Members of columnist Mark Patinkin’s team together before a game, clockwise from upper left: Andre Ruiz, Zach Patinkin, Yexandel Cruz, Franco Vargas and Juan Batista.

The Providence Journal / Mark Patinkin

It became my favorite ritual of spring, and early summer, heading away from the lawns and colonials of the East Side, across Route 95, past the triple-deckers around Smith Street to the big field at Davis Park in the shadow of the Providence VA Medical Center.

You’d call it the inner city. Someone was shot there a month ago. There are projects and urban problems nearby.

But all that was left behind whenever we gathered to play the game of baseball.

I’d been coaching in my own neighborhood for years, but Little League ends when they turn 12. For most kids, baseball careers end then, too.

But some go on to the more serious baseball world designed for ages 13 to 15. The league I found for my son was called Babe Ruth. On the sign-up form, I checked the box saying I’d volunteer, and next I knew, I was given the keys to the field.

We were Team Frey, after our sponsor, a florist. In such a league you love your sponsors. Kids pay only $60 for a 20-game season, but not everyone can afford that.

The team’s makeup said interesting things about both Providence and baseball. Mine was a mostly Latino team – last names like Cruz, Martinez, Ruiz and Batista; first names like André, Yexandel, Angel and Juan. But there was also a Sam, Mike, Joe and a Doug.

Our institutions try hard to forge diversity, but it works best when it simply happens. My players had no workshops on how to respect other cultures; they were just thrown together and connected because teen boys are pretty much all alike. For some, that was a lasting lesson.

In the dugout, my son learned some interesting words in Spanish. Some nights, when driving kids home, I found out about Chimis, RVs converted into mobile-restaurants that serve food at night along Broad Street. But race never came up as an issue, because the boys were all the same: baseball players. The few times kids had differences, it wasn’t over background; it was about taking the game seriously.

Boys this age take baseball seriously.

There were always a half dozen already waiting outside the fence when I’d arrive, some having walked almost a mile to get there. These boys didn’t have beach rentals or overnight camps to go to. This was their summer.

Our home turf was the centerpiece of Davis Park — a full-size field with fences 300-plus feet from home plate. It’s a big leap going from Little League to Babe Ruth. Suddenly, the dimensions are the same as in the majors. The mound goes from 45 feet to over 60, the bases from 60 to 90.

There aren’t many rituals of adulthood left for boys. But, on some level, one of them is learning you can complete the 127-foot throw from third base to first. Angel and André and a few others were born with the arms to make it on a bullet. But most on the team worked their way up to it. They came to understand something that too few in any walk of life realize – if you’re going to play the game, you have to make the throw. And it didn’t hurt to put them through frequent “who-can-throw-farthest” drills. Boys like to measure up.

Just about everyone, for example, remembered the number 17. That’s how many strike-outs Yexandel threw one night when he went the distance.

Then there was the number 37. That’s how many bases Danny Sanchez stole. His closest competitor stole 26. Juan stole 15, but that’s because he was in a slump the first half of the season. If he’d have gotten on base more, I swear he’d have stolen 50. You know how the best outfield hit is a gapper between fielders? When I played Juan in center, there were no gappers. He’d always get there.

The boys taught me a lot of things.

A few days after we got rained-out once, I sat the kids down to give them the bad news: To make up for it, the league had scheduled a night double-header, and we’d likely be playing until 11:30 p.m. I expected protests. Instead, they cheered. There was no such thing as too much baseball.

If there’s one thing drilled into youth coaches, it’s that sports shouldn’t be all about winning. And they shouldn’t. But we ran into bad luck midseason, and lost five in a row, and a dark cloud came over the boys, more so than in the teams I’d coached on the other side of the city. Getting victories, I saw, meant everything to these kids, and there’s not a thing wrong with that.

They also got more upset than I was used to when umpires made bad calls. I told them the umps were doing their best, often from an imperfect line of sight. It didn’t help. It was important to these boys to feel they got a fair shake. There’s nothing wrong with that, either. They took every bit of the game seriously, and I respected it. As another manager once told his players, “Baseball is not like life. It is life.”

Then there was the most important lesson. Back in Little League, there were kids who didn’t want the ball to come their way. They seldom swung, hoping for a walk. In the field, if the ball was falling between players, they let the other player have it.

In Babe Ruth, there was almost none of that. Those who stay with the game on the big field, I saw, are players. The boys on my team, virtually all of them, couldn’t wait for the next play. That’s huge pressure, because you can’t hide in this sport. Miss a play in soccer, and it’s often hidden in a blur of bodies. Strike out or make an error in baseball, and you’re alone on stage. But they all wanted the ball, anyway. They couldn’t wait to go after it. That’s baseball — wanting the ball — and life too, and I learned from them.

The regular season ended a few weeks ago when we came up one short after a four-run rally in the last inning of our last playoff game. It was a tough loss.

The only tougher loss was saying goodbye to the boys.

Sometimes these days, I’ll drive by the field at Davis Park, just to give it a look.

I miss it.

mpatinkin@projo.com