Main >> Hobbies & Interests >> My First Home Page

 
Love Lost At the Diamond
Written By:
  Bradley D. Chapline
Love Lost At The Diamond
Page 2
     At the age of 14 I was now smoking cigarettes, drinking liquor, stealing cars and motorcycles, and getting into fights practically on a daily basis.  By this time I was now far behind in my school work and had given up all hope.  As a freshman I had initially made the varsity baseball team.  But, I was later cut due to my inability to make academic requirements.  I then resorted to making a strong homemade bomb.  I took several cherry bombs and tied them together.  I fortified each with pure gunpowder.  I then water-proofed them with melted wax.  The teacher who cut me from the baseball team was my target.  I watched as he walked into the staff restroom.  As I peeked in this door I noticed he had gone into a booth and sat down on the toilet.  I sneaked in to the restroom undetected. I went in to the next stall and pulled the bomb from inside my jacket.  I lit the wick to the bomb and dropped it in the toilet.  I then flushed it and ran from the restroom.  I waited for the explosion.  Damn, nothing is happening!  What's wrong I thought.  Finally ! BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!!!  I felt the building shake.  "Jesus Christ" I thought.  I had no idea the explosion would be like this.  I was now scared.  But, my curosity was now overwhelming.  What happened to that teacher who cut me from the team.  Was he alive.  An evacuation of the school was now in the beginning stages.  I then saw this teacher come out of the staff restroom.  He was wearing a bright yellow suit.  He was soaked in toilet water and dazed.  I was laughing hysterically.  It didn't take school authorities long to link this act to me.  I had effectively blown up the plumbing system to the school!!!  YEAH!!!  I was sent to the Maryland State Reformatory for Boys.  I was petrified in this institution.  
     When I was 15 I was working at the local bowling alley.  I was still attending school.  I wasn't learning.  I was just putting in an appearance.  I did not want to go back home.  I then moved out with my mother's blessing several blocks away to a boarding home.  An elderly lady ran this home and became to me what I treasured to be my only "real mother" on the face of this earth.  For awhile, I became a very responsible young man.  I paid my rent on time, bought my groceries, did my laundry, and improved greatly in my job performance at the bowling alley.  With the help of this elderly lady at the boarding home, my grades in school improved.  I was even completing homework and other school assignments.  My dad would come up to visit me periodicially as he did when I was in the reformatory.  He continually praised me on the tremendous improvements I had made.  His respect towards the elderly lady at the boarding home was overwhelming.  My dad attempted to keep his visits to me secret from my mother.  But, this did not last.   My brother Allan had snitched us off.  She not only discovered from Allan how well I was doing, but that my dad was seeing me, and there was a woman who had become my dream mother.  She was outraged.  My mother called the police and demanded that they bring me back home to live.    
     All the advances I made had crumbled.  I got involved again with the Walters family.  I was quickly back to my criminal activities.  I was eventually fired from the bowling alley.  My grades in school quickly plummeted again to rock bottom failing grades.
     I had only short stints with my high schools varsity baseball team.  Each time I was let go because I was a disciplinary problem and did not meet academic requirements.  Because of inconsistent training and development I also realized that baseball was a thing of the past.  I began experiencing severe arm pain where I could not even throw a baseball twenty yards in the air.
     I then found a new love.  It was singing.  I joined the high school's concert choir.  They did not want me.  I could not read music, and I was a trouble maker.  I had to listen to the person singing next to me to even get an idea of what range the notes were in.  The boy next to me that I paid the most attention to was Bob Simmons.  He was at best a geek.  But Bob was also a top notch student, very religious and had a tremendous baritone voice.  We became very good friends at school.  He was a senior and I was a junior.  Bob took me under his wing and tried his best to transform me.  I began going to church with him.  We wound up singing together in the church choir.
     The church had a basketball team that competed against other church teams in the Baltimore area.  I learned how to shoot quite well left-handed in a short period of time.  Bob and I had become platooning point guards on this team.  It seemed we were inseperable.  Although my school work remained rock bottom, I had once again drifted away from the trouble of the Walters family.  My home life was beginning to see some smooth sailings.  On the church team we had two black basketball players.  They were both on our high school varsity basketball team.  Were they ever great players!  They were also good students academically and were impeccable as citizens.  I had become good friends with them also.  One day after practice at the gym I invited them over to my house.  I figured my parents would be proud of me for associating myself with such good young men.  Upon reaching my house with Bob and my two black friends Clifford and Artie, my mother was standing at the front door blocking the entry way.  I explained to my mom that these were the guys I played basketball with on the church team.  Both my mother and father agreed by saying, "No nigger is coming into this house"!
