Going, going, gone.

The Elks Club Little League field behind the Paramus Ambulance Squad just off Midland Avenue was hallowed ground.

The white ambulance, a converted hearse, was often parked in front of the building, just in case a call came in. My father was a volunteer. Like the others, he wore a uniform of white coveralls. There weren’t many first aid calls in the small Bergen County community as membership was more of a social thing in the all-male club.

This spring day in June 1959 I was 10 and it would be a memorable day. It was a clear day and our game was the second one at the field. That meant our game’s first pitch was at 1 p.m., give or take.

The first thing in the morning was to check the weather.

Rain was the enemy but it could also be a friend. It could mean the game would be canceled and that could be bad or good. I always had conflicted feelings about Little League. The horror of seeing a ground ball skip through my legs was terrible. The joy of connecting for a single to left was happy. I would pick an absence of horror rather than the possibility of joy.

I remember days when I’d sit in my living room, watching the rain pour down, feigning disappointment but feeling relief. No embarrassment the day it rains. Also, no victory, no heroism on rainy days.

But the weather held up. I put on my scratchy grey woolen uniform, emblazoned with Paramus Elks in red on the back of the shirt. It definitely itched but no big deal. Being small, the uniform was always too big and the short sleeves reached down to my elbows.

I put on my white socks and the uniform socks over them. I wore sneakers which was a bit of an embarrassment. The good players wore rubber cleats. I’d grab my mitt and be off.

I would get a lift by my mom to the game or ride my bike. Arriving before the first game was over, I’d see a few teammates and we’d chat and have a catch just to loosen up.

I played second base, probably because that position didn’t require a strong arm. They also usually put the shortest kids at second base and I was it. Throughout grammar school, they’d choose teams and line up shortest to tallest. I was always in the front.

I wasn’t a bad ball player and caught ground balls more often than not. Eric Pandelo was able at shortstop and Bruce “Buzz” Adamski was a virtual vacuum cleaner at third. First base was Walter Vreeland who told everybody to call him Steve.

Coach Hansen was a nice fellow, thin, with glasses, a warm smile and always sticks of Wrigley’s gum for the players. I think his main role was to make sure that everybody played, which is how it should be. The competition came from the players, not the coach. He was our cheerleader.

After the first game ended, it was our turn. The coach read out the starting lineup for the day and everybody held their breaths, except for the human vacuum cleaner who always started. Then we’d all take the field for infield practice and batting practice for 15 minutes. We’d use old baseballs for practice but when it was game time, the new unscuffed Rawlings balls would come out of their sealed boxes and we were ready.

Then it was game time. I don’t recall the team we played but I do remember the centerfielder was Neil Katine. He was a husky Jewish boy, husky being the polite word for fat. He also was spoiled. We all had Lionel train sets but Neil was the only one with a transformer that could run five engines at one time. My tiny transformer could power one engine and maybe not even that.

And Neil’s train set was set up on a giant sheet of plywood in his basement, sprinkled with small, realistic-looking plastic trees, shrubbery and little figures. My train set was on the rug in the living room where people and dogs often walked on the tracks, possibly breaking some. If there were miniature people or landscaping, the dog would eat them.

Neil also got a promise of a new car for his bar mitzvah.

The first three innings of the six inning game were fairly unexceptional. I don’t recall the score but I can still connect with the emotions of getting up to the plate. I didn’t expect to get hits and I usually swung at anything. It could be two feet outside, over the catcher’s head or bounce three feet in front of home plate.

Or I did the opposite and froze. When the ball came in it was like the bat was nailed to my shoulder. It was like the dream when I try to run and my legs are stuck in concrete. I don’t know which was worse, missing a good pitch, swinging at a bad one or looking like a statue until the umpire called strike three.

This third inning I came to the plate, hesitant as usual. But I was not going to freeze and I decided if I had to make an out, so be it. At least I would have made contact with the ball and had a chance.

I always used a bat with a very thick handle. You couldn’t hit the ball far but it didn’t sting when you did hit and the bat was light and more easily manipulated. It was long before the use of batting gloves. The bigger guys, the better hitters, used heavier bats.

So I don’t remember the count but it had to be the third or fourth pitch. There was nobody on base and it was likely the fourth or fifth inning. I thought of bunting but decided not.

There was the usual chatter from the other team. They’d be saying things like “no batter, no batter” or “we got him” and “swing batter, swing.”

I don’t know the county but I swung the bat with a thick handle and heard the beautiful cracking sound of ball to bat. The ball seemed to keep rising like the sun. There was husky Neil Katine in centerfield and all he could do was watch the ball sail over his head and over the fence in dead center. And I thought of my tiny transformer and how even his giant transformer couldn’t stop my home run.

I didn’t run at first because I was just so stunned and overwhelmed. Then I put on my never before used home run jog and tagged first, second and third and then home where teammates were there to shake my hand and tussle my hair. I have no idea if we won or lost and I didn’t care. I kept a smile for the next week.

It was my only home run in Little League. I never amounted to much as a baseball player. Got cut twice from the high school team. The Pandelo brothers, Eric, Richie and Carl, all starred for the high school team.

But that spring day when I hit the homer, I felt like Mickey, the Babe and Hammerin Hank. They never found the ball and I believe it is probably still humming through the air. And as I rounded the bases, I swear I could hear Mel Allen on WPIX calling out, “That ball is going, going gone.”