There are certain things that most people don’t get enough of in life, prison softball might be one of them. About 25 years ago our family business had a company softball team. It was actually rather good and was a fairly serious endeavor for quite a number of years. We called it the “Frei’s Flies”. We even had baseball shirts printed with a giant fly, sitting on a bat, a complete knock off of the baseball Cardinals. Luckily, they didn’t sue us. One of the players from outside of the company was a Catholic Priest, Father Tom (we made stained glass windows for churches after all). Most priests I know are actually fairly ordinary men. Father Tom, on the other hand, was something that a 1970’s sitcom would dream up as the Mr. Rogers, soft spoken, over the top, innocent and pious priest. I’m not knocking this, he was a wonderful person to be around. So was Mr. Rogers.
One of the things that we would do to get more practice was to play against the prisoners at the medium security prison, called “Gumbo Flats”. It has since been torn down. Though it was not quite the scene of “Shawshank Redemption”, it looked plenty ominous to me, complete with rolls of razor wire. The process of going in and out through security took a while, but the guards actually wanted us there, so it went reasonably pleasantly.
On rare nights, they let some of the women prisoners out in the yard to sit in the bleachers on the third base side. Smartly, our bench was on the first base side. We always took games seriously, so we would send someone out to be the third base coach.
I don’t remember who the third base coach was on the first inning, but they came back, muttering to a few of us, “damn, they yelled stuff to me that made my brain blush. I learned a few things that I’d never heard of before”. Of course, being young men, this was more entertainment than we had bargained for. Inning two, “Fr. Tom, you’re coaching third!” We could not hear any of it, but we intently watched as Fr. Tom stood up straight, motionless and stiff. We eagerly awaited his reaction upon his returning to the bench, trying not to let on that he had been set up. Nothing! Inning three: “Fr. Tom…..”, he interrupted “I’m not coaching third base any more”. That was the entirety of the report that we received received from him.
Sitting in the parking lot after we were let out of the prison, our juvenile side took over and we joked about singing “Born Free” and saying “we can go in, we can go out, we can go in…”. Of course we made sure that no one could hear us. So tough we were.
Most of the prisoners were good sports, with the rare one that just couldn’t seem to help but let their troubled temperament show through. On those occasions, the guards immediately revoked their sports privileges.
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: -) re: the Father Tom story
I like to read or hear about any person or any group who goes into a prison and does something that makes the prisoners’ lives better for even a few moments. I’m sure your baseball team visits were always eagerly anticipated.
When I worked for Catholic Charities in McDowell County, I persuaded the warden to allow our Adult Learning Center teachers to teach basic literacy, GED classes, and parenting skills specifically for prisoners who were dads. The experience was rewarding for nearly everyone, except for the female teacher who fell in love with a prisoner and was caught on surveillance camera in a compromising position. Even though we had to fire her, I suppose it was a rewarding experience for her, too, because she married the guy after he was released. His punishment for having the relationship was to lose all privileges for a year and be placed in solitary for a month, I believe. The irony was that during orientation for all volunteers, corrections officials warned us probably a dozen times not to get sexually involved with the inmates, apparently because it happened all too often! We also had an inmate burn us for a lot of money and material assistance upon his release. I think he sincerely intended to go straight–He had lined up a job and an apartment and was attending college, but he apparently fell into the wrong crowd again and went on the run when he was implicated in a robbery with a gun.
I remember the happiness all around at the first GED graduation ceremony and party we had at the prison, to which inmates were permitted to invite a few family members, kids, and/or girlfriends. We even got them caps and gowns to wear. Our parenting class also had an ongoing project called Storybook Dads in which we recorded the dads reading age-appropriate books aloud for their children and then mailed the kids a copy along with the book that was read. I’m really proud of those accomplishments, and you should be proud that your Frei Flies gave the inmates an outlet in their boring days.
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