Uncle AJ

I’ve always loved baseball. So have my brother Russ and sister Carol. It’s odd, because neither of our parents cared much for it.  

Maybe it came from my mother’s side. Even though she wasn’t a big baseball enthusiast herself, her father and brothers were avid players and followers. I was told, in fact, that her dad, my grandfather AJ, was a terrific shortstop, and her brother, my Uncle AJ Jr., was surely one of Nashville’s biggest fans.   

In those days, Nashville had a double-A minor league team, the Vols, in the Southern Association, along with other teams such as the Chattanooga Lookouts, the Birmingham Biscuits, and the Biloxi Shuckers.   

The Vols played at Sulfer Dell, a historic nineteenth-century ballpark, with a notoriously short right field fence. That fence enabled Vol Bob Lennon to set a minor league record of 64 home runs, along with the Southern Association Triple Crown.  

At any home game, you could find Uncle AJ at his seats in the first row behind the Vols dugout, catching foul balls and handing them to kids sitting nearby. If Russ and I were lucky, we would be invited to join him in his seats and listen to Uncle AJ’s patter with the players. If we didn’t catch a foul ball, Uncle AJ would give us balls he had caught and stored, along with dozens more, in the bottom drawer of his living room cabinet. 

During the Vols’ final years, the local fans, in an effort to save the team, ran it themselves. Guess who was on the board.   

Looking back, I realize that in those days, the Vols and other minor and major league teams were all white, with parallel Black baseball leagues. When the Vols left town and the Nashville Stars and their Black fans descended on Sulfer Dell, I barely noticed. 

What a strange world it was… and still is.