My grandson set this up for me. He says everybody has a home page now. I told him I had a home plate for fourteen years and that ought to hold me, but he'd already bought the modem, so here we are.

I'm 64. I caught semipro ball around northeastern Pennsylvania from 1953 to 1966, for whichever town team would cover my gas and feed me a hot dog after. I never made the majors. The closest I got was a tryout camp in 1956, where a scout watched me throw down to second base and wrote something on his clipboard. I like to think it said "wow." It probably said "next."

They call a catcher's gear the tools of ignorance. I wore it for fourteen years. Draw your own conclusions.

Walter "Dutch" Brennan, a dairy farmer's son from up past Honesdale. Threw a sinker so heavy it was like catching a sack of wet sand, pitch after pitch, for nine innings. He was the only pitcher I ever had who shook me off and was right every single time, which I resented deeply and still do. Scouts came to see him twice. The first time it rained. The second time he had the flu and struck out eleven anyway, and they still didn't sign him, and I have never understood it. He went home and ran the farm. Best arm in three counties. Never left them.

Everybody else on a ball field is looking in. The catcher is the only one looking out. You see the whole thing. You see the pitcher's face when he says he isn't tired. You see the hitter's back foot creep up when he's guessing fastball. You see the shortstop cheat two steps toward second. You see the umpire had onions for lunch. And you see the stands, every pitch, whether you want to or not. You always know who came.

My wife Peggy came to every game I played from 1957 on, with a scorebook, a pencil and a thermos of coffee. She kept a better book than the official scorer, and told him so. Next to any play of mine she liked, she drew a little star. She passed three years ago this November, and afterward I found all her scorebooks in the hall closet, ten seasons of them. There are a lot of stars. Some nights I went 0 for 4 and there's a star anyway, next to nothing in particular. I think that one was just for me.

My son Danny caught for me in the backyard for ten summers. He was a lousy catcher and a fine second baseman, which I took personally for a while. Now he coaches his boy's Little League team, and he's better at it than I ever was, because he's patient. He got that from his mother. I am the assistant coach in charge of sitting on a bucket by the backstop and saying "stay down on it." Nobody asked me to. I'm very good at it.

People ask how you squat for nine innings. You don't. You squat for one pitch, about 140 times. Getting down is just gravity. Getting back up is the art. At 64, I have mastered the first part.