Colonel George Young (Softball Field)

New York City and its softball fields have gotten a major face life in the (gulp) nine years that I've been playing. Fields have been torn up and re-sod, turf that was laid seemingly directly onto cement has been re-layered to provide your knees with a fighting chance to survive a game and Central Park's Great Lawn fields would be the crown jewels of the number of fields you'd love to play on.

Colonel George Young Field is not one of these crown fields.

Colonel Young Field is a throw back to a different era of baseball. When players like Mickey Mantle roamed cow pastures located next to mining operations - carefully avoiding cow chips, seeing large swathes of grass eaten away by hungry bovines and a giant mud puddle situated in what would be center field. The infield resembles something that looks like it was dug out by two spare miners in their part time and they've thrown around the base paths combines with the dirt to form a substance that has the consistency of the part of the beach where the tide has just gone out and you end up with over-saturated sand that gives way to each of your steps.

Other than cows eating and leaving cow chips I feel as though I've given a pretty good representation of the field. Since there are multiple fields at the location there is the unique New York experience of outfielders from separate games standing back-to-back. Coincidentally that is the least of the problems of New York softball fields - there is a code of brother (and sister) hood where you learn to warn each other of flying objects. Usually it involves someone screaming "DUCK!" or "COMING THROUGH!"

Colonel Young Field is located in the heart of East Harlem and over the years that has led to some pretty unique visual experiences. Today a crackhead fell to the ground and started banging the back of his head against the cement. One of my teammates was polite enough to ask him for help - everyone else shrugged and kept walking.

Sometimes you just need to keep walking. After one particular game I watched two Spanish guys in their mid-twenties try to pick up my teammate Silvia. "I play ball in the minors," one of them boasted. "Oh, I work for baseball," Silvia said, "where do play?" The guy stammered something unintelligible and walked away, caught in a pretty poor lie. Though, hey, it must have worked on someone.

That isn't even the weirdest visual I've ever seen at Colonel Young Field. The universe will be hard pressed to top the guy standing between two parked cars - one hand on the front bumper, one hand on the back bumper, pants around his ankles grunting loudly as he took a crap on the street. I did not disagree with the Police Car that pulled up, flashed its lights, fired up the siren and drove off without bothering to arrest or ticket the guy.

I am not asking the universe to take it as a challenge.

The people hanging out around the field are pretty nice though. They're always asking me if I need a smoke. Mostly though it is a set of baseball fields and even on a blazing hot day like today - when the air doesn't move and inch and somehow the sun sets in a way to blind you where you're at bat - there are people always around who just love ball.

There are some serious players who hang out there and you can see some pretty good action. one fine day my team was involved in a 5 pm softball game up there, the game finished and it was still nice and bright out and there was a really good game between two Spanish teams. Some enterprising people were selling pork sandwiches and beer in cups - and yeah, we bought a bunch and watched the game. It was fantastic, and I'm pretty sure we ended up getting a contact high.

New York City softball fields - definitely unique. Especially Colonel George Young's field.

Wayne