By Roger MacNaughton
In the spring, Mrs. Grayson enjoyed taking our class outside during recess to play ‘Work-Up’.
What is ‘Work-Up’? Glad you asked, because I suspect most folks either have never heard of it or have forgotten. Since it’s important to know what ‘Work-Up’ is, to understand my experiment, let me give you a short lesson in the rules. At least the way I remember them.
‘Work-Up’ is very much like baseball. Except that there are no teams or innings. No score is kept. There is no ending. The game can last until it’s too dark to play, or until the bell rings for recess to end. Any number can play, although it helps to have enough players to field 3 or 4 batters, an infield and outfield. Every person plays for themselves, and the object is to become and stay one of the batters.
To begin, each player is assigned a starting position in the following order: At the top, of course, are the 4 batters, labeled 1st Bat, 2nd Bat, and so on. Next is Catcher, Pitcher, 1st Base, 2nd Base, Shortstop, 3rd Base, 1st Outfield, 2nd Outfield, etc., until everyone is accounted for.
Each time a batter makes an out, he or she is demoted to Last Outfielder, and everyone else moves up to the next higher position. One rule that keeps things interesting is that if a player catches a pop-up, fly-ball, or line-drive, that player and the batter trade positions. No one moves up. Except, of course, for the person that made the catch.
How were our positions chosen? Well, probably the fairest way would have been to put all the positions on scraps of paper, put them in a hat, and let the players draw. However, that’s not the way our teacher, Mrs. Grayson, chose to do it. Her method was to let each student in the room have a day to pick their own lineup. She followed the class list alphabetically so everyone would have their chance.
As the days progressed, I noticed a pattern developing. No matter who was creating the line-up, the same popular students were picked to be at the top of the order. And the same not-so-popular students seemed to be picked for the bottom positions. I wasn’t complaining, because I usually got picked to be in the middle of the order, or higher. Yet, it was amazing to me that even those who were consistently chosen toward the bottom by others, picked the same popular kids to be batters or catcher or pitcher, as if it were expected that they would.
A plan was forming in my brain, devious as it might be.
Finally, my ‘position-picker’ day arrived. My last name beginning with ‘M,’ I was about halfway through our class list, and I was a little nervous. Could I go through with what I had been planning? Oh, why not, I thought, and I began to reverse the whole line-up.
My first pick was Del for 1st Bat. He was a brilliant student but not much of an athlete. He’d probably never worked up to batter before. Then I chose a few girls and a couple of boys that usually played low in the order and made them batters and catcher and pitcher. By now it was becoming apparent what I was up to. My friend Randy Prescott blurted out, “Rog, what’re ya DOIN’???,” as if to tell me that I had gone CRAZY, or to warn me that I was about to commit social suicide, (or both.) But it was too late to turn back now. I put the best athletes and the most popular kids down in the outfield, and away we went outside to play our little game, as the whole class muttered, “What’s up with MacNaughton?” A couple of my ‘close friends’ were quite upset with me and let me know it!
So, what happened? Del made an out almost immediately. I don’t remember how. He either struck out or got tossed out at first base. The next few batters didn’t fare very well either. The athletes in the outfield caught pop-ups and fly-balls and became batters. Everyone else moved up rather quickly and within about 10 minutes, the line-up ‘righted’ itself to Pre-MacNaughton Tinkerings.
So ended my 3rd Grade Social Experiment. Because the re-alignment happened so quickly, after the recess bell rang there wasn’t much talk about my choices for positions. I only had to pay subtle social penance for a couple of weeks.
I realized that it made sense that the kids that I had placed high in the order didn’t bat very well and made outs: They hadn’t had much practice, if any. Oh well, I thought, at least I gave them a chance to experience being batters and playing pitcher, catcher, and infield.
Just recently it occurred to me: I wonder what Mrs. Grayson thought about my experiment. She never spoke a word to me about it. Did she sense my empathy for my not-so-popular classmates? Did she think I’d gone loony? Did she even notice at all?
Or…perhaps she had been conducting HER OWN little 3rd Grade Social Experiment as well!