BY KYLE LOVERN

Growing up in Nolan, it would be a big surprise if you didn’t play baseball and softball. You could have called us the “boys of summer.” We were known for having good softball teams.

Those were some of the best times and my greatest memories of growing up in this little hamlet of Appalachia.

When spring came around, it was softball during recess and the lunchtime break at Nolan Grade School. It was usually one class taking on another – for example, the fifth grade playing the seventh grade. We sat in class anticipating the next playtime break and getting to hit the diamond on the playground.

That led into the summer months after school was out and the local Mingo-Pike Boy Scouts Softball League.

Nolan was always competitive during these games, and we won our share of both games and championships.

Our home field was unusual. We had a tall wire mesh backstop right at the edge of the hillside going over the riverbank. We had an all-dirt infield, but the outfield in left and center fields was asphalt. The right field was grass and dirt. The school’s playground had been paved for basketball and volleyball courts and to give kids a dry area to play in case of rain.

The left field was a short outfield with the brick school building making for an odd backdrop. It was our own “green monster,” if you are familiar with the Boston Red Sox Fenway Park. It was a ground rule double if you hit the ball on top of the roof. It was a home run if you were strong enough to hit it over the building and onto the street.

The center field was long, and the right field was sort of short. There was a fence there and past that was usually a garden. It was property of the old two-story, wood-frame Thompson house that we always thought was haunted. (That’s a story for another time.)

I can still recall the summers when I got strong enough to hit the ball on the roof for a double and then, in another year, strong enough to hit it far enough for a home run.

I had some really good friends that I played with and grew up with (too many to name in this short column). You form a bond that will last a lifetime.

I played second base, was a pretty good contact hitter and simply loved it.

We had white jerseys with red trim with Nolan across the chest and a number on the back. I wore No. 4, which became my favorite number and I tried to keep it in future years in playing basketball, softball and other sports.

The home games were in the evening. We drew big crowds of parents and people from the neighborhood. The school cafeteria was opposite the third baseline. Mr. Shayde Chapman allowed us to get metal folding chairs out of the lunch room to line up and down the third baseline area for fans to sit in and cheer on the team.

Tom Pinson and Chester Ball were a couple of the coaches. Mr. Pinson made a rubber home plate out of some old belt line. We used our ingenuity and filled brown burlap potato sacks with sand from the nearby riverbank for the bases. The heavy sand hugged the ground, especially when it was a little damp. We didn’t have white lime to line off the field for the foul lines. But Mr. Pinson would buy a bag of flour from one of the local grocery stores and that did the trick. It was our field of dreams.

If the ball was fouled off behind the catcher and backstop or got by the first baseman, many times it went into the nearby Tug River. Sometimes you could retrieve it if the river was down (it was usually low in the summer months). However, the river was often swollen from the heavy summer storms – and the ball was gone as the current washed it downstream.

I’m bragging a bit, but we had some really good teams. Maybe it was because we loved it so much and probably because we played all the time. We won a lot of games in the league.

It was fun playing at home, but a thrill to go to away games. We would pile into the back of a pickup truck and cram into a car to travel to games throughout the Mingo-Pike area. Heck many of our players and their families rarely got out of Nolan, so visiting another community was a big deal.

As I said before, we won several championships. I still have the first trophy I ever got. I got rid of many of the others I received over the years, but that one is special to me.

We didn’t have sanctioned Little League, so this was our organized sport. I was lucky, and once I got of age, my dad signed me up for the Babe Ruth League to play baseball at Williamson. He made sure I got to go to games and practices and later played for Williamson High School. My boyhood dream was to play pro baseball, and like many others in this region I loved the Cincinnati Reds and listened to them on the radio every night with my dad.

Those early days molded my love for the game. Whether in the backyard playing whiffle ball, at the old schoolyard or later playing at the famed Lefty Hamilton Park or City Softball Park in Williamson, it was an awesome time.

If you were a leading hitter, you often got your name in the local paper. That was another thrill and I still have clippings I saved from some of those games all those years ago.

What I wouldn’t give to have my leather glove in my hand, a bat slung over my shoulder and be heading down to that old school yard for one more game.

As I think about it now, we didn’t know how lucky we were. We had our own field, good coaches and role models, great friends and teammates, and others in the community that cared about us. Those fond recollections will never go away and always be in our dreams. The memories are tucked away in the back of my mind, stored away where I can revisit them whenever I want to reminisce.

Like many others in the area, our little town was a great place to grow up.

Those good times are something that will never be taken from us. The memories will last forever and will never disappear.

(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist for the Mountain Citizen.)