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Show a backstop. They sought to promote practices. As I indicated, however, the natural forces ranged against us, the real and present danger of ruin, the struggle for survival made baseball look like frivolity. A rabbit drive to destroy pests killing our crops, a dance at night-these were more defensible. But a baseball game! Besides, few Nadaites felt like athletes. Even so, three or four men and boys would gather occasionally before the backstop of an evening to play catch or field grounders. That was all there was to practices. Suddenly the Sunday set for the game with Lund confronted us. The Stephenson boys set off in different directions with a Paul Revere spirit to round up warriors to defend Nada's pride. Homesteaders on the section gang were good prospects. If not skilled players they at least were exercised bodies capable of activity. Also they had been notified, in fact wheedled and bullied for a couple weeks. The best of these was my cousin Vernon Johnson. He was an able first baseman, indeed a born all-around athlete. He had run a near-record 4 40 in his freshman year at the University of Minnesota before his father died. Then the young man had left college and come to Utah with his widowed mother, my Aunt Nettie. By the time the Lund team arrived, natty in their new uniforms, ~p€*t Nada had assembled a s a « » ^ spectators but no team. We had seven men and boys who Could stand on a burlap bag base or lounge around the outfield but not a team. Phil Costello who came from Los Angeles for vacations with his uncle Henry Lindeman made brave noises but he was only fifteen. His eagerness to catch, even though there was no face mask or chest protector, was sheer foolhardiness that afforded deep relief to the others. |