Ball Game

With the success of Ben Stiller's new hit comedy, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, what may be America's most controversial childhood game has suddenly been thrust back into the spotlight. Years ago, an uprising against the old gym class staple, in which students use other students as human targets, prompted many schools to ban dodge ball. Since then, it seems, the game has lived on only in the memories of its victors and victims, banished to the realm of such barbaric practices as mandatory home economics courses for girls, shop for boys, and communal showers in the locker rooms.

Along with the cry "Play ball!" comes the shout "Park here!" As Oriole Park at Camden Yards prepares to welcome baseball fans back for its second season, transit and traffic officials again gird for fans on their way to the ballpark. A year ago they faced the prospect with hope tinged by trepidation. With a season's experience behind them, they rely less on hope but still admit to a bit of trepidation.The first season at Camden Yards was a stupendous success from almost every viewpoint -- other than a pennant.

PLAY BALL!Actually, the All-Star Game is not until tomorrow night. But tonight's television can get you in the mood.And the pick of the lineup may be "When It Was a Game II," at 10 o'clock on premium cable's HBO, an equally sweet sequel to last year's documentary chronicling the early years of professional baseball through grainy old film and still photos.This one, as viewers are told up front, includes footage from 8mm and 16mm home movies, most of it in color and shot by ballplayers and fans from the 1930s through the '50s.

The workbench was piled with things that needed fixing, but I had a more pressing duty. I had to go out in the alley and teach the kids the fine points of the game some call base runners.It is a simple game. Two players stand at bases about 60 feet apart and toss a ball back and forth. A third player, the runner, waits for the opportune moment to race from one base to the other without being tagged out by the player catching the ball. Our crew used a tennis ball instead of a baseball because the ball has been known to land on a runner, or the family car, instead of a baseball glove.

Let's take as our proposition the following: You've bitten into this All-Star Game stuff totally, you can't wait for the game, and, in the meantime, you want more baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball. So off you go to the local vid parlor. What to rent?Try one of these."The Natural," Baltimorean Barry Levinson's upbeat rendering of Bernard Malamud's luminous and tragic first novel that drew its inspiration from Sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur" and "Casey at the Bat." But . . . do you think Hollywood is going to let mighty Redford strike out?

The South River football team did exactly what it didn't want to do in Saturday's Class 3A quarterfinals.It turned the ball over.The Seahawks handed the ball back to Seneca Valley (Montgomery County) six times before surrendering, 41-7."There's nothing you can really do about that (the turnovers)," Seahawks running back Chris Messenio said. "We had some bad timing. They got the breaks and we didn't. When we did get some, we didn't capitalize."South River's first offering came on its initial play from scrimmage in the form of a K. C. Palmer fumble.

Baseball fans of the late 20th century can find souvenirs of xTC their favorite team in variety and abundance, almost anywhere in the country.A hundred years ago, it was very different.According to Joe Bosley, an expert on old baseball memorabilia, "Much of the [19th century] stuff you see is from tobacco products." The first baseball cards were produced by Old Judge in the late 1880s as "a gimmick to get you to buy tobacco."There are team and individual photographs -- taken in studios. Items such as pins were usually only produced in championship years.

They play the game just as the big boys do, only the ball is a little smaller, and sometimes they need to find a baby-sitter before going to practice. Otherwise, everything is the same -- helmets, pads, ankles taped before each game. They block, they tackle, they run post patterns. Their coach barks at them: "Come on, man, drive, drive!" They even have a 270-pound defensive tackle known as "Goose." It's full-contact football -- "Oh, yeah, smash-mouth football," says Sun photographer Karl Merton Ferron -- played by women daring into an arena of sport heretofore designated male-only.