Ghost men of our childhood

Lately, as I watch the buses load and unload their precious cargo, I have begun to reminisce about the school days of my youth. Summers seemed to last longer back then than they do now, but not nearly long enough. I love to relive those days, but only in my mind. Lord knows I don’t want to go through it again. However, there is one thing I miss that I am reminded of every time I watch the Little League games on TV. I remember growing up in the backyards of my neighborhood playing baseball with the limited number of players we could scrounge up. Sometimes we would have a dozen kids out there, while other times left us with maybe four. The fewer players we had the more I enjoyed it. When the roster was less than full you had to rely on a “ghost-man.” These ghosts took your place on the base paths so you could bat again. The truly imaginative of us would try to even get the ghost man to steal a base or take two bases on a single. Ghost men were the perfect teammates. They never argued balls and strikes. They never tried to take you out on a play at the plate. They never took their ball and went home. They never got accused of being on the juice. All they did was wait patiently to be called into action. I miss my ghost men. I often wonder what they may be doing now. Are they like the Lost Boys? Do they never grow up? They couldn’t play multiple sports. Only baseball. Backyard football used an all-time quarterback when we had an odd number of players. Ghost men as receivers never really caught on. There were no ghost men in pick-up basketball games sitting on the side of the court waiting for “next”. And ghost men didn’t play soccer when I was a kid, because if you had a ball you could kick, you played kickball. What if those ghost runners DID grow up with us? What if they could take their place in the corporate world? They could take the blame for an unfinished project. They could be your wingman whenever you went to talk to that “hot chick.” They could be the one you could blame when your wife wants to know why you came home from your trip to the store with your daughter missing one shoe and teething on an unopened pack of baseball cards. Yes, I miss my ghost-men. But sometimes, when the sun is low in the sky and the wind is blowing just right, I can sit in my backyard and, if I turn my head just right, I can hear the ghost-men in the field behind my house saying, “Play Ball!”