The picture shows me and my brothers Gregg, Gary and Scott in the backyard of our home in Riverton, Illinois. Riverton was a great place to grow up as a kid. Before I tell about "baseball stuff" I probably need to tell why Riverton was such a great place to live, at least from my perspective.
Riverton (current pop. 2,900) is east of Springfield about 6 miles. The town was laid out in a square shape. The major streets were the perimeter of the square. We lived on Main street. At the end of the block was the Fire station with its siren that sounded daily at 8:00 a.m, noon, 5:00 p.m and 10:00 at night as well as for any fires that needed the Volunteer Fire Department. Across the street from the fire station was the Post Office and in the next block west was a hardware store and a building that served as a community center. Two blocks to the east was the Elementary school. Within a two block radius of our house were at least 4 of the local churches and a local barber shop. We were in the middle of town. Two grocery stores were located within a half mile of our house. From our backyard we could see the railroad tracks that ran through town. The big deal was to see how many cabooses there would be at the end of the train. The baseball field was located on the east edge of town less than a mile away. Almost anyplace in town could be reached by an eight year old on a bicycle.
The town had an Italian heritage and many of the names in the community reflected that. Our neighbors, June & Adolph Pasquali, Greggs friend, Jimmy Rosetti, my 5th grade teacher (and our landlady) Mrs. Finale and the only team mate from my baseball team I can remember, Vic Pambianco.
Springfield/Riverton was in the heart of Lincoln Country and 1962-63 was part of the Centennial Era. But this area was also half-way between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs. People in Springfield/Riverton had a strong leaning toward the Cardinals. During this time the Cardinals were pretty hot and involved in pennant races. Stan Musial was a big name along with Ray Sadecki, Ken Boyer and Dick Groat to name a few. A transistor radio was a pretty hot commodity late in the summer. Me, I was Dodger fan. Why? Well, they did have a good team with players like Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Jim Lefebvre, Johnny Rosboro. I would listen to the Cardinals games hoping to hear them play the Dodgers.
In Riverton I played on my first little league team, the Dodgers. My Dad was assistant coach to one of his friends, Tony. At age nine I was one of the younger members of a team loaded with lots of 12 year olds. I think the only reason I was on the team was because Dad was a coach and there were only 4 teams in the league for ages 8-12. The 12 year olds on our team were really good and we won a lot of games if not all of them. I only got to play when our team was way ahead in the late innings and many times people were telling me to strike out on purpose so we could get the game in before the town curfew of 10:00. They didn't have to tell me to strike out on purpose, I could do it on my own, thank you very much.
In the next post I'll tell more about baseball in Riverton, especially our Semi-pro team. -30-
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