Lenny

I don’t get many messages via Facebook Messenger. But on Monday of this week, I was pinged by somebody named “Lynn D. Ramage.”

“I used to know a guy named Dickie Perkey who used to catch for Montague Betts and made fun of my batting gloves.”

Hmmm, this message is not from your usual Nigerian prince who has lost his wallet in Italy and desperately needs me to wire him money. (I empathize, as I lose stuff all the time, thus…)

“I remember a kid named Lenny Ramage,” I messaged back.

Indeed, there was a lot of information contained in that message telling me that Lynn D. Ramage, aka Lenny, had come to the right place:

If you knew me from the time I was born until the time that I left home for college in 1976, you knew me by the name “Dickie.” I need not delve into the reasons for the name change to “Rich.”
Yes, I played catcher for my Little League baseball team, which was sponsored by Montague Betts, a steel fabrication company located in Lynchburg, Virginia.

But, “made fun of my batting gloves”?

Within minutes, we exchanged phone numbers and were talking live.

“Yeah, you talked nonstop when you were catching a game,” said Lenny Ramage.

Yes, Lenny, I am guilty as charged. I loved playing catcher – you were in the middle of all the action. You had the benefit of wearing protective gear as you heaped verbal abuse on batters awaiting the pitch. I never went so far as to say, “YOUR MOTHER WEARS ARMY BOOTS!!!” because I only shouted things that I had verified. Instead, I shouted, “HEY, BATTER, BATTER, BATTER, SWING!!!” when the pitch was halfway to home plate. The better batters, like Lenny, held off and were usually rewarded by the pitch being called a ball by the umpire. The more gullible children followed through on my exhortation; they swung and missed.

Only once was I ever struck in the head by a baseball bat, and that was when I saw David Shields trying to steal home. I stepped out to catch the pitch, and the batter, Stewart Porter, decided that he liked the pitch, so he swung. Instead of the baseball, Stewart’s bat connected with my skull. But never was I hit in the head by a baseball bat because of my verbal assaults.

“Yeah, I was the only kid in Little League to wear batting gloves. I got them for free at a Lynchburg Twins minor league game at City Stadium. You used to make fun of my batting gloves every time I came to bat!” said Lenny.

Lenny and I played Little League baseball in 1970 in Lynchburg, Virginia. Batting gloves were not something that you saw a kid wearing in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1970. Heck, you rarely saw batting gloves being worn by Major Leaguers, much less by Little Leaguers like Lenny Ramage.

Suddenly, Lenny and I were fast breaking through life, beginning most sentences with, “Whatever happened to…?” and trying our best to pack years into minutes.

It was fascinating to learn how sports had shaped both our lives. For me, playing college basketball had been defining. For Lenny, coaching the game of basketball had shaped his entire life and career. He has been a head coach at every level from junior high to high school, at the junior college level, at the Division 3 level (Connecticut College and Greensboro College), as well as in Division 1 (Morgan State).

And now, amazingly, here we are, more than five decades later, brought together by Lenny’s initiative and my smart-aleck comments.

Lenny Ramage was not only one heck of a pitcher and outfielder…he was the only Black kid to play in the Lynchburg Little League.

We finally got to be teammates and battery mates when we were named to an All-Star team. I caught Lenny in our win over Waynesboro; he was not only the winning pitcher, but he drove in two of our five runs.

We probably could have talked for hours, but present-day duties got in the way.

I read this past week that the universe is 13.72 billion years old. I got a feeling that in the next 13.72 billion years, future life forms will shake their heads in bewilderment, saying, “You know, there was a time on Planet Earth where the color of a child’s skin determined where they could play…”

Wow. Lenny Ramage.

We are still teammates. And we always will be.