JAMESTOWN, NY

In a letter from his good friend, my great-grandfather was asked if he could play centerfield. “Sure,” he said.

In the mid-1920’s great-grandpa pulled up stakes in eastern Pennsylvania and moved west to the Southern Tier. He built furniture and played centerfield for the Jamestown Chairs helping them win a championship in 1927.

The following year my grandmother was born. She graduated from Jamestown High in 1945. Soon after she met my grandfather, they married, and my father was born. My roots are in Jamestown. I may have never lived in town, but I’ve heard the stories, played at great-grandma’s house, visited grandpa’s childhood home, and heard the ghosts of generations past every time I turn down a brick lined street.

Baseball is still played in Jamestown. The Jammers, an affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates fill the seats at Russell Diethrick Park during the cool summer evenings. Jamestown may not be what it once was, but it survives, just as the stories of yesterday.