PHILIPSBURG — I was born in Philipsburg and raised in the area known as Slabtown, where there existed in a five-block radius, three baseball/softball fields, a basketball court, horseshoe pits and a pinochle shelter.
To say the least, it was a great place to spend one’s summer days from sun up to sun down. There was never a dull day in Slabtown. On top of that, the Cold Stream Dam recreation area was a mere two blocks away when it became too hot to play baseball.
Even when the summer programs were over, the Slabtown World Series would be held at the Powerhouse Grounds. The older kids would pick teams and play the best-of-seven games.
When there weren’t enough kids around to have a competitive baseball game, there was always a game of ‘P-G ball.’
Most towns played whiffle ball, and just about anyone could hit a ball the size of a baseball. In Slabtown, the kids needed more of a challenge. They tried a game using ping-pong balls, but they were hard to control in the wind. Hose ball, where a garden hose would be cut into small pieces, was then tried, but never really caught on since a family’s garden hose would need to be cut for the game to be played. (Try and explain to your father why his garden hose suddenly sprang a leak and wasn’t working the way it should.)
Then, came P-G ball.
“It had to be in 1949, because Tom ‘Sy’ Morgan was in the game and he graduated in 1950,” recalled William “Keno” Beezer, former executive director of the Moshannon Valley YMCA. “Besides Sy, there was John Wilson, Bill Housely and Booger Howe, and they were playing at the Ninth Street School because the walls were shaped like some of the old baseball fields.
“The original game was played with a ping-pong ball… . They used broom sticks for the bats like we did when we started playing P-G ball. The first time I saw it played, and I can remember like it was yesterday, was when John Wilson and Booger Howe and a few other guys were playing. Wilson would try and weal the ball as hard as he could, but it being a ping-pong ball, it was captured in the wind.
“The next time we saw them playing at the high school they were using P-G balls,” said Beezer. “P-G balls are plastic practice golf balls, and we taped them around the seams so they wouldn’t break so easy. The balls cost 25 cents, sometimes 30 cents, depending on what Jack Frank of Frank’s Sporting Goods store would charge.
“I believe Glenn Fleck, Cousy Dixon and a couple of other guys I can’t remember right now originated the game of P-G on Eighth Street. They would line off the road that would mark a line for doubles, triples and home runs.
“We never had problems getting a game going since there were a lot of kids that lived on Eighth Street. And when it got dark we played ‘kick the can.’ Try and explain that to the kids today. They would think we were crazy.”
One of Beezer’s most memorable moments was when Jack Frank sold robin egg blue P-G balls.
“They were hard to play with, especially when you would hit a fly ball and the ball would get lost in the blue sky. It made the game a little harder and more interesting. But it also made it a lot more fun.”
The original rules of the game of P-G were created by Wilson and Housely, said Beezer.
“I guess it was to speed up the game, but it was one swing and it was an out. Didn’t matter of it was a foul ball or not. A fly ball past the pitcher was a double, and a line draw in the dirt was the triple area, and obviously a home run cleared the fence or telephone pole. There was no running involved.
“The best part was you could play with just three or four kids, a pitcher, infielder and two outfielders,” added Beezer. “The game was so simple and you could play all day.
“The best player I ever saw was Glenn Fleck, from Eighth Street,’ said Beezer, still a minor league scout for several professional baseball teams. “He had the quickest bat I’ve ever seen since anywhere. He had such strong wrists and could flick that bat so fast you could hardly see it coming.
“Another one was Wilson and Cousy (Dixon). Wilson was so quick and strong and Cousy, for all the bigger he was, had such great control of his bat because he such great quickness that it was amazing. He had such quick hands and great eye coordination it was amazing, but then again he wasn’t a bad basketball or baseball player, either.”
Unfortunately, the good old days are long gone. Today there is too much time spent on computers and cell phones.
“The sad part is, no one — parents or children — seem to communicate with one another,” said Beezer. “You see families out for dinner and everyone is sitting there waiting for their food and they are all on their cell phones.
“If they aren’t on their cell phones, they are on their computers e-mailing people. In the old days, not everyone was perfect, but we understood who we were dealing with and no one really got involved physically. We understood and dealt with the situation without any parent involvement.
‘But, that was yesterday when life was so much simpler.”
