Take me out to Merwood Park: St. Denis parishioner revives pick-up baseball tradition


Neighbors in Havertown might be wondering about an unfamiliar sound emanating from Merwood Park these days. Might be wondering about what they’re seeing as well. Where once there was silence, they’ve now got game.
“There are [baseball] fields all over the place yelling out, ‘Please play on me, please play on me,’” said John Ostick, a 1969 graduate of Cardinal O’Hara and product of Our Lady of Fatima in Secane. “You look around on most days, and no one is out there.”
A recent drive to South Philadelphia and Northeast Philadelphia supported the claim. Beautiful late July afternoon, not a cloud in the sky. Unfortunately, not a baseball in the air, either.
The next day, same deal. 
For baseball purists like Ostick, that’s a shame. It’s also something that he thinks could be remedied, so Ostick, a parent of four with wife Mary Agnes (West Catholic, Class of 1971), a member of St. Denis parish, and 19-year economics teacher at Malvern Preparatory School, decided to do what he does best . . . do.
He took out the St. Denis directory, and he and his fourth-grade son Denis starting making phone calls. If someone wasn’t home, they left a brief message.
“Pick-up baseball game, 1 o’clock, at Merwood. No need to call back. Show up if you can. Hope to see you there.”
Their first effort worked like a charm. By 1:30 p.m. enough youngsters had arrived to get started. They donned hats and shorts, practiced, and then played an eight-against-eight game. Adults took turns serving as pitcher. Except for a no-base-stealing-rule, regular baseball rules applied. Before long, the contest turned interesting .
The visiting team romped, and the home team itched to stop the game and reconfigure the sides. But they persevered, and by the fifth inning, a nine-run deficit was down to four.
The fifth inning had been predetermined as the last inning, regardless of final score, and in dramatic fashion, the home team scored five in the bottom of the fifth to win the game. They jumped all over each other as the winning run crossed the plate. They grabbed some refreshments – courtesy of a parent – then sat down and listened as Ostick asked them about their experience and reminded them that they could always do something like this on their own.
“It only takes a few phone calls, or by word of mouth,” he said. “You don’t have to have a ton of people to do this.”
Two weeks later, Ostick organized another sandlot soirée. Despite the many families on vacation, enough kids showed up to have a game. It wasn’t eight-on-eight, but it was sufficient to call forth the whack of aluminum bats and the sound of baseballs hitting the glove.
Most important to Ostick was the sound of kids having fun.
“I’m just hoping that a couple of kids will feel more comfortable to knock on some doors and say to meet at the field in 10 minutes,” said Ostick. “They’ll get down there and find out that there’s a good chance that something good could happen.”
That’s been Ostick’s motto since he was young. When people say “Wouldn’t it be great to do” fill in the blank, Ostick challenges them to find a way to make it happen.
For the past four years, Ostick has organized a day-long basketball ‘love-fest’ at St. Denis during the NCAA Final Four Weekend. Kids and adults of both genders play full-court games while a huge projection screen sits on stage showing March Madness games.
This past year’s shindig was particularly great because St. Joseph’s University had temporarily captured the heart of just about every local hoops zealot – regardless of collegiate affiliation.
When the Hawks lost in the closing seconds, the people at St. Denis were able to commiserate communally. If they had won, they would have celebrated communally. The operative word here is ‘communally.’
It is the same feeling of community that prompted Ostick to revitalize the Merwood Park pick-up baseball games. The community came together, games were played, good times were had, friendships were formed, and everyone went home happy. 
There are lots of kids out there who love playing baseball, but the days when kids got together and organized impromptu baseball games nearly disappeared.
“There are a lot of reasons,” said Ostick. “It’s so different than how it used to be.” The proliferation of video games, cable television, Internet may be keeping kids inside instead of playing outside, but Ostick has another theory: perhaps they’re not outside having organized fun because, well, they don’t know how. “Today’s kids have had structured activities since they were four or five years old,” said Ostick. “Most of the time everything is done for them.”
The only time most kids these days play an organized game, he says, is at a camp, with counselors running the show and giving the kids limited, if any, opportunity to fend for themselves. That certainly wasn’t the case back in the 50s and 60s.
“When I was a kid, I remember baseball games started at 8:30 in the morning,” said Ostick. “You’d hear someone playing catch and like 20 minutes later, you’d have a full-fledged four-on-four or five-on-five game. That lasted till about 1. Then you’d go home, eat lunch, maybe find someone who had a pool since there weren’t any swim clubs. Then, after dinner, you’d go out and play some more. By the time you got home, you were beat.”
Ostick smiled.“Then you’d go out the next day and do it all over again.”
Sounds awesome.

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