(The names in this article have been changed to prevent embarrassment.)

Baseball has never been so vivid as it was in Little League. The tension of watching a tight World Series doesn't come close to catching for Krolick's Department Store with the wild kid who thinks he knows how to throw a curve on the mound. The exhilaration of hitting an infield single and scoring on a three base throwing error far exceeds that of hitting a clean homer in a beery softball game.

Little League in Tenafly, N.J. reflects the contradiction and poignant absurdities of middle-class suburban life as well as any other ritual, including mass high school mating rites in the back hall near they gum and family dinner table discussions on the pros and cons of marijuana.

Parents get together to give their kids a healthy upbringing, but they turn the little nippers over to a clique of competition-crazed arm chair sluggers who often run the kids ragged. The strong survive emerging from the dusty fray with championship trophies and .800 batting averages. The rest end up fighting back tears in right field.

Games provoke intense demonstrations of devotion and sympathy, particularly after missed grounders and the 26-3 losses. Victory means ice cream cones on the rich kid's dad and a long afternoon of exaggerating the heroism of one or another 4-ft. Mickey Mantle.

The most memorable confrontation of the 1972 Tenafly Intermediate League season--and perhaps of the decade took place about this time of month between one of the auto dealership teams (purple caps) and a squad representing a real estate firm in gold. Krotick's already assured of a playoff berth was playing at the other end of Sunnyside Park.

Gold, which started the younger brother of a certain Krolick's catcher at second base trailed by one going into the bottom of the seventh and final inning. The winners would move on to post-season play; the losers would pack for summer camp. The second baseman fouled off at least 10 pitches, then walked on a fastball over the umpire's head.

Stealing two bases while the next two batters struck out, the second baseman stood at third as big Donald Thompson approached the plate. The victim of a typical fourth grade pituituary gland malfunction. Thompson already toward above his toammares and must have weighed more than the the gold infield and their for ten speeds put together.

He was never much of a student and won few friends for his play ground manners. But a left book like Thompson's got respect especially since he had a big brother in a leather jacket to back it up.

Guarding the hot corner for purple was a bony runt of a Wharton School student-to-be named Doug Silverstein. Some field no-hit plenty-talk Silverstein embodied all that was good and bad about Little League: unending enthusiasm tarnished by a willingness to steal the opposing team's equipment bag at the coach's behest. He is getting "A's" at business school.

As was often the case, an overly protective and pushy father was behind the youngster's fanaticism. Papa Silverstein wanted a big hunk of a son, and that's wanted a big hunk of a son, and that's what he saw in the size-three cleats inhabited by skinny Doug.

Thompson extended the count to 3-2. the gold runner inched toward a tied score. the stretch the pitch...CRACK! Thompson connected on one of his famous line drives sending the runner home and the center fielder scurrying after the ball.

As the bulky youngster rounded second the outfielder straightened up and heaved the ball into the jungle gym beyond third base. There would clearly be no play but Thompson interpreted his coach's agitation to mean that drastic action was necessary. He lowered his shoulder and headed directly for Silverstein, who was jumping up and down, his back to the action screaming for the throw from a non-existent back-up man.

The impact launched Silverstein into the second row of the portable grandstand. Thompson turned the corner to ward victory. He never made it.

Before the collision even took place. Papa Silverstein was out of his seat and barrelling down the bleachers. He wasn't going to sit by quietly while his son had his insides rearranged by a hurtling mass of overactive hormones.