The Central Park Softball Leagues: A Story That Needs Telling

How a park for the rich became the park for everybody, and other lessons for today’s society

He wakes up early, very early. It’s a special day. It’s been his special day for almost 70 years.

Religiously, every Tuesday during the season, he wakes up at the crack of dawn and goes to the park. He did it for the first time in 1957, and now, at 95 years of age, he’s still doing it, and he loves it.

Meet Jack. He’s seen it all. He was alive when the Star-Spangled Banner was adopted as the national anthem, the repeal of Prohibition, World War II, the establishment of the UN, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Moon landing, the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the election of the first black president of the United States.

All in all, Jack has been around to see the ups and downs of the country through 16 U.S. presidents.

Long life, many special days, but the Special First Tuesday of every summer was, and still is, no doubt, particularly special. It is the day Jack goes to the first game of the season at the wonderful, magical Heckscher Fields. Jack goes to play softball.

Meet Jack, then and now:

In Jack’s own words: “Somebody told me there was a pickup softball game and I could go, so I did, and have been playing softball for almost 70 years at Heckscher in Central Park. It has been my happy place, to compete in the game I love and where I met lifelong friends.”

Jack has a family, his biological family, but he has a second family, no less close and no less important: his softball family.

How did the Heckscher Fields in Central Park, New York, give birth to the closest thing to an idyllic society, where, like in Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” But also, where everybody gets along, everybody is family, everybody is equal. Not everybody is a great player, but they all feel the love and acceptance that only a close family and accepting community can provide.

We can learn a thing or two about how the advent and evolution of the Heckscher Fields contributed to the creation of this Shangri-La in the park, and maybe, just maybe, extrapolate those lessons to help nudge New York, and beyond, to move closer to the ideal society depicted in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon, where people are “almost immortal, living hundreds of years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance.”

Let’s start our journey and follow Jack on this Tuesday morning.

Jack’s story doesn’t quite go all the way back to when Frederick Olmsted created Central Park in 1858, nor to when, in the 1860s, the Ball Ground where Heckscher sits today was a place where baseball enthusiasts complained about the lack of access to the fields. The park was used solely by the wealthy, where women socialized and their husbands joined them on weekends for concerts and carriage rides.

Social pressure to open the park for everybody and allow ball games is what made public recreation an official priority for Parks Commissioner Robert Moses. The Ball Ground was officially renamed the Heckscher Playground and Ballfields in 1926.

You can almost hear the fields whispering to Jack’s mother, “Bring us Jack to play softball. We need him, and he’ll love it.”

And here we are, on the first Tuesday of the season. Jack’s granddaughter made him lunch: a salami sandwich on white bread with a side of delicious potato chips. Jack likes “vegetables” with his lunch. She gives him a kiss and a big hug and tells him to knock ‘em dead. She knows how competitive everybody is and knows that they will try to kill each other in the fields, but at the end they will hug and kiss and make up, just like loving families do.

The seeds of Heckscher as an all-inclusive, egalitarian society started with its original goal: to be the place where everybody goes to play regardless of their country of origin, color of skin, age, gender, socioeconomic status, or political affiliation. If you play softball, you are family and we love you.

Jack walks to the park. He lives close enough that he can walk, but some days he likes to take the subway. He remembers when, not too long ago, young people saw him with his bat, his softball mitt, and the rest of his gear, and because of his age, they gave him their seat. Oh, the good old days, when phones were landlines and people offered their seats to the elderly.

After all, the subway was built with the democratic principle in mind that everybody should be able to take public transportation to go to the park to mingle and socialize and play ball. That’s why the New York subway costs the same regardless of how far you go. You pay the same whether you, like Jack, take the subway two stops or, like some players, come from your home in Queens or the Bronx. As Jack enters the park, he already feels the high, the rush, the camaraderie, not only with his team but with everybody in the fields. Everybody feels the joy but also the tension; soon they will “kill each other” on the field, but for now they all do the “thing”: hold hands, hands of all colors and dispositions, and scream at the top of their lungs.

That camaraderie and teamwork didn’t just appear at Heckscher; they are the result of the evolution of the fields. Today the park is maintained by the Central Park Conservancy, which was officially established in 1980. From its inception, the Conservancy’s duties at Heckscher included early-morning field work such as dragging and raking the clay infields, marking lines, setting bases, and inspecting the turf for safety.

But before 1980, Jack and the rest of the players arrived very early to do just that: get the fields ready for the games.

There was no place to store the necessary tools, so everybody took some home and everybody came at the same time in the morning to work together to do the grueling work needed to open the fields. It didn’t matter which team you played for; Jack and friends were all in it together.

Nothing better to focus the collective mind than clearing the fields of the previous night’s debris deposited by a fierce New York summer storm.

When the fields were cleared, raked, and ready, the next task was to set the perimeter and mark and place the bases. The six fields are close together. Everybody contributes; everybody helps.

The notion of team rivalry is yet to emerge.

Now that the fields were ready, it is time for the players to warm up. Unlike other leagues whose players warm up with their respective team members, the players at Heckscher warm up together and in close proximity.

Jack goes to Field 6, where he meets his team, the Kings. Jack is the coach. They didn’t do so well last year, so he is encouraging them to do better and win the coveted trophy this year. He is a good coach, a good motivator, having done it for at least half a century.

The teams emerge. Everyone is at their assigned fields. You can see the change in their eyes: focused, ready, pumped. Their “enemy” is nearby, but they feel confident.

Three more Heckscher-inspired elements are helping them: 1) their families are close by, 2) spectators from all over the world are here to watch them play, and 3) the park’s community is here to watch and cheer them.

The Zookeepers team is made up of members of the Central Park Police Force. This Zookeeper brought his daughter, who will cheer for him no matter what.

A future ballplayer watching his dad in action.

A German visitor whose family already did all the New York City things — Broadway shows, Statue of Liberty — came to the park to see how real New Yorkers spend their time. “We don’t have benches so close to our ball games in Germany,” the father told me.

And did I mention family, community? Well, Jack’s team won! The Kings are truly kings, and when the Kings’ catcher offered the ring to his Queen, well, what was she going to say but yes, milord?

And who else is watching over the games but, of course, the community, including the police! In this idyllic community, the police and the people are united; they are one, they are family.

When all the elements come together, you have your park, you have your New York, and hopefully, one day, this sense of community will extend to everyone—a small piece of Shangri-La.