The Sea Isle Park Incident

By Daniel Milam
I think it was Monday evening before I caught my breath.
By then, distorted accounts of the incident had spread to the
neighborhoods near the park as parents sought to separate truth from
exaggerated adolescent fiction. Those who knew, those who ran when
the terrifying headlights appeared, kept quiet, denying if possible
that they were even there at the time.
I didnt get caught. I ran fast and I was smart. . . . I suppose.
Part 1 The Boys of Summer
We were the baseball boys of east Memphis. We were Billy, Woody,
Terry, Larry, Brig, Brett, Knubby, Tommy, Andy, Mike, Dave, Danny et
al. We played baseball . . after school, Saturday mornings, weekday
mornings during summer vacation, Sunday afternoons and once on a
Sunday night. Once. . .
If you know anything about Memphis, Tennessee, you know its
famous for cotton, music, barbecue and southern hospitality that
comes with a be sure to use a coaster, hon. Its where Elvis lived
and Martin Luther King died. Its where blacks and whites get along in
the way quarreling siblings get along when Mommas in the room.

We lived in an all-white section of Memphis, many, many blocks from

the neighborhoods you didnt want to get caught in after dark.
Whatever happened in those neighborhoods stayed in those
neighborhoods, unless they made headlines in the Commercial Appeal
or the Press Scimitar newspapers. We were isolated and we preferred it
that way. We were blissfully ignorant white kids.
Our home turf was Sea Isle Park. Yeah. Sea Isle Park. Only there
was no sea and no island, unless you want to count the concrete pillar
in the middle of the kiddie wading pool. Other city parks were named
after civic leaders, explorers or historical figures, like Lincoln,
Washington, Douglas, Marquette or Carver.
But for us. . . Sea Isle Park.
By comparison, the ball diamond was actually pretty good. It got a
little dusty late in the summer especially in the right-handed batters
box, but park service employees wetted it down as needed in
preparation for the main event adult softball games at night under
the lights.
We envied the softball teams with their uniforms and company
sponsors, their shiny aluminum bats and the gleaming white softballs
they unboxed before each game. Those pearly white softballs looked
like full moons on high fly balls.
While the baseball field was ours during the daylight hours we had to
yield to the official league softball games at night. We still hung out

there, though. Heaven knows there wasnt anywhere else to go after

dark without a drivers license.
We never mingled with the softball people. They were adults, except
of course for the kids who spilled soda on their clothes and poured dirt
out of sno-cone cups. We just clustered by ourselves and talked about
things girls, life at home, sports, girls, cars and . . . . . girls.
We sometimes gathered out in the outfield, in the semi-darkness
behind the light poles and taunted the outfielders.
Hey left fielder! Dog poop on your left! Wait. Did I say left? I
meant right. Hey left fielder. Youre standing in it!
One time an umpire grabbed a silver aluminum softball bat and
charged toward us, yelling for us to get off the field. True, we were
technically in fair territory, but we argued that any ball hit that far
would surely be a home run, unless the batter fell down eight times
circling the bases.
Nonetheless, the umpire insisted we move back, and we did. We
were good kids. You tell us to move back, we move back.
As the summer wore on and the notorious Memphis heat settled in
for a long stay, our daytime pick-up baseball games became less
frequent, and far less well-attended. The dog days of summer were
growling, and we were bored out of our minds.
Until . . . . .
Part 2 The Caper that Began With the Words Its Not Locked.

Its not locked, Billy said.

Looks like its locked to me.
I know, but look the lock is just closed on itself. You can open the
door any time you want.
The thing that wasnt locked was the electrical service box that fed
the array of lights for the baseball diamond. Park employees must
have left it unlocked to simplify things when softball teams showed up
for night games.
The significance of this discovery was at first lost to us, but soon an
intriguing opportunity was presented.
So . . .anyone up for some night baseball? Billy offered.
Are you serious?
Hell yeah, Im serious. Come on. Whats it gonna hurt?
Our butts if we get caught.
No ones gonna care.
That seemed to be the overwhelming reality that we eventually
bought into that no one was going to care. We werent plotting a
bank heist, a wave of civil disobedience, a riot or even a cow-tipping
escapade. We just wanted to play baseball. At night. When it wasnt
so dang hot.
So it was on.
The plan was to convene Sunday night - when no league games were
scheduled - turn on the lights and play ball! Word was discreetly

