It all started on Father's Day

A decade as a pro - and it started with Whiffle Ball in our front yard.

There is a giant bush located immediately to the left of our garage. If our front yard was a baseball park - which it was for many formative years - the bush would be in the vicinity of the home dugout, about halfway to first base, a place where foul balls might collect.

And sure enough, as I noticed the other day, there are three Whiffle balls under there. They’ve been there, I would guess, for 20-25 years. And God willing, they’ll remain there as long as I’m around.

A future big-leaguer, with the Cardinals, too!

As I write this introductory piece, before I share one of my favorite Tallahassee Democrat columns, John is 40 games into his tenth professional season, coming off a three-hit, four RBI game that included a 410-foot HR in his first at bat in Kansas City. He’s hitting .301, with 28 RBI and 25 walks in those 40 games. (The team has been struggling and they’re pitching around him.)

Through ten years of pro ball, he’s played 1031 games, had 977 hits, hit 87 home runs, collected 551 RBI, 486 walks, 475 K’s, all for a .277 career average. That’s a long way from playing in our front yard.

Like all kinds of young baseball players, John dreamed of being a major leaguer some day. Even when it happened a couple years later, it almost seems like a dream. For the month of July, 2021, he was fourth in the National League in batting. They started selling “The Big Nogowski” T-shirts and sweatshirts in Pittsburgh. He was almost a Yinzer folk hero.

John’s Pirates’ jersey, between Roberto Clemente’s and KeBryan Hayes

By mid-August, the Pirates gave him his DFA - Designated For Assignment. They flew him all the way out to Los Angeles to tell him that. Yeah, thanks, kid. Since then, the baseball life has taken him to the Giants’ organization, the Braves’ organization, the Nationals’ organization, Mexico and now back where he started in Indy Ball, Sioux City, Iowa.

He still, I think, loves the game that he learned out in our front yard, playing Whiffle ball until dark - and sometimes a few minutes after. We used to have a giant oak tree in our yard, off to the side of our driveway. He wondered if we could lights up there so we could have night games.

His night game tonight will be in Milwaukee. And the road that started out on the other side of that big green bush, continues.

Here’s a look back at when it all started.

BASEBALL IN THE FRONT YARD

The big green Suburban pulled to a halt across from us and a beefy man extended both hands out the window.

"Right here," he said, breaking into the smile of a small boy gesturing with his hands to make a catch.

"Hey, that looks like one heck of a lot of fun."

He looked over the four kids down at the other end of our lawn, laughing, wrestling with one another, noticing the three or four dozen baseballs, plastic ones, scattered all around them.

I put my gray plastic bat on my shoulder, turned, smiled and waved. "It is," I said, then whacked another fly ball into a sea of arms and gloves and legs and heads.

This is a regular occurrence on our lawn. That's why there's not much grass where the pitcher's mound is and why there's no grass where home plate is. Less to mow.

At least two or three weeknights, John will come home, come in the den, grab me from the keyboard, glove in hand. "Dad, can I get the guys?"

Often, he doesn't even have to cross the street. By the time we get outside, here's 11-year-old Jonathan, nicknamed "Cool Dude" and his little brother Bobby, age 6, nicknamed "Mr. Camel" for his prodigious drinking capabilities, their gloves in hand.

Then down the hill, charging like Custer's Cavalry will come 6-year-old Winston, riding his bike with his bright tan glove on the handlebars, wearing the expression of a man on a mission. He is.

Then across the street will come Denver at top speed, calling over to us, "Hey guys, here I come."

There is nothing like it, for me, at least. We have been out there on the lawn hitting fly balls for probably two years now. Little John - nickname "Chebby" - made his first catch of a fly ball on Father's Day two years ago. It happened like this:

"Dad, come hit me some fly balls."

"Chebs, you're three. You can't catch a fly ball."

"Wanna bet?"

He caught the fifth one I hit him and came running to me across the lawn, arms stretched out as wide as the world, prouder than, well, almost as proud as his dad.

Our game kind of began there. Next couple of times, the neighborhood kids came over. I'd hit the balls as fast as I could, trying to drop them just out of their reach. But some they'd get.

Like one little John snagged the other night. I slammed it straight over his head, and figured there was no way he'd reach it. He took one look, guessed it was over his head and ran like the dickens, finally lunging out with his glove just as it came down.

If you saw the catch that Angels' centerfielder Jim Edmunds made last year that was one of ESPN's Plays of the Year, well, this was a miniature version.

Of course, I screamed and hollered for him as I do everybody out there. The guys all patted him on the back and cheered for him, the way sports is when we all start out.

Seeing it made me wonder how many of the best catches any of us will ever make go unseen. Then, when that guy stopped and hollered over to us, that made me think when I was a kid, it was always a big deal when the grownups came out to play.

I don't think "the guys" see it that way. I think they see a big kid, trying his darndest to keep up with a yard full of 'em. Watching them grow the way we all did, catch by catch by catch.

Editor’s Note: Many years later, John Nogowski Jr. started at first base for the St. Louis Cardinals and singled in his second major-league at bat.