     An argument ensued between me and my parents.  I told my parents I was leaving home.  My mother threatened to have me arrested for all the thefts I had committed prior to becoming involved with the church if I left home.  I left the Perry Hall Baptist Church.  My friendship with Bob Simmons, Clifford and Artie dissolved.  I was now in an extremely hostile state.
     I then went to work for the Walters Construction Company.  I was a laborer during the summer months preceeding my senior year.  I worked 80 plus hours a week.  Needless to say I was in great shape physically.  This summer was engulfed in work, smoking cigarettes, drinking liquor, fighting and chasing girls.  I didn't spend hardly any time at home with the exception of walking in the house one night when I was drunk.  My dad was not home.  My mother began cussing me out because I was intoxicated.  Allan then confronted me and told me he was going to have me arrested.  I said, "Yeah, you probably will, but not before I kick your ass".  I beat Allan severely until he laid motionless on the floor.  For all the times he molested me, my anger was released and I was finally paying him back!
     Shortly thereafter Allan had joined the Army and was doing a year tour in Vietnam.  I remember the family receiving notification that he had been severely burned over a significant part of his body by a booby trap.  I recall being saddened that he was still alive.
     In my senior year, with the exception of my music teacher, a deal was struck.  If I kept my mouth shut, didn't get into or start any fights or chaos, and washed their blackboards every day, I would be passed in order that I may graduate from high school.  I agreed to these terms.
     I met a girl in our school concert choir named Beth.  Her father was a pastor of the town's Methodist Church.  I had greatly missed singing in the Baptist church choir with Bob Simmons.  He had since graduated from high school and gone on to the college of his dreams which was Purdue.  I used my friendship with Beth to get into the choir of the Methodist church.  Oddly, this was the church that my mother had frequented.  I had auditioned and won the opportunity to sing at a function partially sponsored by the church.  This was scheduled to take place in approximately four months.  I worked extremely hard in mastering the voices of Frank Sinatra, Louie Armstrong, and "Tennessee" Ernie Ford.  In fact, for once, the relationship between my mother and I was relatively calm during this period.  I had been reinstated as an employee back at the bowling alley.  With the exception of my school work, I was doing well.  I liked Beth even though I knew she had been around the track with a few guys.  I realized she was just trying to make people forget she was a preecher's daughter.  Approximately one week prior to the show I was to perform in, I got caught having sex with Beth by her father, the preecher.  I was forbidden to perform in this show.  It was a crushing blow to me.  My mother publicly chastised me as I was then dismissed from the church.  I really did care about Beth.  We never saw each other again as I was nearing graduation from high school.  I had decided that I wanted to join the Marine Corps.  But, I could barely read or write and I didn't know how to swim.  After dismissing the idea of the Marine Corps, once again, I resorted in returning back to the Walters family and certain trouble.
     June of 1971 came upon my life.  It was time for me to graduate from high school.  It was nothing to be proud of.  I graduated with a 0.98 grade point average and my class ranking was 566th out of a class of 567.  After graduation I went to work for Walters Construction full-time.  My antics only worsened.  The Walters boy and I were arrested for falsifying and impersonating each other in attempting to gain a valid drivers license for me in the state of Maryland at the Department of Motor Vehicles.  I was later arrested on charges of felony car theft.  I still had not yet reached the age of 18.  But, at my court hearing, the judge informed me he was tired of playing games with me.  In his words, "Mr. Crossley, you will be tried as an adult, and you will be doing a good bit of prison time".  I began to panic.  After having been in the state reformatory there was no way I was going to the state prison.
     In the court room, I became very emotional.  I "flipped out".  I told the judge with tears running down my face I would kill myself before I would be incarcerated again.  I was sobbing uncontrollably.  The judge inquired if I had any honorable intents in life.  I then explained to the judge that I always had two dreams, to be a professional baseball player and a United States Marine.  The judge told me that this was my last chance and I had better pursue both of my dreams and stay on the right path or else prison was certain.
     In the spring of 1972 I reported to the Leonee's walk-on training camp.  They were the sandlot minor league franchise of the Baltimore Orioles.  I began training myself hard.  I then went back to Lucy and asked her for help.  It didn't take me long to discover, as well as the scouts, that my right arm had severe permanent damage and that pitching was an absolute no chance.  Lucy was there by my side as we walked away for the last time the sport we loved so much.  We got into a terrible argument on the way home.  The next morning I went down to Lucy's and knocked on the door.  Her mother was furious with me. "What did you do to my daughter"?  I explained we had a terrible fight as we exchanged some very hurtful comments.  Lucy's mom said to me, "Lucy is gone, she packed her bags last night and left Baltimore by bus".  She told me to tell you this if I saw you, "Without you there is no baseball, without baseball there is no us".  I wept horribly as I walked away.    

 

page created with Easy Designer