passed around to all of the regulars, with an admonition to keep the

plan a secret, as if turning on several kilowatts of powerful lights in a
sedentary neighborhood on a Sunday night could ever remain a secret
for long.
There must have been 25 guys show up for the big game. Sides
were drawn and the game began at dusk, with the lights off.
By the third inning, the sunlight was all but gone and the time had
come to flip the switch. Billy did the honors, but the word was No one
knows who turned the lights on, got it? Yep. Got it.
Bright lights chased the darkness away and brought the red dirt
under our feet to life. Few of us had ever played baseball under the
lights before, and this was now an adventure to relish. How cool was
this!
But there were drawbacks. The field lights were set for league
softball games, played with big, new, gleaming white softballs that
didnt go very far - or fast - when struck. We quickly discovered that
our dingy aspirin-pill baseballs often flew out of sight, either above or
beyond the range of the light coverage. Hot grounders posed a similar
set of issues as infielders had to account for the shadow racing across
the dust.
In time, we had managed to lose all of our baseballs. We knew we
could easily retrieve them in the daylight of the next morning, but that

put an end to our nocturnal baseball game, unless we could stumble

upon one of the lost orbs in the grass.
We should have called it quits right then. Or, actually well before
then. By then, it was too late.
Headlights.
On high beam.
They surged inward from three separate vantage points, with a
beastly roar of eight-cylinder engines. As the cars bounced over the
uneven terrain, the headlights flared and shuddered, like the eyes of a
charging leopard closing fast on a hapless antelope.
It was the police, of course. In an instant, we scattered like roaches
when the pantry light comes on, only in this case it was just the
opposite the lights went out, thanks to the first kid to get to the
switch box.
I sprinted in the direction of what we local kids called Monkey
Mountains a ravine with crooked, weedy ditches deep enough to
crouch down in. (We used to conduct trench warfare in those ditches,
hurling dirt clods at the enemy combatants and watching yellow clouds
of dust explode on impact.)
But tonight, in the sudden darkness, the Monkey Mountains became
my refuge. Several other guys had the same idea, figuring that the
cop cars would have trouble negotiating the ditches, if they came that
way.

They didnt. The three squad cars converged just behind second
base and settled. The officers got out and walked around, aiming
flashlight beams across the grass, and when one swung around in our
direction, someone yelled Duck!, perhaps a little too forcefully.
One of the cops called out, Alright. Whos over there?
We didnt answer, but if knocking knees were audible, it would have
sounded like rocks rattling inside a tin bucket.
Come on, boys. Games up. Lets go!
We wanted to get it over with, come out with our hands up and
admit to our foul (no baseball pun intended) deeds. But defying our
impulse to do the right thing, we crouched lower in the ditches, our
sweat making mud with the dust.
After a few heart-pounding minutes that seemed like hours, we
heard voices again, but they were more distant than before. And we
heard other voices, younger voices, scared voices.
They got some of the guys. Aw, crap!
While the polices attention was diverted, we made a dash for the
parks eastern boundary, miraculously avoiding countless anklespraining hazards in the dark. Once we reached the sidewalk along
Estate Drive, we felt safe from persecution. Suddenly, we were just
kids walking down the street . . . who appeared out of nowhere with
baseball gloves tucked under our arms and mud on our skin.

Of the 25 or so kids on the field when the squad cars charged, only
five or six were unlucky enough to get caught, and even they were let
go after a few minutes of terror. Perhaps the officers were lenient
because it wouldnt be fair to stick those few kids with the
consequences when so many others had gotten away.
Plus, once they determined that we hadnt broken the lock on the
light switch, what could they charge anyone with anyway?
It wasnt against the law to be a stupid white kid.
For nearly all of us, that was the worst trouble we would ever be in.
And if you say, Thats nothing, youd be right.