The Old Boys of Summer

HARDYSTON-The hallowed voices of nostalgia have haunted Tony Famular for 15 years, and annually he heeds their call: "If you organize it, they will come." Every February since he turned 57, Famular begins what many would consider a pursuit of folly: he organizes baseball practices and games for men over the ages of 40, 50, 60 and even, like himself, those over 70. Saturday afternoons at 3, beginning, as he himself puts it, "the first day you can roll the windows down in the car," a loose confederacy of men made up of some permanent and some transient players gathers at Hardyston Town Park on Wheatsworth Road. "We are usually made up of about 20 guys; about a third are regulars, a third come now and then and a third rarely show," Famular said. "We are just like people who go out and jog, except we play baseball." Tony's roots lie in Brooklyn, where as a boy he was infected with the mythical baseball contagion that affected many Brooklynites while the Dodgers were still in town. His baseball memory is sprinkled with names like Hodges, Campanella, Robinson, and Reese. To a boy in Brooklyn, those legendary names imprint onto your being a lifelong love of all things baseball. It's that love, Famular says, that lingers on in him and others he plays with. "The love of the game doesn't pass you by," he said. "Guys harbor this thing inside them and don't just lose it." For Tony, it took some prompting for that nostalgia to transform itself into a physical reality. He had, like many others of his generation, played as a youth in organized ball and in the streets of Brooklyn, and even a little in the military. But as he got older and the commitments of work and family grew to take up more of his time, baseball's place in his life was minimized. The prompting came in the form of a birthday present on this 57th birthday to a fantasy camp in Florida. Each year thousands of men and women converge on the states of Florida and Arizona in advance of Major League Baseball's spring training to have the chance to meet and play with current and former major leaguers. "When I got there, I was like, ‘You mean I can go play on a major league field, take grounders off a manicured infield?' I was amazed, and that did it for me," he recalls. Basking in the glory of rediscovering his lifelong passion for playing, Tony made some important connections. A group of men also attending the camp hailed from his old stomping ground of Brooklyn. Tony was amazed to find that this small group of men was part of a larger contingent of middle-aged men who met every Sunday at Dyker Beach Park under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to play pick-up baseball. "After a few years of doing that," he said, "I started thinking to myself, ‘there's got to be guys like that out here." What he found through his contacts were people like him, men who'd mistakenly thought life's pace had moved them beyond the means, the time, and the ability to play a simple game of baseball. In the fifteen years since, Tony's found out that several things are true about baseball: there are very few physical excuses, and schedules and responsibilities hinder the excitement and participation in the game. At 72, Tony is the owner of two artificial hips, but to watch him move about his Hardyston home and talk baseball, one would never suspect. He keeps himself in playing shape by playing. Over the years he's been organizing people to play, he's found that people's lives are full of places to be and times to be there, and there is no end to responsibility of family and career. His baseball group, is just the opposite: "No calls made, no starting date, no league, no commitment." "This is a place to play for guys like me: guys who are not that good and not that bad," he said. Throughout his home, Famular's love of playing baseball is evident. Several enlarged photos of himself and the teammates he's had through the years adorn his office and his living room. Each February, Tony and a group of friends go to Homestead, Fla. for their own spring training of sorts. The Old Dogs, as they call themselves, meet at the former Detroit Tigers training facility to play on freshly groomed infields and under sweet Florida sunshine. "Some of us just can't wait until spring," he said. What Tony Famular found in Florida is, ironically, a fountain of youth. It is not Ponce de Leon's mythical fountain that could transform an aged man into a spry youth, but it has definite restorative qualities. For himself and the others he plays with come late winter and early springtime, these Saturday games represent an opportunity to be active, to play a simple game, and to relive the sights, sounds, and smells of the national pastime. And, it gives a 72-year-old man the chance to feel again like a kid in Brooklyn dreaming of Ebbets Field. There is a reason why baseball is said to be part of our national character. It may be that it's a simple game that boys can play, even when they're 72 years old. Whatever it is, and whatever excuse men have used as they age to stop playing, men like Tony Famular and his troop of baseball players are saying you can still play. "We are just out there, doing it."