played on was 0-3 when the season came to its abrupt conclusion. 1972 was also the year my dad decided to coach Ro-Ki ball and drafted his three sons. Clearly, this was not the wisest managerial move ever made.

Maybe the saddest part of that era was the fact the grandstand was never rebuilt. Instead, the village placed a small chain link backstop in its place. While that decision saved the village a lot of money, it robbed us of some of the grandeur of Kirby Park.

There are still a few mainstays at the park. The bandstand has been reconstructed and the pavilion has been rebuilt (again) and moved. I believe the basketball court is gone and the tennis court is now used for parking. The old playground with its large steel swing is gone, having been replaced several years ago and again more recently by modern-day equipment.

Despite Mother Nature's wrath, the park has persevered through two more major floods (2006, 2011) as well as numerous Wappasening spillovers — even nearly a half-century after the season that wasn't. The flood of 2011 hit in September, not affecting youth baseball. In 2006, the flood came through in late June, so it might have affected all-star games.

Today, Kirby Park is home to Nichols-Tioga Little League. The Major division has a fenced-in field with dugouts, a score keeper's tower and concession stand. There is also a second field with a backstop and dugouts, and I've heard some upgrades have been added recently.

More than likely, we will experience The Season That Wasn't, Part 2, this year, but eventually the kids will be back on the diamond — and Kirby Park will be there to greet them.