Flash Gordon Will Not Be Shown Today

It started innocently enough. It was five o’clock and I wanted to watch Flash Gordon. Much to the dismay of a ten-year-old kid, Flash Gordon wasn’t on. Instead, a baseball game was being shown.

Now, I knew what baseball was and I usually turned it off because I didn’t understand it. Famous last words. Baseball was boring. This time was different. I didn’t turn it off.

All I remember is that a team named the Yankees was playing and, inexplicably, it wasn’t boring. It would never be boring again.

The ballplayers were barely visible tiny images on a seven-inch Fada, yes, a Fada television set. The voice from the television was describing what was happening. Little did I realize how that voice and baseball team would become an integral part of my life.

I felt a little funny watching the game. The television was located in a little alcove between the living room and the kitchen and I was watching something I had never watched. I was watching something I always asked my father to turn off. My mother, who was preparing supper passed by, glanced quickly at the television, and asked what was I watching.

“How come you’re not watching Flash Gordon?”

I said the baseball game was on instead but that I didn’t know why. I later would learn the meaning of “extra innings.”

I kept watching and understood a little, since after school, Roy, Jeff, Tommy, my cousin Allan and a few other guys would play punch ball in the street after school, and the game on the television was a little like our game. I wasn‘t too good a punch ball player at first, but I improved quickly until I was better than Jeff or Tommy or Allan, and almost as good as Roy. None of us would ever be as good as Roy.

A few days after I saw my first game on television, we came home from school, went upstairs to change (we always changed our school clothes as fast as possible once we got home), and headed for the street to play ball. There were four or five guys on “our field” that we had never seen. They were playing punch ball.

Roy quickly surveyed the situation and knew what had to be done. He discovered that the kids on our field had just moved into the neighborhood, which meant that they would be with us for a long time.

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